"He gave them over..."

I'm having a great morning so far today. I'm currently in a hotel lobby in South Carolina while my road trip buddy is still asleep in the room. I woke up, had a great (and free) breakfast, read Romans 1, and now grabbed my computer because God gave me this really cool thought...even though I'm only running on 3 1/2 hours of sleep. And it's never a bad time to blog :)

The reason that I'm really excited about this particular post is because it's not really about any events in my own life. I can relate to something, I'm sure. But this post is more about the nature of God, which is what our whole life's story is really about anyway. So as I was going through Romans 1, I came across verse 24, "Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another" (emphasis added). It didn't hit me at first, but then I came across verse 28, ""Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done" (emphasis added). Hmmm..."he gave them over". What does that say about God's nature?

We obviously live in a fallen world. Life can treat us badly, and often unfairly (which is kind of false because we don't deserve fairness anyway). But even though we live in this fallen world, we have hope because we know that God is a good God and is a God of love and mercy. But there's the ever-popular quandry...why does God allow suffering in this world? Why does God allow people to go to hell? How can God be a God of love and at the same time be a God of wrath and justice? You see, these verses showed me something about God today.

When I read these verses, I thought a lot about the many unsaved people that I know and encounter. I would venture to say that a lot of people I know believe there's a God, but just never really studied Him or just don't believe He's powerful enough to do all of the things the Bible says He can do. Many of the same people find the Bible errant or contradictory, and would likely present verses like these as arguments. Granted, I'm naturally a skeptic too, and that's why I want to explore this. But I don't see this as a contradiction at all, and here's why. Yes, God is a God of love, peace, wrath, and justice...this is all His nature. We are his loved children (Beloved, now are we the sons of God - 1 John 3:2...among many other verses), we are holy in God's sight (In the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight - Colossians 1:22). But that's what we are...we are children, and that will always be our place. We are not the Father. We are not perfect, we are only perfected through the work of Christ (ref. my previous blog post). So that is our place in this whole picture...we are under God fully. He is eternal, we're only here for an extremely short period of time in the realm of eternal.

There are places all over the Bible where God "gave them over", "them" meaning anyone...those that followed him and those that didn't and don't. "But God turned away and gave them over to the worship of the heavenly bodies. This agrees with what is written in the book of the prophets: "'Did you bring me sacrifices and offerings forty years in the desert, O house of Israel?'" - Acts 7:42. "So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts to follow their own devices." - Psalm 81:12. Why? Why does a loving God do this? Now think about this...what do you think would happen to us if we abandoned God? That our lives would go WELL? Yeah I don't think so. In most of these instances where God gives people over to evil, they begin to worship false idols. God loves us so much that He gets angry with us when this happens ("For thou shalt worship no other god: for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God" - Exodus 34:14). That would be like me calling another married couple "mom and dad" just because I don't want to follow my own parents direction. They love me...I'm their son, and they would be upset if I were to do that. But we do it all the time when we put anything in the place where God should be. So even though God is still a loving God, he disciplines us by "giving us over" to sin.

And many people think this is unfair of God or just wrong of him to do. But is it really? I've said it before, God has made us with a free will, and He wants us to FREELY choose Him, not because He makes us come to Him. God is perfect and unapproachable ("And he said, Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live." - Exodus 33:20), but He still loves us so much and He desires us that he presents us the opportunity through Christ to come to Him ("Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need." - Hebrews 4:16). This is God's love, and it's free. We think God is unfair. Yeah right. Why do we think we deserve something good from God? The only thing we deserve from abandoning an all-perfect and all-loving God is a one-way trip to hell. The reason God gives us over to our sinful desires is to give us an opportunity to come freely to Him. Not because He wants us to suffer, but because He knows who He is, and He knows the joy that only He can provide to us. But we have to seek it, we can't just expect it from God after we abandoned His love. Plain and simple, bad things happen when we don't keep God in our lives.

