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December 24, 2006

My church really bugs me. So what do I do?

Do you ever get impatient with your church? Or with church in general? I do. I struggle with church. I don’t like churches that have no depth or sense of purpose in them, beyond making their own members feel good. Nor do I like churches that have no idea what they are supposed to be doing. That includes a great many of the churches I have encountered. I have patience neither with self-centered churches nor self-centered people, especially when they profess to be Christians.

I especially struggle with my present congregation. The greatest portion of the “members” — we don’t have formal membership — are about 30, give or take a little. And all of the leadership — paid staff, elders, “advisory council” — are in that age bracket. The music — loud — is focused on that group, and most of the activities are, too. The men of the church are, as I write, having a fine social time together — playing dodgeball at a local school gym.

I am sixty-four years old. Get the picture?

This bugs me somewhat, but where I get really impatient is with people of any age who hop from one church to another, never satisfied, always seeking a church that “meets my needs.” For many Americans, the most important task of church is to meet their “needs.”

This idea is profoundly wrong. There are legitimate reasons to leave a church. However, Americans pride ourselves on being “rugged individualists.” It’s almost like we are a nation of Lone Rangers. But God didn’t create us to be some sort of independent unit, floating in aloneness through space. He created us needing each other. There are no Lone Rangers in the kingdom of God.

This morning, I saw a blurb in a magazine, about a 2004 study showing that one in four Americans had no close friends, nobody in whom they could confide on important matters.

I’m surprised. I am surprised that it’s not far worse than one in four. We live in a highly fragmented society, one that encourages shallowness, not depth, and I would have thought many more of us would live lives of aloneness, of “solitary desperation.”

Sadly, I have to include myself in that number of essentially friendless people. I have only a few friends at any level, and almost no really close ones. I can think of only one, and he lives hundreds of miles away. That makes it hard to get together for lunch. And certainly, I have to include myself among those whose “needs” are not met at my church. Of course, that assumes I have any idea what my real needs are.

So, what should I do about all that? What do I do about the twin problems of frustration and loneliness? Leave my church? Find a more “compatible” church? That's the "American way." Clearly, I am not in a place that seems in my best interest, right? Wrong.

I have noticed something unpleasant about the world, something I dislike: The way this world works is that “me” and “my needs” don't matter in any real scheme of things. I want to be important, to matter. But the world doesn’t care about me. Life is not about me. Even my life.

That sounds cold, and it is. I don’t like it. But it’s the truth. So what do I do?

There is only one place where I matter, one person who genuinely understands and cares about my needs. I matter to God, and my needs -- my real needs -- are met when I live in his presence.

So I remain in my church, staying put for one reason: I think it’s where God wants me. And that's the only thing that should matter. It has nothing to do with anything like my “needs.” I don’t even know what my needs are. That sometimes makes others around me a little crazy, but that’s the way it is. I am there in obedience to God’s voice, as well as I can understand it.

I am not there for myself but to worship and serve God among his people, and to share with others whatever gifts God has given me.

So does our church have problems? Sure does. And am I frustrated about them? Don’t even get me started on that! But am I there for my own happiness? Does it matter that I am frustrated? No and yes.

My frustration can be a good thing, as long as I maintain perspective: I am not there for me. I am there because God put me there to be a channel of his grace and truth. I am there to “be Jesus” to some others, to know God and to teach others to know him, too.

As I am obedient and faithful to the voice of God in whatever situation He puts me, my “needs” will certainly and abundantly be met. I will be blessed, I will grow in my relationship with him, and I will have a fruitful life.

But let’s face it, I will still be frustrated. And that’s good: People who are never frustrated are likely to be satisfied with the status quo, and never experience that inner burning for more of God working in and through us for our benefit and his glory.

And being satisfied with only a little of God is never a good thing.

Amen.

Posted by Larry Baden at 03:24 PM | Comments (4)

December 23, 2006

The night my brother shot at me

As you might reasonably expect in keeping with our superior status, Dean – my brother, two years younger – and I lived in our own private domain. We were, after all, the first and second of seven. Our domain was strictly off limits to any of our brothers, under threat of serious pain.

We were poor growing up. Money was hard to come by, but we were resourceful, and Dean and I had accumulated a small arsenal of rifles, pistols, and other assorted weaponry in the room we shared. I was, at the time, in junior high school, probably seventh or eighth grade.

I hesitate to say we actually lived in a room, because in fact we lived in the attic. It was not a “room in the attic,” just an unfinished attic, with an area of floor so we didn’t fall through the ceiling of the room below. It was above the insulation level, so it was very hot in the summer, and very cold in the winter. In fact, one winter morning we woke up to find our turtle, who lived in a fishbowl, had overnight been frozen in a block of ice.

Our closet was a pipe hung from the open rafters by wire. We had a bed for Dean, a mattress on the floor for me, and a desk. I think perhaps we had a small chest of drawers, too. For summer ventilation, we opened the window by twisting a couple nails aside. They held the window in the opening in the wall, and we pulled the entire window out of the wall and placed it on the floor, leaving a framed hole in the wall. Nice ventilation.

For heat in winter, we… well, the truth is, we were cold a lot. We did not live in luxury, but we liked it, because it was our place, and nobody bothered us up there.

The reason is evident: To get “up there,” we had to go into my parents’ bedroom, into their closet, and climb up a vertical ladder through a trap door into the attic. This door was fairly large, about 3 feet by 4 feet, fairly heavy, and hinged on one side. It stayed open, propped against a post at the foot of Dean’s bed. Usually.

One time we were up there, Dean tinkering with something, and me laying on his bed, reading a book. We heard a noise in the closet below, and it sounded too stealthy to be Mom or Dad. After a moment, I reached out with my foot and quietly gave the trap door a shove.

