God is the Ultimate Gentleman

I wasn't going to write anything heavy this week. I had my fun post and I thought that was where I would leave my writing. God, however, had a different plan as He so often does. Has anything ever kept popping up around you to the point that there was no denying it was God speaking to you? Here's what He's been saying...

God is the perfect gentleman.

Sure, we may know this and it may make perfect sense, but do we ever really think about it? God doesn't make people do things they don't want to do. (He may have them be swallowed by a huge fish to get a reality check, but He doesn't force people to do anything.) We choose salvation. It's like the ice cream truck drove up to your house and the ice cream guy said, "Hey! Do you want all the ice cream in this truck for free? Also, there is literally a never ending supply of ice cream in here and it will never give you a brain freeze." The obvious choice would be a roaring, "YES!" right? Well, some people say, "No thanks, I'm good."

The offer is extended but some people say no. Why? Well C.S. Lewis summed it up pretty well when he said this:

“It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

We aspire for so little when so much is offered. We think that anything you can make with our own hands is better than what came from the hands of the Maker. 

There is a play by Christopher Marlowe called Doctor Faustus. The titular character is the classic example of someone who has everything the world has to offer but wants more. He wants fame and he wants glory so he sells his soul to the devil. He wants to repent. He wants to turn back from his ways and cry out to God for help, but he doesn't. He feels like he has ran so far from God that he can't ask for help. 

So often lost people feel like Faustus. They feel like they have ran so far from God that they aren't even worthy of calling out His name. They would love to and they may have gotten close to crying out to the Lord, but every time they do, Satan whispers in their ear reminding them of all they've done. They don't feel worthy of coming to their Father because of what they've done. Sound familiar?

In the parable of the Prodigal Son, Jesus spelled out exactly how vast and forgiving God's love is. Like the father of the prodigal son, God rejoices when His children come home to Him. God isn't shooting you angry messages asking where you are and He isn't going to be standing there at the door to gripe at you and tell you how bad you've been. He's waiting to wrap you up in His arms, give you all the goodness He has to offer and say, "This child of mine was dead and is alive again. They were lost and are found!" 

There are so many misconceptions about God's nature that I encounter when I talk to my friends who aren't Christians, but a very common one is that He is controlling. This couldn't be any further from the truth. You see, God never forced anyone into salvation and He never forced anyone into Hell. He lets us make the choice for ourselves because His love for us is so deep. God would never make us do anything we don't want to do. 

Can you even imagine what that must be like for Him? He loves us so infinitely much that He gives us the choice to accept Him or to reject Him. I've boggled this thought around in my head for a long time and it makes me cry every time. He's God. I'm a worm on the pavement after the rain. I'm the smallest, most insignificant thing in terms of eternity, but He gives me the ultimate choice. 

God is the ultimate gentleman. He is kind. He is loving. He would never force us into doing anything we don't want to do. If we don't want to accept the gift Jesus gave us when He died on the cross we don't have to. He will be knocking on the door, but if we tell Him to go away or that we can do our lives with out Him, He will respect our wishes. He will still love us and it will hurt Him, but He will respect our wishes. 

Be the Moon

Have you ever found yourself wide awake in the middle of the night and unable to get back to sleep? For most of us, the answer to that is a resounding "Yes". When you are plagued by sleeplessness and find yourself walking about your room or house, you might notice a single bright light spilling through your window: the moon. 

Thanks, Google. This is a gorgeous shot of the moon.

When I was a little kid, my family and I were on vacation. I can't remember where to, but I distinctly remember seeing the huge Harvest Moon rising over the road just between the trees. I matter-of-fact-ly announced, "The moon is so beautiful here". I clearly didn't understand that the moon you see is always the same moon no matter where you go. (I also used to think that the moon chased the car as we drove down the road, but that is another story for another day.) The point of this is simple: God reveals His greatness to us in the simplest of ways and if we aren't listening we just might miss what He is trying to tell us. 

Fast forward from my childhood to last night. I was standing in my car port looking out at the night sky- a dark and mysterious blue canvas dotted here and there with small stars, but with nothing shining brighter than the moon. The moon was perfectly full and shone in a way so that not only was it bright, the sky around it was too. You know those moments when facts you don't often think of just pop into your head? This was one of them. All of the sudden, I remembered that the light the moon gives off isn't really light from the moon at all. Rather, the moon reflects light from the sun. I stood for a moment in awe of the moon's beauty until I finally thought: "Oh, I see now! Thanks, God." 

In and of ourselves we have no light. With Jesus in our hearts, we reflect the light of The Son- the ultimate source of light. We may try to shine apart from Him, but the cold, hard truth is this: when we try to outshine the Son, we aren't the moon. We are one of those stars barely flickering in the distance that, with light-years taken in to account, likely burned out a very long time ago. We are trying to sustain ourselves even though that is ultimately impossible. Without Christians who are willing reflect Jesus' light and to not strive to shine on their own, the world would be like a moonless night. People would stumble around aimlessly in the darkness with nothing to show them that there is a better way.  

Now, yes, the sun is a star just like all the stars in the night sky. Think about it like this, the sun is the only star in our solar system. (Hence the word "solar".) Yes, there may be other stars out there that are enticing and interesting, but the sun is our star. It is the one that makes our lives possible and without the sun we would be utterly doomed. Therefore (like how I used that, Paul fans?), the fact that the moon reflects the light of the sun is pretty awe-inspiring. Or at least I think so. 

We must be willing to first die to ourselves in order for God to make us shine brighter than we ever could have imagined. When we try to take our sparkle into our own hands, we have no light. We have nothing to separate us from the countless masses of self-seeking people who just want to see themselves shine. God has a plan for us that is for something far greater than our glory. God wants to use us to shine for His glory. The thought that He who put the Sun in the sky that makes our lives possible and sent His Son to us to save us from a life apart from Him would allow us to reflect the light of Jesus like the moon reflects the sun is a thought that is completely humbling, inspiring, and also a little terrifying if you think about it. When we endeavor to reflect Jesus in our lives, we can't take this task lightly. Our success, yes- even our failure, in doing so doesn't only impact our lives. It can potentially have an eternal consequence on those around us who are still sleepless at night looking for the light. They are searching for something that casts out the darkness. Sometimes it seems like the night is never-ending, but the light you reflect might just be what helps bring the light of Jesus into there lives.

The question is this: Are you reflecting Jesus or trying to shine on your own?