"Behold, as the eyes of the servants look unto the hand of their masters, and as the eyes of the maiden look unto their mistress, so our eyes wait upon the Lord our God, until He has mercy upon us." Ps. 123:2
There is an art to waiting in the Christian life that we modern Christians have yet to even acquire, much less master. Paradoxically, waiting is the most intense trial of faith precisely because it is not intense. Of course, times of jubilation are not as difficult, but neither are storms of troubles. At least in a storm, something is happening that you can lock your energies and attention onto. The void is filled with chaos, but at least it is filled. In the waiting, however, there is nothing so momentous as jubilation or troubles. Just as it is in the scabbard that the sword is most likely to rust, so too it is in the waiting that our faith can rust. It is easier to slip out of trusting reliance on God when we feel like we don't need Him right now. In the good times, we know that we need Him because it is He who brings the good because He is the good. Likewise, in the bad times, we know that we need Him because only He can save us. Thus, it is in the times of stillness and silence, where there is neither a positive nor negative fever-pitch, that we can forget Him and lean to our own understanding.
Do not get confused. "Stillness and silence" does not mean "boring," or even "normal". For the Christian, there are no "normal" days as the world defines "normal"; all days are miraculous, and that is the key. In the midst of the still and silent days, God is still with us, and He continually interacts in our lives; "small graces" is how one songwriter described it. It is the continually presence of God in our lives, both in big and small graces, that defines the "art" of waiting for the Christian, i.e., to discern God's presence in every moment, not just the times of jubilation or trouble. It is the concept of mythic eyes: see God everywhere, everyday. This is not an empirical eisegesis, i.e., reading God into everything; rather, it is an empirical exegesis, i.e., discerning God's actual presence everyday, because He is with us everyday. He does not take a holiday. He is not merely involved in our great joys and sorrows, moments of triumph as well as crisis and failure; He is also involved in the minor minutia of our lives as well.
Think of it this way: In human relationships (esp. marriage), there are times of joy and sorrow, and strong relationships are built upon those moments. However, far more prevalent than the times of exultation and tragedy are the days "in between," the days when life is simply lived at a steady pace. It is those days that form the bulk of our lives, and thus those days that will build the bulk of the relationship. Any relationship that can remain through times of joy and sorrow but cannot maintain itself in the "in between" is doomed to failure. It is the same with us and God. God does not want us on the good and bad days; He wants us everyday, and we have to learn to likewise want Him as well.
In the movie Shenandoah, a boy name Sam wanted to marry Mr. Anderson's daughter. Anderson (played by Jimmy Stewart) asked him two questions. The first was, "Do you love her?" When Sam said yes, Anderson's response was, "Well, Sam, that's not good enough." He then asked his second question: "Do you like her?" When Sam said that he did, Anderson concludes with, "If you don't like her, then those nights can get cold!" Within the context of this scene, perhaps you will understand my next statement: God not only "loves" us; He also "likes" us. He is our God, our good Heavenly Father and holy Lord and Savior, everyday. It is in the waiting that we can most learn that truth, just as in a marriage it is in the days "in between" that we learn just how much someone really loves us, and how much we really love them.
-Jon Vowell
Friday, August 28, 2009
The God of Everyday
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
When We Leave the Temple Behind
"I will lift up my eyes to the hills. Where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth." Ps. 121:1-2 (WEB)
This psalm, though written before the Exile, was a favorite of the exiles. As they were taken from their homes, they would quite literally "lift up [their] eyes to the hills," i.e., to Jerusalem and the Temple. As the will of God was further accomplished, all that was familiar and known was removed. Only God was left. Sometimes, many times, that is the way that it should be.
