Isn't that like our God?

So, this Tuesday I was driving up to Salt Lake City to check out a opportunity of a place to stay (and work). As I drove I drove the same route we drove in June when we went up for vacation, and at one point in the trip there's an area that in June we all commented on how ugly it looked because the area had ben burned in a forest fire. I'm sure you've seen areas like that--burned out, black, dead, with skeletons standing, but other than that not too much vegetation.

Well, interesting enough this time when I drove through I noticed that instead of just ugly dead, dry skeletons, in it's place were the most beautiful fall colors--reds, golds, yellows, well you know. And, the thought crossed my mind that isn't that just like our God? To take something that's totally burned out, used up, and wasted, and make it the most beautiful spot in the forest?

And, doesn't He do that with our lives too? Doesn't He specialize even in taking our lives when they're the most messed up--when they're dry, dead, skeletons and make something beautiful out of them--and not just beautiful, but amazingly beautiful.

I'm banking on that fact, are you?

Aren't you glad you're not Mary?

Can you imagine being Mary the mother of Jesus? Remember that Jesus, while being 100% God, was also 100% human yet without sin. And, it's that without sin part I'm talking about.

Imagine you're Mary and Jesus is a toddler. You're sitting down in your kitchen taking a break with some good friends, and you start complaining because you were up all night with Jesus who had an earache. And, your friend is sympathizing because she too has been there, done that. And, so she, like we women do, shares her story, she says, "I know just what you mean, I was so mad at little Zach last week. I've told him a thousand times to stay out of the donkey trail running through town, and yet Wednesday I look out the window and there he is standing in the middle of the trail, he would have gotten run over if it weren't for our big black dog that was standing there barking at all the donkeys! I just get so exasperated with that child. It seems like he spends his life not obeying me."

And, another friend chimes in, "yeah, I can so relate! Little Sarah is into everything! Yesterday she had my makeup out all over my bedroom. I spent HOURS cleaning everything up. She was kind of cute though with lipstick on her nose, and eye shadow clear up to her hairline. Of course I had to punish her so she'd know that was naughty, but I was hiding a smile while I did it. "

And yet another friend chimes in, "last week my Ezekiel got sent home from his Sabbath classes because he said a bad word! I have no idea where he heard that! I had to wash his mouth out with soap and then he was spitting soap bubbles for hours! It was kind of funny though."

And, on and on your friends go, and you realize, like Mary did (scriptures say she pondered these things in her heart) that you really don't have any "naughty" tales to tell about Jesus. In fact, the very thing you were complaining about has nothing to do with being bad--but instead being in pain--being miserable. And, you realize that the "sin" was indeed yours for being impatient with his pain.

And, as Jesus grows a bit and is now in school, you're gathered around the well getting water for your family and chatting with another group of friends and you hear, "John got in trouble at school because he made Mary cry by pulling her hair. I don't know what I'll do with that child. He's always getting his name on the board at school!" And as they always do, someone else chimes in, "I'm so frustrated with Zebediah, I tell him every single day to make his bed before school, and then the one day I forget to remind him he doesn't make it! Will this child ever learn to be responsible and obey me?" And, yet another jumps into the conversation, "yes, I think my Rhonda will be grounded until she's 35! She just can't seem to stay out of trouble!"

And, again Mary's left thinking about Jesus and realizing she has no stories to tell. Jesus is instead always nice to his classmates, and always obedient to whatever she tells him to do, and he's kind and gentle with his siblings (about whom she could tell tales and has to resist the urge to compare them always with their older brother)! And Mary reflects on her own attitude just last night when she was grumpy with Jesus' little sister and yelled at Him instead, and He didn't even get mad at her, but instead just gave her a hug and went to bed quietly like she had told him to.

And when Jesus is a teen Mary's out at her grinding stone grinding corn with the other ladies in the town square, and the ladies are again talking about their teenagers. "I caught Jacob trying to watch our neighbor girl bathe the other day! I was so upset with him! Can you believe it?" After commiserating for awhile and sharing about this situation, another friend mentions, "I'm struggling with Betty too. She has the biggest crush on a Roman soldier--can you imagine? He's too old for her and he's NOT Jewish. But, she sneaks out nights while we're sleeping and talks with him! We really don't know what we're going to do about her." And once again Mary reflects on how Jesus is helpful with the younger children, how He doesn't seem to do anything improper with regards to girls, and is always obedient. And once again she becomes convicted of her behavior just this morning towards Jesus when she jumped down his throat for spending time in the Torah when she thought he should be out enjoying the sunshine.

