Monday, June 13, 2016
500 - A Thousand Excuses (Column No. 500)
Spirituality Column No. 500
June 14, 2016
Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary
It’s OK if you miss church once in a while.
I missed it for nearly 30 years and never once remember feeling like I needed an excuse not to go. I just didn’t go and couldn’t imagine why I should. I didn’t need the social structure, figured “higher meaning” could be found lots of places and while I knew the basic “Jesus” story I wasn’t actively believing it, seeking it or living it. Church wasn’t worth the hassle and I spent no energy conjuring excuses.
Over the last 15 years though the opposite is true; it is a rare Sunday I’m not in church and I need a pretty good excuse not to go – the Indianapolis 500 a couple weeks ago, a recent unexpected but welcome overnight family visit. It’s great not feeling a need to explain anything to anybody. God knows where we are.
Neither, I believe, is God the least bit interested in excuses.
And that’s today’s point: our entire modern, Western cultural experience revolves around and is centered on the bargains and excuses through which we negotiate our earthly lives in America’s generally free capitalistic and democratic republic. Faith, at least faith in Jesus Christ, is an ever-diminishing dynamic of our overall social economy even though Jesus is the very foundation of all human freedom.
Capitalism and politics are based on often-less-than-transparent negotiation and self-interested cooperation. You know, “the art of the deal.” Western academia has effectively eliminated the notion of divine authority, preferring private agendas and relational fashion to academic rigor grounded in God’s objective truth. Science may own the academy but offers only a veneer of technical explanation, not a depth of ultimate truth.
Consider how different our moral lives would be if our everyday default behaviors were based in truth and love rather than the prideful, bargain-hunter shallowness of temporal comforts and secular trends.
Look around and tell me if I’m wrong: the predominant American social, political, economic, intellectual and entertainment experience involves a vigorous, excuse-laden negotiation for earthly comforts, not the humble pursuit of a relationship with God.
My long-time aversion to religion, I finally realized, was seated in my unwillingness to surrender not just Sunday mornings to church but my entire life, love, trust and aspirations to the Gospel truth of Jesus Christ. Jesus flies in the face of practically everything else we hold dear; because everything else is about me.
That’s sinful self-centeredness, not an excuse.
The Gospel calls to something as small as any one of us, but points to something as big as God. Earthly aspirations are trifle by comparison.
What’s your excuse for not thinking as big as God?
Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) recommends trusting God, not negotiating with Him.
June 14, 2016
Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary
A Thousand Excuses
By Bob WaltersIt’s OK if you miss church once in a while.
I missed it for nearly 30 years and never once remember feeling like I needed an excuse not to go. I just didn’t go and couldn’t imagine why I should. I didn’t need the social structure, figured “higher meaning” could be found lots of places and while I knew the basic “Jesus” story I wasn’t actively believing it, seeking it or living it. Church wasn’t worth the hassle and I spent no energy conjuring excuses.
Over the last 15 years though the opposite is true; it is a rare Sunday I’m not in church and I need a pretty good excuse not to go – the Indianapolis 500 a couple weeks ago, a recent unexpected but welcome overnight family visit. It’s great not feeling a need to explain anything to anybody. God knows where we are.
Neither, I believe, is God the least bit interested in excuses.
And that’s today’s point: our entire modern, Western cultural experience revolves around and is centered on the bargains and excuses through which we negotiate our earthly lives in America’s generally free capitalistic and democratic republic. Faith, at least faith in Jesus Christ, is an ever-diminishing dynamic of our overall social economy even though Jesus is the very foundation of all human freedom.
Capitalism and politics are based on often-less-than-transparent negotiation and self-interested cooperation. You know, “the art of the deal.” Western academia has effectively eliminated the notion of divine authority, preferring private agendas and relational fashion to academic rigor grounded in God’s objective truth. Science may own the academy but offers only a veneer of technical explanation, not a depth of ultimate truth.
Consider how different our moral lives would be if our everyday default behaviors were based in truth and love rather than the prideful, bargain-hunter shallowness of temporal comforts and secular trends.
Look around and tell me if I’m wrong: the predominant American social, political, economic, intellectual and entertainment experience involves a vigorous, excuse-laden negotiation for earthly comforts, not the humble pursuit of a relationship with God.
My long-time aversion to religion, I finally realized, was seated in my unwillingness to surrender not just Sunday mornings to church but my entire life, love, trust and aspirations to the Gospel truth of Jesus Christ. Jesus flies in the face of practically everything else we hold dear; because everything else is about me.
That’s sinful self-centeredness, not an excuse.
The Gospel calls to something as small as any one of us, but points to something as big as God. Earthly aspirations are trifle by comparison.
What’s your excuse for not thinking as big as God?
Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) recommends trusting God, not negotiating with Him.
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