I have observed that many (including myself) view faith as going further and further into a bright and open place, with everything becoming clearer and clearer. Now, however, I think that such a view is mistake. A much more accurate (i.e., biblical) view is to say that faith is travelling deeper and deeper into darkness, a "deep but dazzling darkness," as Vaughan put it. Rather than a bright and open place, it is more like descending into the cave of a great mountain, with the daylight fading behind us the deeper that we go in. Spiritually speaking, a heavy dimness falls thicker and thicker over everything expect for one, i.e., God as He has revealed Himself to us. This seems to be the lesson about faith taught in Job: the greater the faith, the thicker the perplexity. The deeper that we go, the closer that we get, the more and more all other lamps go out. God Himself is shrouded in clouds and darkness (Ps. 97:2). All that we have is the light that He sows for us (Ps. 97:11), burning coals dropped like bread crumbs, each one urging us to move forward. Those lights are His word, His revelation to us, and thus even though He oft times hidden, He is never far. When we leave the Temple behind (which I believe is the proper definition of faith), we take God with us, for He is with us.
What I have discovered in my own life is that the life of faith means having God "clear the field," so to speak: all things familiar and certain, any chance for us to categorize, plan, and be confident of tomorrow, is utterly removed. In an immediate sense, things become more unknowable and uncertain, until the only thing left that we know for sure is God. All other people and circumstances have become shadows. That is what the life of faith is: certainty about God, uncertainty about everything else. God has revealed to us that He is holy (Is. 6:3), and that He has called us to holiness (I Pet. 1:15-16), and that He will accomplish that goal (Phil. 1:6). What he has not revealed is exactly how that will unfold in our individual lives, and it is on that point that we grow frustrated. We grow weary with waiting, and fall into two deadly snares. One is where we begin to place confidence in ourselves: "Perhaps I must do something." Such a confidence is always cursed.
The other snare is where we believe that the darkness is a result of our own stupidity and failure: "If only I was a stronger Christian things would be clearer!" Clarity belongs to those who are afraid of the dark, i.e., children. Those who have been grown up by the Lord are old enough to descend into His darkness, into a deeper trust in Him, which means a deeper knowledge of and love for Him. Faith is not our meager service to God whereby we earn enough brownie points to play with the grown ups in the burning sunlight. Rather, faith is the process (the "journey") by which we are drawn closer and closer to our destination, i.e., God Himself. We are drawn closer when we trust Him, but trust means nothing if everything is clear and sunny. Trust means that a shadow has been placed over everything. Not just any shadow, however, but the shadow of the Almighty; for it is only in that shadow that we find the secret place of God (Ps. 91:1). Leave your "temple" behind, and do not grow weary with the waiting, but rather go deeper still into the dark with your Father, Lover, and Friend.
-Jon Vowell
Friday, August 21, 2009
Real Presence (Or, Haunted)
"...ye have known God, or rather are know of God...." Gal. 4:9a
We do not worship God because He is a spirit. There is nothing praise-worthy about being a spirit: the Devil is a spirit. Nor do we worship Him because He is powerful, for mere power is grounds only for fear rather than worship. Nor even do we worship Him because of His goodness, for mere goodness is static goodness, and inconsequential to us and anything else. The reason that we worship God, praising Him in word and song and deed, the reason that we have given our hearts to Him alone, is because He is not inconsequential; "He hath heard" our voice.
All the goods of men are but silent stone and dumb wood, made from men's hands, mindless mirrors of their own emptiness (Ps. 115:2-8). Any spiritual peace available to us must be sought out by our own effort: we work and we search and we struggle; we grope about in the dark, uncertain if what we have grasped hold of is in fact what we have been looking for. We are, in such scenarioes, indeed the blind men with the elephant: destined and doomed to never know.
The Christian, however, is in love with and enraptured by God already, because this God has come to them: He dwelt with them once (John 1:14) and dwells with them still (I Cor. 6:19; II Cor. 6:16). Christianity is not another religion of maxims and moral living; it is a religion of presence, the presence of the living God who is there. Even our holy book (whereas others are mere codes of conduct) is full of the same presence (God-breather: II Tim. 3:16; God's dynamic life: Heb. 4:12). True Christians are different from every other religionists and spiritualists, every other holy man and guru, because they are (in a word) haunted, continually in the presence of another, i.e., the God who goes with them; with them (see Josh.1:9)! That is the great difference-maker, the great deal-breaker. Leave all the other religions of man to their fumbling about in the dark; give us instead the Light that walks amongst us, with us, and in us.