Sometimes I hear unsaved people jokingly scoff by saying, "Where is your God NOW?" I know where my God is all the time. And everyone would too if they chose to seek rather than scoff. God doesn't punish us unjustly...He gives us over to sinful desires and struggles so that we learn just how desperately we need Him. When we live in a comfortable house and have had most things provided for you (like I've had most of my life), it's easy to think that we're just fine without God. And it may seem like we're doing okay right now. But it's not the case...we desperately need God now, and we DEFINITELY desperately need God later. So when you face struggles and old sins, don't blame. Don't whine. Don't scoff. But seek God...because that's what He wants. How fortunate we are that God brings us down to size so that we can be PERFECT through Him.

Father, sometimes I don't understand your ways. I complain when I go through trials. I wonder why I end up in the same old places I've been before. But your Word is truth, and you've allowed me the ability to read you've said rather than mindlessly having it spoon-fed to me. Through everything endure, in the fight to carry on, help me to stand and face the rain because your Word says it will make me stronger. Thank you for allowing me freely into your presence, even though I don't deserve it. And may these words be yours for your own glory, and may these words reach the hearts of others reading. It's your story Father...not mine. Amen.

Perfection: far and near

Once again, it's been way too long since I blogged. And since I have the next 6 days off of work, what better time than the present! Thank you to all who read...it really means more to me than you'll ever know.

Tonight after volleyball, I stayed much later than I normally do to do something I haven't done in a very long time. Back when I still lived in Halifax, I used to take bike rides to the local elementary school, because it was the only place in that desolate town that I could find a basketball hoop lol. I used to go there, sit on the swing set and pray, and focus my mind by practicing my free throws. It wasn't a true foul shot, since the rim was only about 6 feet tall, but it sufficed. So tonight I took a breather from life. I continued taking shots long after everyone had left, and while I was shooting I got a really awesome parallel from God.

Free throws are an interesting beast in basketball. It's somewhat similar to pitching in baseball, in a way. Pretty much everyone, more or less, knows how to throw a ball. I know with athletic people like myself, we practice throwing to the point where it becomes comfortable and natural to us. Whenever you watch baseball players, their throws are smooth, seamless, and seemingly effortless. But when you watch a pitcher, they don't just throw a ball. Pitchers take some of the craziest motions just to get the ball to the plate, myself included. Same goes with free throws. Again most people, more or less, know how to shoot a basketball. But watch that same player when he/she gets to the free throw line. They may take about 15-20 seconds just to shoot the ball, after a series of spinning the ball off the ground, spinning it in their hand, dribbling very precisely a certain number of times, shooting fast/slow, and so on. They get all the time in the world to focus on their one shot where no one is guarding them. Even though they're shooting a 15-foot shot, it's one of the easiest shots in basketball. Or, logically, one would think.

So since it's so easy to shoot free throws, especially if you've practiced them for a long time and are good at them, it can be understandable to get frustrated after missing one. Everything becomes methodical about the shot. Myself, I have a VERY specific technique shooting free throws. I spin the ball off the ground once, dribble twice, spin the ball in both hands, bend at the knees, then look up at the rim as I'm becoming upright, and take my shot, ending on my tiptoes and taking 1 or 2 steps back, and as all of this is going on I also inhale and exhale 3 times, for no other reason than it's just my comfort area and that's what I do. It's very machine-like, and I don't divert from it. Yet occasionally, I miss the mark. Just a bit to the left, just a bit deep or short, or it just doesn't get that lucky bounce.

Well, tonight something happened. I was shooting while people were still there, and was shooting very well...it seemed like everything was falling. Then took a short break to talk to the last person there before she left, then got back to shooting. But when I got back to shooting, something was off. One miss. Then another. Three in a row. Uh oh. And these weren't "just barely" misses...I was missing pretty badly. It was then I did something I'm not used to. Typically I get frustrated if something goes wrong and I let it get ahold of my better judgment. But this time I took a step back. I breathed deeply. I closed my eyes, prayed, and focused. Next shot, another miss. No, I won't get frustrated...just breathe, focus, clear the mind. Next shot rattled in. Then another. And then another. Shortly I was swishing my shots. Ahh...back to normal.

