Why God Demands Glory and Worship

For most of my life, I never understood why God wanted us to glorify and worship Him. It seemed to be narcissistic, or arrogant, or otherwise similar to behavior demonstrated by my comic book villains. For a God that wanted our complete attention and obedience, He didn’t seem to be a very selfless or humble being. He didn’t seem very loving. He seemed pushy. In short, it didn’t make sense to me why a supposedly selfless God would seem so greedy.

Now that God has led me up the road a bit, it makes perfect sense to me why God would want our adoration. It’s hard to explain because it’s a matter of perspective. You have to see it.

If you climbed to the top of a plateau overlooking an African savannah at sunset, you could tell me how gorgeous the view was. You could tell me it brought tears to your eyes and inspired you. If I was still sitting at the bottom, I wouldn’t really understand. How could I? I hadn’t experience your sunset on the plateau. It wouldn’t matter whether or not I believed you, I just couldn’t know.

If we climbed up to the top of the plateau together the next day at dusk, then I would stand next to you and nod and feel the goosebumps on my arms. “Yes, now I understand. It is gorgeous.”

Giving God glory and praise is the same way.

While I have spent decades studying God, it feels like only recently that I have gotten to know Him a bit. When I say “know” Him, I mean to participate in real fellowship and relationship. Knowing facts about God isn’t the same thing as knowing God just as knowing facts about light isn’t the same thing as seeing that sunset on the savannah. What I’ve seen gives me goosebumps and the urge to tell people about what I’ve seen, even if no one seems as excited as me (yet). God wants us to give Him glory and worship because he is beautiful, the source of all beauty, and He deserves it. And when we see that, we are so much better off.  Our lives will be more joyful and fruitful,we will know our place in the world, and we will know our place in His Kingdom. Even when he demands our worship, God is not being arrogant or selfish. He’s helping us.

If you are searching for God and you haven’t found the beauty yet, don’t be discouraged. If you ask, He’ll lead you up to the plateau and you’ll see with your own eyes.

Your unfailing love, O LORD, is as vast as the heavens;
your faithfulness reaches beyond the clouds.
Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains,
your justice like the ocean depths.
You care for people and animals alike, O LORD.
How precious is your unfailing love, O God!
All humanity finds shelter in the shadow of your wings.
You feed them from the abundance of your own house,
letting them drink from your rivers of delight.
For you are the fountain of life, the light by which we see. (David)

The Good Book, or, How I Got Over

In Fall 2010, I set out to read the entire Bible, cover to cover. Despite growing up in the Christian faith, I’d never read the Bible from its beginning to its end. At some point I had probably read every word, but I’d never read the whole thing.

If you’ve ever caught bits and pieces of a movie while channel surfing, you know that’s not the same thing as actually sitting down and watching the whole movie. Without watching the whole thing, you miss some nuances, little jokes, character growth, etc. You also know that reading the IMDB movie summary isn’t the same thing as seeing the movie. You also know that reading some critic’s review isn’t the same as seeing the movie.

Well, I wanted to see the movie for myself. I opened up my Bible to Genesis and I started reading. Two years later, I finished up Revelation.

If you’re wondering what happens if you read the Bible cover to cover, you are in the same boat that I was. I half-expected to start levitating, or to start glowing, or to have a brain full of secret knowledge only known to a few sage souls. Or, if I was lucky, the ability to shoot lightning out of my hands like an X-Man. None of that happened. What did happen was much better.

I’m a quiet skeptic and a loner by nature. (Forced public excitement is my worst nightmare. To me, hell is attending a pep rally with strangers.) While I grew up a Christian, I have always wrestled heartily with faith in God. For example, why did he create us if he knew we would suffer? Was that fair? If God was there, was He good? Was he worth worshiping? If Christianity was true and I believed it, how was I supposed to relate to it? Why didn’t I feel any different if I was trying my hardest? Was I crappy Christian?

For the longest time, I thought these questions and frustrations would be my eternal spiritual situation: Doubt, anxiety, depression and other perennial favorites. I thought that like Job, I’d sit forever in a pile of garbage. (Y’all, I’m so fun at pep rallies.) On some level, maybe the reason I’d never read the entire Bible was because I was nervous that my doubts would get so frustrating that I’d decide it was easier to disengage with God and his church. Being kind of engaged, I thought, would be better than being frustrated with my faith.