-Jon Vowell
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
The Return of the King II: Earnest Expectation of the Creation
"Let the sea roar, and the fullness thereof; the world and they that dwell therein. Let the floods clap their hands; let the hills be joyful together before the Lord, for He cometh to judge the earth. With righteousness shall He judge the world, and the people with uprightness." Ps. 98:7-9
"The earnest expectation of the creation waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God...because the creation itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God." Romans 8:19-21
The return of the King and subsequent redemption thereof is not a private event for man but a universal event of all creation. Sin has unleashed the consequences of Death and its corruption into the furthest extents of the universe, even the parts to which we have never been nor ever will; yet even those parts ring with the "earnest expectation" of the restoration of the rightful order.
Do we function on the level where we consciously consider that the universe is not even half of what it used to be or could be? That neither are me? "The whole creation groans and travails in pain" (Rom. 8:22), for the Fall has corrupted its glory, our glory, and nothing is as it ought to be. The universe is smarter than us, however; it continues on in earnest expectation. We, on the other hand, are forgetful creatures, and our expectation dulls into a kind of apathetic resignation and contentment. We are lulled to sleep by the dull and static hum of the fallen world, and it is high time that we wake up.
-Jon Vowell
Friday, July 31, 2009
The Mysterious and the Good
"Clouds and darkness are round about Him.... Light is sown for the righteous...." Ps. 97:2a, 11a
"Course He isn't safe. But He is good." -C.S. Lewis
There are two things that we must never forget about God: His mysteriousness and His goodness. We are most forgetful of and frustrated by the former. We gladly seek the comforts of God only to find that resting in His secret place means dwelling in a shadow (Ps.91:1) and darkness (Ps. 18:11). God is light, and in Him dwells no darkness (I John 1:5), but darkness is where He dwells; not it in Him, but rather He in it. Thus, His ways are mysterious (Is. 55:8, 9; Rom. 11:33) and His light inaccessible (I Tim. 6:16). We often flounder at this: we would much rather have a God that we could easily categorize and thus easily predict. However, one of God's favorite past times is frustrating our assumptions, and He will continue to do so until we trust in His mystery.
God's goodness is more palatable than His mystery, but only after we water it down to the point of banality. We do acknowledge the light that He graciously sows for us, whether it be His word for guidance (Ps.119:105) or His Son for salvation (John 1:4); yet we do not seem to connect that we are given light because the world is dark, a darkness filled with terrors and terrified people. The light we are given is for our survival and the salvation of others. We are not on a sun-drenched vacation; we are pilgrims in an unholy land. God's goodness (which He freely gives because He is good) is not to be bottled up and horded, but broken and spilled out unto all. God is good, and good to us; but if we are to be like Him (I Peter 1:16), then we cannot keep that goodness, that light, to ourselves. Like our Father in Heaven has done for us, we too must spread the light as far as we can fling it.
-Jon Vowell
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
A Different Kind of Empiricism
"I was envious at the foolish when I saw the prosperity of the wicked [...] until I went into the sanctuary of God; then I understood their end." Ps. 73:3, 17
"Then Jesus said unto him, 'Except ye see..., ye will not believe.' The nobleman said unto Him, 'Sir, come down before my child dies.' Jesus said unto him, 'Go thy way; thy son liveth.' And the man believed the word that Jesus had spoken unto him, and he went his way." John 4:48-50
Faith is a different kind of empiricism: it is about trusting a person rather than observing things. We trust the testimony of the biblical writers because it is the testimony of God (II Peter 1:20-21), His declaration and revelation of Himself. It is often true that our sight experiences will openly conflict with what God says is true. "I was envious of the foolish...until I went into the sanctuary of God," i.e., only when we take our focus off of the temporal and subjective circumstances around us and place it on the eternal and objective God who is there, only then do we know that what He says is true. Only then do we understand because our hearts and minds are centered on a person and not things.
