A Different Perspective On God

I don’t think of myself as an especially special thinker, Gentler Reader. I think you and I are alike, insomuch as I don’t assume you to be any more, or less, intelligent than I am. I find the attached video understandable, so I assume you could understand it as well. This seems logical to me.

The video is actually a short explanation of how we might understand a 4th dimension, by explaining how a being who lives in a 2-dimentional world – a “Flatlander” – might come to understand 3-dimensional beings like us. But we don’t really care about that. The physics aren’t what I found fascinating about the video. It’s the abilities.

The video imagines a 3-dimensional apple, passing through Flatland, and how it might be perceived by the Flatlanders. It struck me that this simple explanation….also describes some of Jesus’s miracles. What if heaven was indeed a place…just one in some adjacent 4th dimension? A dimension from which our 3-dimensional world might be viewed. A dimension where, let’s say, time can be entered and experienced in a different way than it can be here, where we are simply carried along by time’s flow. Perhaps there, one can step into and back out of time, and can therefore appear at the very moment in time one wishes. The very moment of someone’s need…

All of which is a pretty goofy idea, let’s face it.

Still…..

The narrator of this piece, scientist and science popularizer Dr. Carl Sagan, was by most accounts not a believer when he died. So he does not use any religious language in his depictions of the possible events he describes. But if you consider the video from a religious perspective…what he’s describing begins to sound like some of the stories from the Bible.

Listen to the descriptions of what the apple can do, how it might be perceived. And consider The King Of Kings, the Prince Of Peace, Lord Jesus.

“the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose.” -J. B. S. Haldane

Is “Good” The Same As “My Good”?

28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. 29 For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. 30 And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

These words from the 8th chapter of Romans have comforted may Christians through the ages. But I wonder if we are interpreting them correctly…

Many Christians I speak with (and lots of Christmas cards!) seem to think that this passage means that God makes all things work together for their good. Certainly in the long run, all Christians will be blessed by being taken up to heaven, there to spend eternity with Jesus, the Spirit, and the Father. And that fate most definitely falls into the category of “good”! But in the here and now, in the darkness of this world, I’m not sure the passage means that each of us will be blessed by God before we pass from this realm.

Consider: In the tenth chapter of Mark, when James and John went to Jesus and asked to sit at His left and right hand in heaven, He responded to them in part by saying in verses 43 – 45 “…whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be the slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.” Slaves in Jesus’ day could be killed at the whim of their master, with no penalty or consequence. So when Jesus told His disciples they must become ‘the slave of all’ He did so knowing that such obedience would require them to be willing to give their lives for Him. They knew it as well. Indeed, tradition holds that nearly all of them were killed for their faith. But what they witnessed, what they were a part of during the Passion Week, so powerfully moved them and overwhelmed them and changed them, that they went forth and did His will anyway.

I have no desire to be first; that’s not how my ego rolls. Nor do I believe I deserve to be first, among any. My current sins weigh me down, they cover me with my own uncleanness, and the only way I will enter into heaven is when the Lord chooses to wipe my lengthy slate of misdeeds and foolish choices clean with the precious shed blood of His Son. But nevertheless, my commitment to Christ must be that of a slave, one who is willing to give his life if his Master requires it. If I am to be counted among the sheep in Matthew 25, I must be willing to walk whatever path the Lord places before me, to be obedient to His will above my own. He may choose to call me friend, but that is His gift to bestow, not my presumption to take upon myself. For my part, I do my best to live this life as His slave. And to me, that is the unspoken aspect of this passage in Romans.

If I love God, love Jesus, if I count myself among those who are ‘called according to His purpose’, then my role must be that of a slave to Him. And that might mean that I might be required to suffer loss, or even death, so that another might be blessed instead.  To cite a simple example, in the parable of the workers in Matthew 20, while all of the workers received a day’s wages -one denarius- some of them walked a harder path to receive it; some worked all day, while others worked most of a day, or part of a day, and some worked only a small portion of the day. “Do I not have the right to do as I please with what is Mine?”

I am His, and by my submission to Him I accept that He might have a harder path for me than the one another walks. I might miss out on a promotion, or lose my job completely, so that another, perhaps one whose faith is that of a tender young shoot, who is looking for God to show His love, can be blessed. Perhaps I might be imprisoned unjustly, as Paul was, so that I can be a witness to those who are jailed with me. Perhaps there is one who’s role is to be greater than mine, and I must stumble so he or she can rise, and walk the bright path that God has placed before them. When we are called upon, some to sow seeds, some to water, while others to reap a harvest, that role may require us to accept loss along the way. My blessing, or yours, might lie in the next chapter of our lives, as it did for the workers, who received their reward ‘at the end of the day’.

And so, when I read that passage in Romans, I know in my heart that while my God will never leave me or forsake me, the “good” that I am promised there may not reach me here. Perhaps I’ll have to walk this path through to the end to receive it. But here, in this place, I am a slave, of my own free choice. An honorable position, to be sure -I have been chosen and called by the Most High God, Logos, the Creator of all that is. My job here is to serve, and to trust, and not to count the cost. His will be done, in me and through me.