Somehow, reading the Bible changed all of that. My doubts were gone. My concern about the character of God was gone. My faith was rock, it was oak. I was all in. In 2009, I would probably read those previous sentences and think that the author was being intellectually dishonest or had lost his mind or something. Hey, the truth is the truth.

Intellectually, I don’t know what exactly in the content of the Bible changed my faith or my feeling towards God. I’m sure that seeing God’s character displayed over thousands of years in so many ways didn’t hurt. I’m sure reading books like Jonah, Job, Ecclesiastes, and Proverbs made me more comfortable with existential questions. I’m sure the way that confused men like Paul and Peter became convicted of their beliefs and became new men had something to do with encouraging me to take a chance. Maybe, though, the main thing was this:

For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

In him was life, and the life was the light of men.

Maybe that’s it. Maybe I had some good company the past two years, and maybe now I can see.

You could be reading this and nodding your head in ecstatic agreement because you’ve gone through the same thing, or maybe you think I’ve kind of given up thinking critically. You think I’ve got a crutch.

All I know is that before I read the entire Bible I felt one way about God, and now I feel another way about God. I don’t understand everything about God and faith, but now I’m comfortable with that because I have faith that God is good. Now, my faith-wrestling is more like a hard workout than a fistfight.

If you’re interested in reading the whole Bible, here are some of my practical tips:

• Slow and steady. Don’t set up some kind of crazy reading plan that you don’t have the time to follow. Don’t try to read 200 pages per day.
• Read a translation that you understand. I read the New Living Translation because it was conversational and easy to get.
• Get an ESV Study Bible.  A lot of the Bible is unfamiliar to us culturally, politically, geographically. If you’re having a hard time with certain sections, getting some context and background is really helpful in encouraging you to go on. The ESV is great at providing that. It also contains some interesting general articles at the beginning of each book of the Bible, as well as topical entries.
• Keep a pen handy. Underline, star things, take notes, etc. It’s been fun to go back and see what stood out to me.

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to contribute. If this is a whole new world to you, I don’t mind fielding questions about my own experience. I still don’t to want to go to any pep rallies, so please don’t force them on me.

Coming Out

If there’s one thing thing that the internet needs, it’s more people giving their personal opinion on this Chick Fil A story. So here we go. You’re welcome, Internet!

I’m not writing to explain in great detail why Chick Fil A is right, why Chick Fil A protestors are right, or which group is composed of narrow-minded bigots hell-bent on destroying the world.  It’s been my personal experience as a conciliator that calling people bigots doesn’t move the conversation forward.

I’m writing for two reasons: (1) To explain why supporting one thing doesn’t necessarily mean that you hate the other thing, and (2) to explain why, at the end of the day, I’ve made my peace with the fact that you might think I’m a backward-thinking idiot.  It’s worth it to me.

First, does supporting what we’re calling “traditional values” or “traditional marriage”  mean that you automatically hate homosexual people, America, etc?  My answer is no. Here’s my story explaining why.

I’m a Christian guy married to a girl.  My understanding of how marriage works is that marriage is an allegory of Jesus and the Church, meaning God’s people.  It’s a picture that Jesus loves us and will never forsake us.  Marriage is suppose to be the same way.  A husband should be fully devoted to serving his wife through thick and thin and vice versa. In the Bible, marriage is between a guy and a girl.  That’s my understanding of marriage.  I think that’s a beautiful picture and I like it very much.

As I said, I’m a Christian.  What does that even mean?  To me it means this – I believe in God, who is Love and who is good, I believe God made Creation, and that God made humanity “in his image”, which means we have lots of God-like traits.  These include creativity, the capacity to love, a certain amount of power, etc.  Somehow, through humanity’s decision to do bad rather than good, we separated ourselves from God.  God provided us a way back to him through Jesus.  Jesus somehow reconciled us back to God through dying. (I don’t understand how it works.  I’m not a master theologian.)  If we want to be reconciled then we can be.  I also think that’s beautiful and I like that.

A person who is a Christian is obligated to love Creation like God does.  You can basically sum up the Christian life as “Love God and love each other.”  That’s pretty much it.  Now here’s where Chick-Fil-A comes in.  One reason that a lot of people are upset at Christians is because by supporting “traditional marriage” they are therefore not supporting gay marriage and gay rights.  They are being backwards and bigots. Jesus loved people, He didn’t condemn people!