In the middle of my misses, a verse popped into my head. No idea where it came from, so it must have come from God because it really helped me. "Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God." - Psalm 43:5, NIV. I think I saw this on someone's Facebook status (kudos for posting, whoever you are, it helped me). But since I don't have the full verse memorized, the only part that popped in my head was "Why are you downcast, O my soul?" But what a blessing this was to hear this verse. My soul has been VERY downcast lately. I had the blessing of talking with Bill last night, and shared with him all the things that I've been struggling with. I feel empty, like I haven't been fulfilling God's calling for me and that I've strayed from the righteous path. But I took this verse like the question that it is: why are you downcast, O my soul? Why? Well...I don't know. I don't really have any reason to be. So then the command: Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God. My shot was veering to the left and right of the hoop, even airballing. I stepped back and prayed and focused, and my shot became true.

And it was right after this that the main thought of this post hit me. Perfection. I'm certainly not perfect, far from it. But the thought that hit me was, "I don't have to be perfect, God is already perfect FOR me!" You see the parallel...no matter if I missed my shot or made it, God is still perfect despite my distance from perfection. Sometimes in life we stray to the left or the right. We know the mark we want to achieve, but something we aren't always the straightest arrow shot from the quiver. We veer, we stray, we fall, we mess up. Doesn't matter...God's still perfect. But you see, there's a tricky verse that Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." - Matthew 5:48. Uh oh. BE perfect? Well, the standard has been set for us. The context of this verse is the entirety of Matthew 5. Jesus lists all of the commands that we should be following, and doesn't give us an excuse to not follow them. So then following all of these things, this will make us perfect? "But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away" - Isaiah 64:6. Oops, so all of our good deeds are worth nothing then, so how do we become perfect? "The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'" - Matthew 25:40.

How do we become perfect? The only way possible is to commune with the only one who IS already perfect, God. I can't tell you the peace I felt tonight when it was just me and God in the gym, practicing my free throws. I was with the Father and He was with me. The only way we stray from the righteous path is simply a lack of communion with God. We define sin as that action which separates us from God. Sinlessness is perfection, therefore the only way to be perfect is to deliberately and desperately commune with Perfection Himself, God. When we are separated from Him, we are in sin. Everyone needs alone time with God...this is why it's so stressed upon and so important, because we're not going to get true communion with God otherwise (dear future me, I'm talking to YOU. Take note.) Why are you downcast, O my soul? I've separated myself from God. I have yet to meet a person that is TRULY happy while staying separate from God. We live in a world full of broken promises and shattered lives. Don't tell me for one second that you're happy without God (now I'm talking to others). Dare to truly analyze your heart, and only then try to tell me that you're happy without God...but I still won't believe it. I'm an absolute disaster area without God in my life. I am so far from perfect, but I am near to the One who IS perfect, which makes me perfect. Complete. Whole. I'm not talking about morals in this thing. I'm talking about being as we once were. God used to walk around in the garden with us! THAT is perfection, being as we were MEANT to be! God creates us sinless, with a free will, in full communion with Him. Then Adam sinned, and now we are force to be separated from Him until we accept Jesus as savior. I know some people don't like the term "saved" because they don't think they need to be rescued. Well fine, then think of it as, God's just that freaking awesome. So don't get "saved", get "God's just that freaking awesome", and you'll come to realize the sin you're in and the perfection and completeness that you can only find in God. God doesn't expect us to not sin, because we're not God. I know I mess up...and every time I do I have to battle back to get on the right path again. But the only way to do that is to surrender my efforts to God and begin to commune with Him. God fills me up every time..."O taste and see that the LORD is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in him." - Psalm 34:8. Don't think for one second that your life is good without God. As the verse says, taste and see just how good God is. He's not just a hard-nosed fun-sucking rule-driver...He's my Father, and your's too. Go to Him...He's waiting with a complete life you've never imagined before.

Tonight my shot became true. At the end of my shooting session, I took a few shots with my eyes closed. Missed the first 2, swished the next 2. Even blind, God still guided my shot. Even blind, God still guides my future. I will most likely stray again, but God is always waiting with open arms to complete me. What a great God we have.

"While I live will I praise the LORD: I will sing praises unto my God while I have any being." - Psalm 146:2