Can you imagine? Can you imagine having a child who never, ever sinned? A child who was never arrogant, or selfish, or rebellious? I sure can't. But then again I've never had a child who was God--God made flesh.

I imagine though it was a bit hard for Mary. I imagine too it might have pointed out her own sinfulness when she was impatient with Jesus, or when she was cranky and he never, ever responded with anger to her. Can you imagine being the mother of God? I sure can't. Mary though lived it every day.

The Creator

By the word of the LORD were the heavens made;

and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth.

Psalms 33:6

My husband was telling me about a new car made by Tesler Motors that was completely all electric, non polluting, and just, in short, really cool. I was impressed as apparently are some people who are a lot smarter than me, like the owners of Google. We’re like that though, aren’t we? When we see something new and cool we get excited about it. We tell our friends and families; if it’s buyable and we can afford it, we put our names on a list to buy it (as people are doing for this car). In short it’s exciting to be involved in seeing something really cool being made.

Have you ever taken a moment to marvel at this world we live in? It too is an amazing creation—I’m constantly astounded by the variety of flowers there are in the world, or how about all the trees. . . or on a not so fun note, what about the incredible variety of insects there are? Some of them so small we can hardly even see them, and then again there are those big ugly ones we’d rather not see.

Or have you marveled at the complexity of creation? I watched part of a video that was scientifically trying to figure out what combination of things you’d need to have a planet that sustained life. It was astounding! I can’t remember all the details, but if our planet were a bit closer to the sun, or a bit further away, or if we spun a bit slower, or faster we just couldn’t be.

Or have you ever thought about the complexity of your own body—I read somewhere that one simple cell contains a trillion molecules. And, I’ve heard a single strand of DNA contains more information that the biggest computer. And, I could go on and on, but the point is that we should be amazed by the creation we see around us.

I suppose that’s why all throughout the Old Testament God referred to Himself as the Creator of the Universe. And, interestingly enough, while we can only create our “cool” things from things that already exist (like in the Tessler car where they used things like metal, chemicals, and cloth), God created all this from nothing.

Genesis 1:1 tells us “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” What it doesn’t tell us specifically, but is implied, is what He created them out of—thin air, or more accurately, He created them out of nothing at all. Other verses in the Bible imply this as well. Hebrews 11:3 for instances tells us that “Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.”

And, I don’t know about you, but I can’t imagine anything more wow, than to create something stunning, amazing, complex, and beautiful from nothing at all. . . I suppose it’s just one more reason why I’m awed by our amazing God.

Our Eternal God

Can you imagine a being who has existed forever? Most of us can't--really. You see everything in our human experience has an end, and has a beginning. So the idea of a being who has always existed and will always exist is well. . .unimaginable. But, that's just what Genesis 1:1 suggest to us. It starts by saying "in the beginning God. . ." suggesting to us that God somehow, in some way existed before the beginning. Honestly, it's kind of mind-boggling to me.

Other verses however, go on to suggest the same. Psalm 102:12 says "But You, O LORD, shall endure forever" And, Isaiah 40:28 adds: "Have you not known? Have you not heard? The everlasting God, the LORD, . . ." Psalm 90:2 adds to this thought: . . .Even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God.

Ok, we're into theology again--but this one's really important. It helps us know who God is--and more importantly is He worthy of our trust? It's a clue to knowing who God is--biblically.

And why's it important to me (and to you)? Well, I'll give you some of my thoughts:

1) If God's eternal (or everlasting) that means that He's much, much bigger and more important than I am. I know my body isn't eternal--I've seen too many other people around me die to believe that. God however is eternal, meaning He at least doesn't have this human fallibility.

2) If God's eternal might it mean that He knows a bit more than I do? And, possible be more powerful than I? Might He also be a bit wiser than me? It certainly would appear so.