Ok. Let’s do this. Correct, Jesus did love people. God loves people, he loves everyone, he wants everyone to be reconciled to him!  Sometimes what we might be missing is that a lot of the way that Jesus loved people in the New Testament was by helping them learn about being reconciled to God.  He told them to repent from their old, sinful ways and instead obey God.  (This is the same God that created people and loves them.)  Jesus called out a lot of people.  Rich people, religious people, people being mean to others, people living “a life of sin”, etc. Since God made us, it seems like he knows what’s best.  And so when we live out what’s in the Bible, that’s our best life.  When we want to be redeemed, God will redeem us.  That’s as good as it gets.

If I believe that’s true, that God can offer redemption to us, people who do evil and bad things but want to be good, what kind of person would I be if I didn’t share that Good News that you can be redeemed?  If I think that the New Testament in the Bible is true and I don’t share it, wouldn’t that be the biggest pile of hate possible? That’s like having a life jacket and looking the other way when someone is drowning.

Let me pause here. I understand that you can have 1,000 objections to my trail of thought.  Here are some of them:

• You believe in GOD?!?
• Jesus didn’t explicitly say anything about homosexuality.
• What does that have to do with FORCING your beliefs on others?
• It’s none of your business.
• Actually if you compare verse x with y….
• In the Old Testament they were polygamists!

I’m happy to discuss those privately if you want.  I’m not addressing them here simply because that’s not the point of this particular essay.

In sum, I’m saying that I support “traditional” marriage and I don’t hate gay people.  In fact, the only reason I’d ever speak up about Jesus and God is because I believe that it’s all true and I REALLY WANT YOU TO BELIEVE IT AS WELL.  It’s the best thing I know and I want to share it.  The redemption of Creation isn’t the kind of thing I’d sit on and keep to myself, even though I’m shy and an introvert.  I disagree with you but I don’t hate you.  I’d love to spend all eternity with you.  The only thing I truly hate is traffic.  Not you.  Even if you are in traffic.  Even if you cause traffic.

That brings me to my second point – I’m ok if you think I’m a backwards thinking idiot. Ideally, I want you to know the truth that I’m awesome.  But I understand if my personal beliefs and values seem stupid to you.  I also want you to understand that the reason I support Biblical marriage is because I think it’s a beautiful picture of how God loves us.  I disagree with you but I’m not against you, I’m on your team!  Same side!  That’s why I’m willing to risk being labeled as a mindless, hate-filled bigot who doesn’t understand modern culture, the Bible, Jesus, name it.  Even if you think I’m weird, know that I’m a friend.  I believe in something very strongly and I want you to, too.

A Prophet

I’ve seen a lot of interesting and inspiring quotes from Martin Luther King, Jr. today. The beat one I’ve seen wasn’t about him or by him, but it’s very fitting.

In Lamentations, the writer chronicles the hopelessness and destruction felt in Jerusalem as the city fell. God’s chosen people had abandoned him and refused to listen, and destruction came shortly after.

A large part of what happened is that they ignored God’s prophet and favored those who told them that they would be fine:

Your “prophets”have said so many foolish things, false to the core. They do not try to hold you back from exile by pointing out your sins. Instead, they painted these false pictures, filling you with false hope. – Lamentations 2:14

When someone speaks God’s truth to us, like MLK, we need to humble ourselves and listen.

As Lamentations 3 says, let us turn in repentance to the Lord. Let us lift our hearts and hands to God and say, that we have sinned and rebelled.

Let’s be just as a people, let’s take care of the alien, the orphan, and the widow. Let’s use fair scales. Let’s respect one another as children of God.

Let’s listen to the ones who bring us God’s message ad let’s ignore the yes men.

A Christmas Story

I hate the holidays.

That’s how I’ve largely felt for my entire life.  Too many disruptions, too much anxiety, too many expectations. Too many social situations.

When I was six years old, I had an anxiety attack on Christmas morning. I had to go lay down and drink a glass of water.  As a high schooler, it seemed that bad things happened to people around the holidays. Illness, accidents and the like. As a college student, I could not in good conscience feel happy at Christmas with so much injustice in the world.

