An air about us that our way of thinking is automatically right.
Nothing could be less like Jesus.
I am sure of this because I did harm to others--in the name of Jesus--with my certainty-seeking model of faith.*
I am somehow able to leap into things of faith. I was so desperate for God's help in so many ways, even from childhood, that I decided that the whole Bible-God-Jesus-Holy Spirit thing was automatically true. I fell into evangelical fervor with the best of them.
It has taken me decades to understand that my certainty on everything that evangelicals stand for was a complete turn-off to onlookers wondering if Jesus was for them. Teacher-types have a death-grip on certainty as it is; it is what we think we need to convince our students to buy whatever we are selling.
The father of my children is an amazing intellectual. He used to ask me, "How can you be so sure of your faith?"
My weak, completely ineffectual answer, "I just know."
How can anyone move forward with that? Interestingly, God has set me on this now decades-long journey to investigate only in ways that are replicable. Jen Hatmaker says nothing is truly of the kingdom of God unless it can be true for every person and every region of the world. Replicated. Done here in such a way that it can be done there.
So what is replicable? What posture can Christ-followers adopt that would encourage others to join us?
Hard-core evangelicals are fighting the postmodern culture because it demands more of them. It is asking hard questions that we've never been required to grapple with. We have stayed cozy inside our like-minded church venues with people who are sure of everything just like we are. Like I was.
I am no longer sure of anything except that Christ was crucified for me, for you, for everyone. That cornerstone of the kingdom of God is true for every person and every region of the world. It is the Cornerstone.
When my teacher-type personality simply rests with this tenet, then my focus is reigned into love, forgiveness, and allowing God to run my life. He runs a very different show than the one hosted by my evangelical fervor. 1 John 2:
Practically everything that goes on in the world--wanting your own way, wanting everything for yourself, wanting to appear important--has nothing to do with the Father. It just isolates you from him. The world and all its wanting, wanting, wanting is on its way out--but whoever does what God wants is set for eternity.I wanted you to jump into my evangelical certainty without challenge. Nowadays, my opinion and evangelical beliefs that I once feverishly pitched are becoming more and more aligned with the breadth and depth of the Living God--I don't need to know everything because he does, and I need to take seriously his commands to simply love and serve. That is who Jesus was in his time on earth. He loved and served, reserving his harshness for those who were sure they already had it right because it fit their set-in-concrete paradigm.
That is the idol of certainty--the worship of our rightness and our bristling toward any attempt to imagine, ponder, hope, doubt, investigate, listen, read, open up to God as being more than our evangelical packaging can embrace.
Again, from yesterday, God's definition of maturity (Romans 15):
God wants the combination of his steady, constant calling and warm, personal counsel in Scripture to come to characterize us, keeping us alert to whatever he will do next.We can't be ready for what he is going to do next if we already know for "certain" everything there is to know about God and his way in this world.
I await, letting God do his "next" everyday, just wanting to accompany him to love and serve and watch as people are drawn to the glow and rescue of Jesus.
That is more than enough for me.
Thank you, God, for alerting me to my idol worship of certainty. Please forgive me and rescue those I may have harmed. Help me only live and teach that which you show me is next.
*Gregory A. Boyd, Benefit of the Doubt:Breaking the Idol of Certainty.
Jen Hatmaker: Explore God--"Does Life Have a Purpose" (podcast 9/8/13).
Tomorrow: Alcohol and Visiting Venues
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