"Except ye see...ye will not believe" echoes the stance of Thomas (John 20:25) and it echoes most of us today. God does not expect us to see and then believe His word; he expects us to believe His word and no more, to trust that He is who He says He is and that He will do what He said He would do. In addition, if we take the book of Job into account, it seems that God actually favors stacking the deck against Himself. "Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him" (Job 13:15), i.e., though my outward circumstances tell me something different, I will trust the word of the Lord. That is the essence of faith.
-Jon Vowell
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Give me God (or, A Catharsis)
"So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal." II Corinthians 4:18
It's easy to get caught up in temporary things. Besides the fact that they are what is "seen" (and thus more readily relatable), there is also nothing inherently wrong with them. The only time that they go wrong is when they are given precedent over what is eternal, and yet we do this all the time. The whole of the truly modern age (right up to our current choking fog of the post-modern swamp) can be quite accurately defined as a time of treating temporal things as fundamental and necessary while treating eternal things as superficial and trivial. "Please," we cry, "don't bother troubling us about our souls or whatnot. Just wake us up when the latest cultural/political/ideological fad or fashion rides by so we can jump on its bandwagon." To paraphrase Lewis, we are far too easily amused and distracted.
Christians don't escape from this problem either. The whole of Modern Christendom can be quite succinctly described as one long, horrendous fashion show, with every single item being a mere retread of what the world had already paraded out with much better ability last year. As the blood-bought children of God, we are the unworthy (and therefore humbled) recipients of the deep, eternal truths of God, and yet we keep traipsing across the world's stage like a pathetic johnny-come-lately to every secular and worldly stage show under the sun. We are supposed to be leading all men unto Christ and into the fear of the Lord, and yet the best that we do today is to teach everyone how to be moral, amiable apathetics courtesy of our Christian knock-off versions of self-help guides and practical advice columns.
What's even worse is that we're not only mimicking the world concretely, but also abstractly, taking its philosophies and ideologies and merging them with Christianity in a most unholy union. As sudden as a winter evening, "faith" now equals "doubt," and all the rich teachings and history of the Christian Faith are summarily declared stupid. Faith itself becomes wholly subjective, having been violently cut from all objectivity, until it means absolutely nothing precisely because it means anything. On all counts, we look and sound and feel so much like the world and all of its vacuous and counterfeit pleasures and promises that we render the gospel and all of God's truth utterly impotent. The world assumes a priori that we have nothing to say that they haven't already heard before and better from the mouths of their own prophets and preachers.
I don't want to be well-adjusted. I don't want to know how to balance my checkbook or work the stock market. I don't want to be amiable or moral or decent. I don't want to "just get along." I don't want psychotherapy, anti-depressants, or self-help tips from people as fallen as myself. I don't want a "dialogue" or "conversation." I don't want to be represented. I don't want another agenda, fashion, or fad. I don't want to be where truth is not allowed to "colonize the space." I don't want to hear your subjective opinions or experiences. I don't want me subjectivity to be cut from that which is objectively real and true. I will tell you what I want. I will tell you what the world really wants, what it has always wanted, and what Christianity has always had to give to it. I want to know if there is a God, and if He can be known, if He can know me, and how. I want to know if repentance and forgiveness are real and capable of doing away with real sin and real guilt, that grace is truly greater than all my sin. I want truth to not only "colonize the space" but also colonize all of me, filling me up like blood and air and water and food. I want abundant life and life everlasting. I want to be consumed by the fire of the God who is there. I want to love God like a man loves a woman, to be enraptured and intoxicated by Him always, to want to protect Him from His enemies and myself. I want that which is solid and real, timeless and eternal, something that has sustained those before me and will sustain those after me. Give me God and all that He is or else I will perish, and that without remedy.
