Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from a religious conviction.
When I try to think about why we perpetuate this, all I can think is that it has to do with the human limits that we would like to put on God in our attempts to further our own understanding of Him, and this is not an understanding brought to us by His revelation of Himself, a thing gifted into our acknowledged spiritual poverty. Rather this is an understanding we seek to garner for ourselves, thereby making ourselves His equal. Why do we limit God this way? Why can't we just trust Him? In fact, why can't we even see ourselves doing this? For instance, is it not easy to "play God" as we read verses like the following and promptly designate a "player" for each part that is being honored or condemned? More importantly, couldn't someone else read the same verse, taking the same people we called "righteous" and "wicked" and reverse them in his own reading? How can this be??
- He who covers a transgression seeks love,
But he who repeats a matter separates friends. - An evil man seeks only rebellion;
Therefore a cruel messenger will be sent against him. - Whoever rewards evil for good,
Evil will not depart from his house. - He who justifies the wicked, and he who condemns the just,
Both of them alike are an abomination to the Lord. - He who has knowledge spares his words,
And a man of understanding is of a calm spirit.
God made me laugh the other day in an interpretation He gave me from His word for a strange dream I had in which I wandered around doing the work He gave me totally naked but for a pair of shoes. I was self-conscious about my lack of attire, but oddly no one else in the dream seemed to notice I only wore shoes. And in the end, because I'd been faithful to the work I was given, I received an even better pair of shoes...but still no clothes. (He's often playful with me like this...making me shake my head while He chuckles gleefully.) Soon, He showed me a purpose in this imagery, it was a way of calling me beautiful...His words say:
Sgs 7:1
How beautiful are thy feet with shoes, O prince's daughter!
If you read the rest of that chapter, the woman being described is described in minute detail, and could easily be bare, but for her sandals. She is being admired for her loveliness. But it took me a while to see the dream through this verse, to "receive" this message from it.
What's more, don't we picture glamorous glittering sandals showing off the beauty of her feet as she moves when we read this verse? But I've been walking around in an orthopedic boot meant to immobilize my ankle due to some tendon irritation caused by a bone spur. So here as I limp along like a pirate with a peg leg--this is His time for giving me the sense of the verse and of the dream. (And if you've done any back-reading in this blog, you'll know why the boot is indeed making my foot lovely in His economy.)
It makes me think, what if Samuel hadn't been ready to see beauty and the call of God outside the obvious? What if he hadn't asked Jesse, "Isn't there another son besides these seven you present to me?" How would David have become king? I think more now than ever, we leave our Davids out in the field and forget they may be chosen kings. Or send them to battle as errand boys, all the while missing that they are God's chosen warriors. Why do we do this? Why do we spend all our energies comparing ourselves to each other while ignoring those who have not yet attained any Christian-world status except in the pond of God's say-so (a pond many don't see anymore anyway as they're busy trying to decide whether to be big fish in little ponds or little fish in big ones...ya-da, ya-da, ya-da.)
I think Tozer speaks well about what leads to these errors:
An infinite God can give all of Himself to each of His children. He does not distribute Himself that each may have a part, but to each one He gives all of Himself as fully as if there were no others.
And the bottom line is: as humans we simply can't copy this relationship potential. We as parents can love our children individually and without preference, but we can't give ourselves with that "100% available to everyone" margin. Eventually, one of our children is going to get sick and need adjustments to be made, adjustments that come from time and attention that might have gone to another of our children.
Thank goodness God judges the hearts, because underneath it all He sees that for many who appear cruel in their judgment, the seeming cruelty springs from a heart's desire to be deeply special to his Creator. Still, in our limited vision we have a tendency to want to put God in a box so we can comprehend Him on that level. We want to "know" what it means to be acceptable to Him, and we measure it by how acceptable we think others are to Him and whether we'd be acceptable to Him in the same circumstances. So we lapse back into debates about eating meat sacrificed to idols without knowing it.
The bottom line, I believe, is that this relationship of preferencial equality in the eyes of our God, this is a thing we can never really understand in this lifetime, we can only trust He speaks truth when He says He can fully love us and fully love the ones who hurt us. He can give that love with equity, yet without a stain to our dignity. This we can not emulate, so we can not really comprehend it--at least not that I've seen, but I pray for it to become more real to me with each passing day.
For now I walk according to this: no matter what my "opinion" of another person, I will myself to interact with him or her and intercede in prayer while bearing in mind what Tozer said: that You have given Yourself to that person as fully as if I did not exist, as if that person were the only one for You. This is my surest way to commune with Your purpose on behalf of another. But how often will we pray in this manner? Lord, make me able.
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