God

I try hard not to be religious. I lived most of my youth trying hard to change myself to meet God's approval - the heart of religion. Nor am I enthralled with the idea of self-discovery, because I found the magnifying glass I turn on myself is too weakly powered to reveal the full truth and my own initiative is too weak to accomplish change. So what follows here are some loosely connected thoughts from my personal experience.

Lately I've found that I pursue many "good" and even "noble" things that are often thinly veiled or misguided attempts to be God in my life. I rely on my own devices, reason, and manipulations to make sure the outcome I want in life is guaranteed. For example, when my business is down I gear up my marketing, when I want a new (used) car I check my credit score to see if I can pull it off, and if I want better relationships I perform (seemingly) random acts of kindness to build up the love bank. In short, I try to find a short cut to get that outcome I think is best. Too seldom am I willing to wait patiently and let God be God.

I read last week where the Abraham and Sara in the bible tried to be God. God promised them a son, but took His time making it happen. So, they created their own way to make his promise of a child come true because God moved too slow for their taste. Abraham actually had a child with his servant girl to speed things up a bit. But that wasn't God's plan and it didn't work out. God finally delivered on his promise long after the couple were biologically capable of having children, because He keeps his promises, but also to show that it could only have been Him that caused the pregnancy.

It's really weird. You see, I intellectually and even verbally would acknowledge that I believe in God. I believe that He created the universe and that as a creator He exists outside of the constraints of the universe He created. In short He can do anything - he's not constrained by time and space like we are. I also believe, most often in my mind but increasingly in my heart, that He is good and will work things out for my good if I'll only trust Him. BUT too often I don't really act like He is all these things I say He is.

If the answers to my questions and prayers don't come like I think they should - they're too slow in coming or they don't look like I want them to - then I take over and try to make it work like I think it should. I try to create the answers I want God to give me or make His promise come true before the time He knows is the best. In the words of Brennan Manning, I become a "functional atheist" - saying I trust God, but living as if I am the one who makes things happen.

It's all very difficult and often confusing. I'm trying to learn to "be still", "wait", and really "know [He's] God". I live in a "take action", "get 'er done" world that says waiting on God is tantamount to laziness, irresponsibility, or even learned helplessness. But I also know that logically, if God is who I think and say He is, then nothing I have really came from my own efforts.

In the end I find I have so little patience, so little trust, and so little faith that He'll really take care of it all. I literally have to stop myself from taking God's job every morning. More to the point, I have to ask Him to please "Be God" every morning and go back to Him through my day with the same request, because I'm not able to do otherwise unless He acts to change me.