All these things and more are offered as unflinching and unapologetic objective truths and realities by the Christian Faith to all people regardless of their experiences or circumstances. Is that the message that the world hears, though? Is that what the Church even hears? I'm afraid not. The Faith begun by the Incarnate God of the universe has been made by its followers into an impotent side-show act. May the Lord have mercy on us all.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
A Resting Place
"From the end of the earth will I cry unto Thee, when my heart is overwhelmed. Lead me to the rock that is higher than I." Ps. 61:2
Even the strongest amongst us still demands a security blanket. Even the most daring performer who walks across a tightrope with no net still demands that an ambulance be present and a well-staffed hospital be within driving distance. As human beings, we all want and need something solid and secure outside and other than ourselves on which our selves can safely dwell. We all desire a "rock that is higher" than us, a foundation other than our own meager souls. What a miserable creature is he who is the highest in his own private universe. When things fall apart (as they invariably do), where can such a one as he turn? Fallen, finite, fallible creatures cannot sustain themselves, cannot be their own resting place; not that we don't try, but that it will never work. Our limited and damaged subjectivity needs to be bound to a perfect objectivity or else it is lost like a ship on the sea without a star in the sky.
The more honest and clear-headed ones amongst us understand this fact, but nobody seems to find the right objectivity, the right"rock that is higher." The things that we find may be more solid and secure than ourselves, but they are always a product of this world, and thus like the world are limited and transient: they can only do so much, and they eventually fade away. Coupled to that is the fact that troubles know no bounds, nor evil any limitations. All of our best efforts will be swallowed up in some kind of darkness and despair, and it is in those moments that we can either look up or go down and out: look up and realize that whatever this "rock" is, it must be not only not of us but also not of this world; or down and out into perpetual cynicism and hellish night.
-Jon Vowell
"My faith has found a resting place,
Not in device or creed;
I trust the ever living One,
His wounds for me shall plead.
I need no other argument,
I need no other plea,
It is enough that Jesus died,
And that He died for me."
-Eliza E. Hewitt
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
The Dispensable God
"Give us help from trouble, for vain is the help of man. Through God we shall do valiantly, for it is He that shall tread down our enemies." Ps. 60:11, 12
"For it is God who worketh in you both to will and to do, because of His good pleasure." Phil. 2:13
"...without me, ye can do nothing." John 15:5b
God is as much a necessity as He is a luxury. He is a luxury in that he is a delight to our souls and more than we ever could have imagined (or deserved). He is a necessity in that we cannot dispense with Him. To do so means death, of our souls and minds and bodies. He is the thing that we simultaneously want and need in the ultimate sense, though we are perhaps incapable of expressing such a fact adequately. He is such a luxury that man, in our darkened ignorance, still seeks to fill the void that separation from Him has left behind. He is such a necessity that we cannot even choose Him unless His word gives us the power to do so (Rom. 10:17). On all points, we cannot live without Him, though the world desperately tries to.
The Church tries to as well, sadly. The denial of God's luxury and necessity, of Him being what we most want and need, is a hallmark symptom of practical agnosticism, a curious yet obvious aliment of Modern Christendom. We view God as quite dispensable, like a hat that can be worn our not depending on season and climate or fashion and mood; and that's if we even think about Him at all. Perhaps if we got our heads screwed on straight and our priorities realigned, if we would stop treating God like something trivial (like a hat or other accessory) and return to treating Him like something vital (like air or chocolate), if we would simply dispense with the dispensable God and get back to our luxurious and necessary God, we would all be much better off, and our lives far more Christian.
-Jon Vowell
Friday, June 5, 2009
Final Justice (or, Apocalypse Please)
"The righteous shall rejoice when he seeth [God's] vengeance; He shall wash His feet in the blood of the wicked, so that a man shall say, 'Verily there is a reward for the righteous; verily He is a God that judgeth the earth." Ps. 58:10, 11
It is a lie that justice sometimes doesn't prevail. Humanity's well-intended yet feeble attempts at justice may sometimes fail, but Justice will always prevail, even if it seems postponed for the time being. There is a God who judges the earth, who will judge the living and the dead. There is no escaping this God (Rom. 14:12), nor this judgment (Heb. 9:27). It will be a terror for the wicked and a joy for the righteous.
