I’m for SURE procrastinating my schoolwork by writing this, but maybe getting some thoughts out of my head will clear up space for studying. Like cleaning out mental attic space.
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So, lately I’ve had some realizations about God, faith, and prayer.
As I physically and mentally prepare for worldwide mission work, I find myself putting off spiritual preparation. Because the World Race will be enough of the spiritual stuff to last me a lifetime, right? As if spirituality is some sort of stock pile I can tap into or save up for later…
These days I pray sometimes and read my Bible next-to-no times. Part of this is busyness and faulty excuses, but I’ve realized part of it is the way I see God (and I think a lot of other people see Him this way, too).
Let’s see if I can coherently explain this without geeking out or preaching too much.
Ancient Near Eastern writers, the writers of the Bible included, believed in a three-tiered view of the world (see picture below).
These tiers included the heavens, the earth, and the underworld. God resided in the heavens, humans were on the earth, and Satan was in the underworld. As this picture shows, the biblical writers naturally did not understand cosmology as we do today. And let me say that this in no way invalidates the Bible or its words. But we now can understand that humans don’t live under a starry firmament, or the Cassini probe probably would have hit it.
Even though we understand the world differently than the biblical writers, a lot of our faith still seems to mirror this type of worldview. For example, we pray that God would “come down” to us. We associate God with “up” and Satan with “down.”
This came out to PLAY when I was a kid, let me tell ya. I used to flip off the ground because I thought Satan was down there (sorry mom!!!!!!). Speaking of mom, I remember asking her if I dug a hole deep enough if I would fall into hell. She told me I’d hit the ocean on the other side of the world. But wait, how could I bypass hell and get to the other side of the world?
I also became ENTHRALLED with space when I was young. Part of this was simply being moved by something bigger than me, but another part was wanting to travel into the universe because I thought it would bring me closer to God.
I quite obviously associated God with physical directions, even though God by His very nature has to be non-physical.
Okay, so why do you care about my childhood view of God?
Well, I think a lot of us still see God in this way, and I’m proposing that it can prove harmful to our faith. By acknowledging God as above, out and away from us in the sky somewhere, we then have to pray for His intervention in our world. We have to hope for his in-breaking, as if He’s not already involved. Doesn’t this sound a little Deistic?
Thinking God is somewhere else also allows us to compartmentalize, ignoring Him until He’s needed, like I’ve been doing before the Race.
[But God, by His very nature, is beautifully both transcendent and immanent. He’s over everything and in everything, with us, not up and away from us. Relational and active, powerful and unmatched.]
What if we didn’t see God as outside our world anymore?
(I’m not entirely sure He ever was, but ancient writers fit God into the world they understood.)
Perhaps this would allow us to notice God’s daily and active involvement in our lives. It would drastically change our prayer life, moving away from prayers of God’s action, and more for experiencing God’s presence.
I want to start shifting my gaze to God’s active involvement with me and with others. I want to see Him as here, now. Not as a God who chooses when and if He gets involved, but as a God who is already here, having been here since the beginning of time.
I invite you to join me in shifting our gaze, and let’s see how it intensifies our faith in the midst of every season.
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Father, we acknowledge that you are here. You are in the spaces between these words. You are in the spirits of anyone who happens to read them. You are in the warm colored leaves and cool colored skies. In the breath of the wind. The electricity in the mind. The beat of every heart. You are in all, above all, but not entirely outside all. Thank you.
Thank you for your presence. Show us more of You.
