It's a Love Story

"The hijacking of the concept of morality began, of course, when we reduced scripture to formula and a love story to theology, and finally morality to rules. It is a very different thing to break a rule than it is to cheat on a lover." -Donald Miller

Once again I'm back on here talking about love, but my opinions have drastically changed on it within the past few weeks. As I've mentioned in some previous post, I recently read the book Wild at Heart. I thought I had seen all the impact it had on me, but apparently I was wrong. What I'm talking about, is that it made me view Christianity and following Christ much more differently than I had before. I have begun to view it more as a love story than theology now. This has tremendously broadened the scope I look at the world through. Before, I had viewed much of the world through a logical lens, as a result, my heart was against any form of love. What I have been realizing, is that God doesn't want us to view the world as logically as many would like to think.

When we look at the world logically, we slowly starve ourselves of our ability to love. And when we look at the world logically, we become complacent in our faiths and lose our ability to see God clearly. I could name off hundreds of stories in the Bible where many paths taken do not make any sense.
Although I am baptist, I have begun to see many ways conservative Christianity, and American Christianity has it's flaws. Those men in the Bible were in contact with God on a personal level, and talked with Him, and he talked back. Why is it now then, that we are complaining that God does not speak to us? He clearly is, we are just looking at it through ways that He has done it in the past, and we are afraid of venturing into the unknown, and also, that we are close minded about the way God works. The beauty of Christianity, the Bible, and our lives, is that we have no clue how God will work. We need to expand our thinking, as the quote above says, "when we reduced scripture to formula." It is abundantly clear to me that the American church has become so focused on figuring out God, that we believe that some formula will be able to master Him.

Instead of figuring out God, we should be constantly looking for new ways God will work and is working. We are becoming like the Jews when Jesus came to die for our sins. They did not think for one second, that God would become man, that this child would be born a baby in Bethlehem, that this man would eat with sinners, and that the Son of God would die and rise again. They became fixated on the idea, that Jesus would come down out of the sky, kick out the Roman empire, and establish an earthly kingdom. Obviously that didn't happen, and since that was in the past, many Christians have no problem believing that. But when God tries to speak to us in new ways, we don't listen, we don't even hear. It is as if we are waiting for Jesus to come into Jerusalem on a different road than the one he actually took when he rode the donkey triumphantly in.

We are desiring God, but we are so hardheaded about it that we miss the most important parts. We cannot seem to grasp though, that God cannot be grasped. One of the reasons I started listening to Christian music so much, is that I thought I would get closer to God through it, as if God was only going to speak through Christian music. I've heard many secular songs recently that have revealed different things to me, and I truly believe God is speaking to me in those moments as well. Before any of you start getting the notion that I am crazy, look at the end of Isaiah 44 and most of 45. God calls out Cyrus almost 150 years before he was to reign in the Persian empire. He ended up becoming the most successful Persian king, because God had anointed him. That's right, in the Old testament God anointed a Gentile king. To the Jews, that's crazy. That's blasphemy. Or is it?  You see, in our tunnel visioned minds, we think that God will only use things that are praising Him, or serving Him directly. But again, the beauty of God is that He is unfathomable, and He does things that no one will expect, that's what makes Him God.

We are so drawn to this idea that God will be harnessed, that we forget how wild God really is. One of my favorite quotes from The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe is, in reference to Aslan (the Christ/God figure), "He doesn't like being tied down, and of course he has other countries to attend to. It's quite all right. He'll often drop in. Only you mustn't press him. He's wild, you know. Not like a tame lion." Wait, what? God's not tame? No he's not. And neither should our view of a Christian lifestyle be that it is tame.

Going back to the beginning where I said that I was viewing life as more of a love story, it's really changed me. I used to think that I would only date again, or truly like a girl again when it was logical. Then I thought, dating will never happen because what about love is logical? We don't give up our single, self-oriented lives for a husband/wife/boyfriend/girlfriend who will make us angry, cost us money, and annoy the crap out of us. We do it because it's how God wired us. Now applying this to our walks with Christ, we don't follow Christ because it's logical. It will exhaust us, cost us our finances, our social standings, and in many cases our lives. No, we do it because it's the way God made us. He made us to desire a relationship with Him, and for us to follow Him.

I challenge you to broaden the way you look at life, and especially the way you view God and the ways He works. And lastly, remember this; we were made for love.