It will also be a revelation for everyone. "A man shall say" that justice is real, and that there is a God who is just. Many today try to poison our minds with the notion that God is somehow unjust. A day is coming, however, when every mouth will be silenced, and every knee shall bow, and every heart will understand and be without excuse at the unveiling of God's final judgment. There really is a reward for those who do good or evil; all of the wronged rights and unrighted wrongs are not in vain, nor are they the end. The end is the great and terrible day of the Lord, when all shall be well. That day is coming, and every believer that hopes in that day sanctifies themselves further towards the likeness of God (I John 3:2-3); for despair darkens the soul, and we must not despair. The world is dark enough as it is, and our hope, faith, and love are to flow forth and make us shine with the holy light of God like stars in the night.
-Jon Vowell
Thursday, June 4, 2009
In the Midst
Sometimes true safety doesn't look much like safety. In all honesty, the "safety" that God promises looks very much like danger. I'm sure David would have felt very safe in a fortified camp surrounded by armed men. Instead, he is scurrying alone in the the dark of a cave with Saul and his men hot on his heels, and it is in that damp and dark emptiness that he is "in the shadow of [God's] wings."
To be truly "safe" means to be with God; all other circumstances and considerations are secondary and thus immaterial. It is amazing how close to the breaking point that God will stress that truth. It is a fascinating paradox that the safest moments are the ones that seem to be the most dangerous. Look at the book of Revelation: things go from bad to worse, and it is at the absolute uttermost of breaking despair that Christ returns and wins the day. Look at the gospels: how many times were the disciples in utter panic before Jesus put all at ease? Often the people of God are in the very midst of slavery, banishment, exile, furnaces, prisons, persecutions, etc., when God brings them forth shining like a golden star. There is a threat buried within the promise of Isaiah 43:2, a threat that God's presence is contingent upon our being in the middle of fires and floods.
And why should such things not be? If God were to keep us safe in the midst of calm and peaceful times and things, what is the good of that? It would be just as if there were no God at all. If, however, we are kept safe in the midst of the chaotic tempest, with its cold waters threatening yet unable to drown us, then we have reason to glorify God. It is precisely when things are at their worst that God is nearest; it is exactly when we are weakest that God is strongest. That is the meaning behind the "weak/strong" paradox of the Christian faith, and we would do well to remember it when the more common darker skies of approaching storms cloud our horizons.
-Jon Vowell
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Now and Forever
"What time I am afraid, I will trust in Thee. [...] For Thou hast delivered my soul from death; wilt not Thou deliver my feet from falling, that I may walk before God in the light of the living?" Ps. 56:3, 13
It is called the life of faith for a reason. Salvation is a unique and extraordinary moment, but what about all the moments afterwards? You trust that Christ will stand with you at the judgment seat; do you trust that He is standing with you while you seat in your seat right now? You believe that God has delivered your soul from death; do you believe that He will deliver your feet from falling? You believed on the Lord Jesus Christ and have been saved (Acts 16:31); do you now believe that He who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it (Phil. 1:6)? If we are honest with ourselves, we would say that we very much believe the formers and very much doubt the latters on a day-to-day basis.
We are subjective beings. We experience circumstances and people in ways that (in some sense) are unique unto ourselves. However, that does not mean that our subjectivity is always right; more often than not, it is flat-out wrong. We often respond to situations in ways that are contradictory to what is real: we doubt when we should believe, we worry when we should trust, we hate when we should love, love when we should hate, grieve when we should be joyful, sing when we should mourn, etc. God has revealed to us what is real, and our subjective selves must be bound to His objective revelations, so that we may not be tossed about by our unreliable human emotions and wisdom.
-Jon Vowell
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
"...while ye have the light..."
