Monday, June 29, 2020
711 - Gimme Shelter, Part 3
Spirituality Column #711
June 30, 2020
Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary
Gimme Shelter, Part 3
By Bob Walters
“Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest
in the shadow of the Almighty … ‘The Lord is my refuge’…” Psalms 91:1,9
Earlier this month I enjoyed reading the book Jesus
Skeptic by John S. Dickerson about how “big” Jesus is.
Dickerson, pastor at Connection Point Christian Church west
of Indianapolis, was an investigative journalist who, ala Lee Strobel (The
Case for Christ, et all), turned his reporter’s skills not so much onto whether
Jesus is real – He is – but on whether Jesus is the most important,
influential, and consequential figure in all human history.
Knowing little about Dickerson when I first picked up the
book (didn’t know he was a pastor), his beliefs were not immediately obvious. So I looked toward the book’s last section
wondering if I would be reading a believer’s account or more of an atheist /
skeptic’s polemic. Relieved to see that
Dickerson had the theology right, I could relax and enjoy the book rather than
debating in my head everything he said.
I do that.
I thought Dickerson admirably proved his case for the
breadth, spread, and enormity of Jesus’s impact on humanity and history
regardless whether one is a Christian, of another faith, or really not a believer
of anything at all. It reminded me of
the Rick Mears tribute story I started the series with (#709) about what it
felt like to encounter in my working life the feeling of being a part of
something bigger than myself. Then last
week in Part 2 we went into some detail about the mistake of making Jesus and
Christianity “all about me” when in truth and practice, it must be all about
Him.
Our human purpose – the lone “life’s purpose” that makes
ultimate, final, and eternal sense – is the combined ethic of glorifying God by
believing in Jesus and loving others. That is the Great Big Thing that shelters us
and is our refuge if we just accept it.
We are free – it is a God-ordained, Jesus-proven fact of our existence –
to create and pursue for better or worse any earthly, self-directed “purpose”
to which our desires, fears, greed, pride, passions, strengths, weaknesses,
appetites, and aspirations may lead us.
Why freedom? Because
love cannot be coerced. If we are to
love God and others fully in the Holy Spirit, we must discover in our own heart
the freedom to love and then cleave to it in our own faith, hope, and actions.
That’s the part that’s “all about me,” but also about something way, way bigger
than me because it embraces the Holy Spirit.
This divine freedom and bigness is a fairly simple truth
with enormously complex implications: What shall I do with my life? How shall I love? How shall I be brave in the storm? What must I give to – and demand from – humanity? What is God’s will for me?
This challenging age – every age – includes the inner and
eternal shelter and refuge of God’s righteousness, truth, trustworthiness, and
faithfulness. In this week when we
celebrate God’s freedoms bestowed on this nation two centuries ago in a
brilliant statement of independence from man’s tyranny, let us neither assert,
cheer, nor fear the many snares attendant to our present time.
With courage and God’s shelter, let us cherish the bigness
of trusting Christ.
Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) prays Psalm 91 as defense against demons. Amen.
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