This year, Christmas has snuck up on me.  The holiday season has barely blipped on my generally full radar screen or neuroses. I’ve been too busy – searching for the perfect gift(s) for loved ones, reconnecting with old friends,  rediscovering old creative interests, trying to offer a hand where I can.

The strangest thing has happened – this year I’ve enjoyed Christmas.

“Fear not, and behold. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all people.”

Christ the Savior was born.  The one who would make the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers clean, the deaf hear.  The one that would raise the dead. The one who would sit with the foreigner, the orphan, the widow. The Lamb of God.

If you were here with me right now, you would see a slow smile spread across my face as I think of this Jesus, coming into our dirty world to make us clean and heal us and protect us, to destroy the work of the devil. You might think I was reflecting on a profound theological truth or discerning  some sage insight into our existence.

What you would not expect would be my pure nerdish joy at this Jesus, whom I picture as a cross between the Fonz standing up for Richie Cunningham and Superman flying through the air to meet a meteor headed to Metropolis. I see the meteor’s momentum slow and reverse as Superman saves us from our certain demise. In my heart, these images are joy embodied.

I see this Jesus standing in heaven with the ones that we’ve lost this year, I see him handing a coat and a burger to the mentally ill man who walks by my office every day.  I see him digging a well for clean water in Gulu. I see him praying over a friend’s baby bump.  I see him whispering in the ear of the hopeless, convincing them to keep trying.

He’s my brother and Lord, he’s a lamb and Superman, and we have put up LED lights on and around our houses to celebrate his birthday. And that’s all cool with me.

Merry Christmas to you and yours.

True Worship

The kind of fasting I want calls you too free those who are wrongly imprisoned and to stop oppressing those who work for you. Treat ten fairly and give them what they earn. I want you to share your food with the hungry and to welcome poor wanderers into your homes. Give clothes to those who need them, and do not hide from relatives who need your help. If you do those things your salvation will come like the dawn…stop oppressing the helpless and stop making false accusations and spreading vicious rumors. Feed the hungry and help those in trouble. – Isaiah 58

Ecclesiastes is Great, Part 1

As you enter the house of God, keep your ears open and your mouth shut! – 5:1

Theology of the Dog Whisperer

Cesar Milan, aka The Dog Whisperer, aka The Silverhaired Rollerblader, unintentionally taught me the secret to happiness.

Most of the dogs on The Dog Whisperer have problems not because they’re bad dogs, but because they have owners who don’t step up and lead.

When dogs don’t have leadership, they try to lead, but they don’t fully understand how to act in the big picture. They get aggressive, scared, scarred.

We’re the same. Psalm 84:12 says, “happy are those who trust in you.”

We’re trying to take charge of our lives and our loved ones, but we don’t know how to act. We hurt ourselves. It’s because we don’t trust our leader.

When we do, we’re like the reformed dogs on the show. Happy, well adjusted, and much less likely to publicly sniff a stranger’s crotch.

This week I’m going to fall in line and know my role. I have a feeling it’s going to work out.

Songs

My quest to read the Bible cover to cover has brought me to Psalms, most of which was written by David, who is oddly known for being “a man after God’s own heart”, a murderer, and a guy who loves some harp. He is certainly one of the more interesting characters in the Bible.

I have to confess that initially, the Psalms seemed to be one of the harder books for me. Most of it involves David seeking refuge from his would-be killers, or David thanking God for saving him from those killers. I am fortunate enough that my life is not constantly being threatened, so I simply cannot relate.

What I have noticed, though, is that David was great at taking everything in his life to God. Fears, hopes, frustration, awe, gratitude – it’s all there.

For me, that’s the lesson I’m taking from Psalms. Anything important to me should go to God in prayer and song and meditation.

If I were writing psalms, they wouldn’t be about saving me from killers. They’d be about anxiety in facing adulthood, being confused about life and looking for comfort, gratitude for friends and family, joy in Creation, sadness that we’re not all in paradise yet.

One of the things I like the most about how God built his church is how different all the parts are. We’re from different times and places and stations in life. We’d write different psalms. But all to the same savior.

The Face of God and the Process of Belief

I know that you can do anything, and no one can stop you.  You ask, “Who is this that questions my wisdom with such ignorance?”  It is I.  And I was talking about things I did not understand, things far too wonderful for me…I had heard about you before, but now I have seen you with my own eyes.  I take back everything I said, and I sit in dust and ashes to show my repentance.  – Job 42:2-6