"Fearfulness and trembling are come upon me, and horror hath overwhelmed me." Ps. 55:5
"Yet a little while is the light with you. Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you; for he that walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth. While ye have light, believe in the light, that ye may be the children of light." John 12:35-36
We err if we see the Christian life as all sunshine and roses. If we are not in a horror of great darkness right now, we are at least in a frustration of plain darkness, a seemingly endless waiting period where nothing seems to happen (except, perhaps, what you do not want to happen). God gives us light, such as His word (Ps. 119:105) and His Son (John 1:4-5), as well as His general revelations (Rom. 1:19-20). When the moments come that He enlightens our minds and illuminates our pathways, we must be sure to open our minds and hearts so as to close them again on the solid natures of His truth, beauty, and goodness. If we walk in the daylight flippantly, taking nothing that we see or hear to heart, then we will be dismayed in the night season. We can only be "the children of light" if while we have the light we believe in it.
This is not to say that there are moments when God is not with us. God is always with us (Matt. 28:20b). What happens is that there are times where God hides Himself from our view (e.g., John 12:36b - "When Jesus had said these things, he departed and did hide himself from them"). Where once His presence and purpose seemed so clear, now it has faded like a dream. The point is that we remain true to God and what He has revealed to us even and especially when He is hidden from us. There are stabs of light that pierce the darkness, pieces of Heaven that come raining down like manna in this vestibule of Hell that we call earth. While we have it, we may walk; when it goes, we must sit and wait. "Walk while ye have the light," for "he that walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth." Sitting and waiting is the hardest thing; it is the hardest thing to sit and trust in the light and what it has shown you while your immediate circumstances seem to mock your faith, and the only light that you have is what you received the last time you walked in the light. It is our lot, however, to walk in the light so that we may burn in the night. Whatever opportunities we have, however, to meet with the light, let us take them gladly and vigorously, like a traveller in the desert stumbling across an oasis. Let us fill up for our journey so that we may have for ourselves and for others that we meet along the way.
-Jon Vowell
Monday, May 25, 2009
The Riddles of God
There are real riddles to be solved out there, and they contain three essential realities: (1) they are meant to be solved, (2) their solution will most likely be a paradox, and (3) man will never reach the end of them (though that is no excuse for not striving to solve them). The riddles of God are infinite, and they are to be our everlasting joy. To spend eternity knowing God through His infinite mysteries (and subsequently being known by Him) is the joy of Heaven. This joy is not an intellectual exercise; God is not an infinite algorithm to be infinitely studied. He is an infinite person to be infinitely known. The riddles of God will satisfy us even after time is no more.
Modern man hates riddles because he wants his reason to be supreme; nothing is to be outside of his comprehension. Such a sentiment is a delusional farce, but good luck getting them to believe it. The hunger to know absolutely is the ultimate arrogance and tragedy of modern man. Arrogant because they exalt fallen, finite human reason above everything (including God); tragic because so much has been lost by this hunger to absolutely know: the loss of God, the loss of meaning, the loss of love, the loss of man. There is nothing wrong with knowing, with striving for certainty; but the assertion that man's mind and reasoning can encompass the whole of all things (including God) is wrong, wrong because of its aforementioned arrogance and tragedy. We thought we had run out of mysteries, with the final answer being the dark despair of nothingness and meaninglessness. The reality, however, is that the riddles of God (i.e., Truth) springs eternal. God is still there, and He can be known; not exhaustively, but truly.
-Jon Vowell
"The riddles of God are more satisfying than the solutions of man." -G.K. Chesterton
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
The Stillness of God
"Fear ye not; stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord...." Ex. 14:13
"Peace, be still...." Mark 4:39
We often view peace as a self-conscious psychological state, whereas scripture reveals a deeper reality: true peace is a state of inward stillness caused by the knowledge of God. There is a stillness that God creates in us: not lethargy, but peace. It is the world that infects us with the chaos and noise of restlessness, while God commands us to be still and think on Him. Indeed, you cannot be still unless you think on Him who is unmoved and unmovable by the winds and waves of the world. The peace of God is the stillness of God, a stillness that He gives to us when our minds stay on Him. We would do well to capitalize on the still and quiet moments, whether or not our circumstances are in equilibrium to them.