3) Might also the fact that He's eternal mean that He lives outside of human time? Meaning that our sense of what's fast or slow, of days, months, and years even might be different than His timetable?

I'll close with my little theology lesson today with this analogy: Let's say that today a benign master race of extraterrestrials came to earth. At first of course we'd be scared to death, but as we got to know them, and came to see that they really did have our best interest at heart, we'd get to know that they had lived much longer as a race than our race, We'd also discover that they were much, much wiser, and knew much, much more about the way things worked. (After all if they could make it here alive, and learn to communicate with us they'd probably be a bit wiser than we). Eventually, as after we got comfortable with them, we'd do everything within our power to get to know them, and to to find out what they knew--what they choose to reveal to us about themselves. How might they reveal themselves to us? Maybe by giving us an instruction manual? Something we could hold in our hand and look back at to check against any other truth presented to us? And, of course the very best way they could impart their knowledge to us would be by having a personal relationships with each one of us. Interesting concept isn't it?

Theology--a bit of a four letter word

Let's say for just a moment that I believe God wants nothing more in this life than for me to get rich--how would that affect what I do? Might it affect how I'd live my life? Maybe I'd see nothing at all wrong with lying for instance to further my cause (getting rich), or maybe too I wouldn't see too much wrong from taking what I want from a store (it helps my cause!), or further maybe I'd see nothing wrong with cheating on my taxes, or setting up dummy companies to launder money I'd made illegally--or robbing a bank--no problem! Then again, if someone stands in my way of getting rich, well, murder isn't really a problem either--after all, it's all about me getting rich--in fact, if I do any of these things to get rich, it's all in "god's will."

It's pretty obvious to most of us that this kind of thinking is problematic. So, wouldn't it also follow that if our thinking about God is wrong, in a smaller way, we might do some wrong things in response to that (like our guy above that's a real crook because his thinking is wrong.)?

I think so--and I think we can see some of this in the world now. In fact, I've seen it in my own life where I've believed wrongly about God, gotten depressed because of that, and really had my life thrown for a loop all because of a wrong idea about God. Fortunately for me, God continues to be faithful (that's one of his attributes) and so He continued to work with me, showing me who He was, until I finally got it and things in my life got much better.

I don't know about all LDS folks, but for me when I was LDS, theology was a big, and somewhat ugly word. It was a word that implied evil, scheeming men trying to define a God in whatever image they chose to define him in. It had the implications of learned scholars, so learned that they messed everything up--choosing deliberately to distort the image of God to fit what they wanted God to be.

Since becoming a Christian though, I've come to see that theology is, simply put, the study of God--discovering who He is, and what He's taught. And, I've also come to see that it's important.
Believe it or not, the LDS church has a theology--a belief system about who God is, and what He's done or is doing. They believe for instance that God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are three seperate beings who work together and become one in purpose. They believe there is a heirarchy of God's--God the Father being the top God in this case and that the others answer to Him. They believe as well that God the Father progressed to become God--that once upon a time, a long, long time ago God was a man just like we are now, and that through help from His God, and doing all the right things He becamse a God--the God He is now.

Too, LDS folks believe a whole lot of other things about God, but these beliefs will do for now.

And, of course Christians have a theology too. We have specific beliefs about who God is as well. We base these beliefs on what the Bible teaches about God. For instance, we believe God is eternal (Ps. 90:2). We take that to mean that He's always been God, and will always be God. We believe that God is all powerful (the word almighty means all-powerful, Ps. 68:14, 91:1, 115:3 and more). We believe that God knows everything (Ps. 147:5 and more). And, we believe that God is one (Duet 6:4, Isaiah 46:9, Isaiah 47:10 and more), and also that God is three. We call that a trinity, meaning that God is one, and is also three. And, like the LDS there's a whole bunch of other things we believe are true about God.

The implications among my friends though all too often is that our theology doesn't matter--as long as we love each other and treat other people good, that's all that's important (they say). But, I don't believe that to be true. I think our theology does matter. Like in the example above it's very true that our theology--what we believe about God, and to a lesser degree about ourselves, affects very, very much what we do with and for God. . . I'd like to explore this a bit more later. See you soon!