The book of Revelation has Christ defeating His enemies with a "sharp sword" that comes "out of His mouth" (Rev. 19:15). The common understanding of this image is that His words are His weapons. The same voice that inaugurated history at the beginning will be the one to consummate it at the end. Some wonder what exactly His words will be, and I cannot help but wonder if it will not be "Be Still." The chaos of this world is stilled once and for all by the voice of God. That is a future happening, however; that same stillness can be ours in this very moment. "Where is your faith?" (Luke 8:25). The stillness is contingent upon faith, on knowing that God is God, that salvation is of the Lord, and that Jesus is in the boat with you in the midst of the storm.
-Jon Vowell
Monday, May 18, 2009
Thine is the Power
"Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever. Amen." Matt. 6:13b
Would to God that this attitude was fully ours now and forever! Alas, our lot is to fight for it, and fight by the Spirit of God. This world and the enemy will give us constant occasion to fumble for our own bow and sword, but the child of God knows no strength save that which belongs to their Father. "Thine is the...power." We dare not forget such truth. When we say the Lord's prayer, we are not willing these things to be; we are stating our acknowledgment that these things are. It is an act of submission to the reality of Almighty God.
Do you boast in God? I am not speaking of prideful self-depreciation, but rather of having a constant acknowledgment of where the power really comes from, where the light comes from, where the truth comes from. God is not teaching us to sit down and trash ourselves (as is the custom of some). He is teaching us to live within the constant awareness of Him as the abiding reality. Those who possessed the Promised Land and those who understand the Lord's prayer are those who know (and constantly live in the light of the knowledge of) the necessity of God in their lives. Of all the knowledge we can possess, let us grasp to that one with both hands.
-Jon Vowell
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Towards Us
"What is man that Thou are mindful of him?" Ps. 8:4a
"...ye...are known of God...." Gal. 4:9
The God of the deist, the aloof and disconnected one, does not exist, and neither does the god of modernity, the unknowable and impersonal nothingness. The living infinite-personal triune God who is there is ever mindful of us, ever concerned, ever caring. Let this good news ring in the ears of the lost: God is there, and He is not indifferent.
Let this good news ring in the ears of the believer as well, for they can be as agnostic as their unbelieving brethren. Many of us would do well to have Heb. 11:6 engraved over every doorway: "God is, and He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him." It is a mind-boggling yet joyous assertion of Christianity that the God of the universe knows us and wants us to know Him. That God desires (however He can "desire") communion with us is the scandal of Christianity. The world will gladly take any other god rather than the one that wants to be involved in their lives, and be livers can be the same. God is either the last thing on their minds, and the realization of His presence feels more like an intrusion than a "wonderful work." We must reassert to others and ourselves the wondrous fact that God's thoughts are "towards us," that He thinks of us, knows us, and wants us to know Him.
-Jon Vowell
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
The Life of Faith (and not Daisies or Dread)
Saturday, May 9, 2009
Godless Christianity
Herein is the key difference between a child of God and a child of the devil: to the former, God is everything; to the latter, God is nothing, not just in an abstract and conceptual sense but also in an absolute sense. To the Christian, God is the abiding reality; to the unbeliever (esp. in our time) God is non-existent, lost, and dead. The two great tragedies that have laid the foundation for the two great crises of this age are (1) the overt attempt to absolutely define and categorize a God whose thoughts are unsearchable and ways past finding out (Rom. 11:33), and (2) the subsequent "loss" of God when Human reason could no longer track Him.
Unfortunately, Christians today do very little (esp. in the western world) to remedy this "loss" of God precisely because most Christians have no fear of God either. We have become (in Mr. Chamber's words) "rationalistic infidels"; we have been infected by the modern disease of run-away rationalism, though we are unaware of its symptoms because it has so ingrained itself into our cultural thinking. We too, like unbelievers, believe that if our rational mind cannot encompass a thing, then there must be something wrong with that thing rather than our minds. What arrogance! It is indeed a loss of the fear of God, the reverence of God, when we think that our limited, feeble, childish minds can comprehend the incomprehensible.
-Jon Vowell