BAM!

There was a very loud noise when it slammed shut. As it turned out, the BAM! happened just above the head of another brother, Tom, who was sneaking up to explore. I think he had to go change his pants. Fortunately, he was a bit slow, or he would have had a fractured skull. Or worse.

But perhaps my most vivid memory of that place was the evening Dean shot at me.

Before you think badly of him, I assure you it was not his intent to shoot me. He scared the pee out of both me and himself -- we both thought at first that I was on my way to the happy hunting ground -- but he didn’t do it maliciously. Let me explain.

I was at the desk by the window, reading, and Dean was sitting on his bed, just feet behind me, messing around with his collection of old rifle cartridges. He had picked them up individually in our frequent wandering in the mountains. We were in what we called the “hills” a lot, camping, shooting, skinny dipping, and generally messing around. And of course, when we came across something interesting, like an old knife or a cartridge, we picked it up and brought it home. It joined our collection of useless but cool objects. All boys are required to have such a collection, of course. I still own one such knife.

For some reason that must have made sense to him then, he was taking the cartridges one at a time, putting them in a 22-caliber, single-shot rifle, and pulling the trigger. Normally, one would expect a certain and predictable result from these actions. Normally, there was a loud bang followed by some potentially unpleasant consequences, especially if one was indoors. Our parents had, in fact, strongly discouraged such practices.

But Dean had tested each of the cartridges many times outside, so he was just going through the motions, just messing around. He knew they wouldn’t fire, and so did I. I am not sure to this day why he was even doing it.

So I was caught up In my book, paying no attention to him when, suddenly, very close behind me and to my left, BOOM!

Immediately, I became aware that my right arm hurt and I saw that it had a red liquid substance on it. I looked over my shoulder, and Dean was sitting there with his mouth agape and his eyes bugged out. I don't think he was breathing, but I'm not certain. His old cartridge –- misfiring on perhaps 10 tries before -– had fired, and the bullet had missed my head by perhaps the width of my hand.

We sat silently for a bit, waiting for our pulse rates to drop below a thousand, and for the inevitable stampede of my parents up the ladder. We knew what would happen. “What’s going on up there? What was that noise?” And then, it would become a very bad day.

But...silence. No stampede. Just silence. Nothing. Turns out the entire family was in the basement, watching television, and heard nothing. Whew! There is a God in heaven, and he really does love us!
As we surveyed the situation, I realized the pain I felt in my right arm was real enough, but was caused by an array of small pieces of glass, not a bullet.

The blood was both real and mine, but it was mixed with a considerable amount of red liquid shoe polish. It seems that there was a bottle of such polish on the window sill, and the bullet had flown through it, shattering it, before striking a nail and shattering itself.

So I had some glass in my arm, nothing serious, but it hurt and looked like a real wound. I had to do something, and so when I was sure the coast was clear, I quietly went down to the bathroom and washed my arm off with soap and water. The glass came out and the bleeding stopped, and I considered that was all the medical help I needed, since anything more would involve my parents. For a while I wore only long-sleeved shirts, until the cuts healed, and I thought of a plausible explanation of the scabs for Mom.

Dean and I were shaken, but we recovered fast, and began to think it was a little funny, too. Knowing I was going to live, and more importantly that we were undiscovered, considerably brightened our mood. So we began to figure out how to get all of our “good” shirts cleaned, because the shattered bottle had also sprayed red polish on one side of our clothes – shirts, mostly – hanging from the pipe.
We solved the problem by wearing two shirts to school. One – the “bloody” one – we dropped off at the dry cleaners, and paid for it with our lunch money. This lasted for some weeks.

Dean and I were very good at keeping secrets, especially when our wellbeing was involved, and nobody in the family found out, until about 30 years later.

We were all together then, my brothers and I, gathered for some family occasion. Mom was there, too, enjoying her now grown boys. I think she was also enjoying a far more sane and simple life since we were no longer living in her house.

Dean and I were in the kitchen, alone, laughing and talking about the shooting. It was much funnier after 30 years. Mom heard us laughing, came in and asked what was so funny. We looked at each other, shrugged, and said, “Sit down, Mom. We want to tell you a story.” And with great mirth and merriment, we told her about the shooting.

She sat silently for a moment afterwards, then said, without a smile, “If you know any other stories like that, I don’t want to hear them.” And she left the room.

Well, Mom, we thought, if you can’t stand the answer, don’t ask the question! But we never told her more stories. She died years later in her old age, blissfully unaware of the real world of her boys.

Posted by Larry Baden at 04:12 PM | Comments (3)

December 22, 2006

Is there a Santa Claus? A scientific analysis

1. No known species of reindeer can fly. However, there are 300,000 species of living organisms yet to be classified, and while most of these are insects and germs, this does not completely rule out flying reindeer which only Santa has seen.

2. There are an estimated 2 billion children (persons under 18) in the world. But since Santa doesn’t – apparently – handle the Muslim, Hindu, Jewish and Buddhist children, that reduces the workload to 15% of the total – a mere 378 million, according to the Population Census Bureau. At an average (census) rate of 3.5 children per household, that’s 91.8 million homes. One presumes there is at least one good child to each home.

3. Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west, which seems logical. This works out to 822.6 visits per second. This is to say that for each ‘Christian’ household with good children, Santa has 1/1000th of a second to park, hop out of the sleigh, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left, get back up the chimney, get into the sleigh, and move on to the next house.

Assuming that these 91,800,000 stops are evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false, but which for purposes of our calculations we will accept), we are now talking about .76 miles per household, a total trip of 75,500,000 miles, not counting stops to do what most of us must do at least once every 31 hours. This means that Santa’s sled is moving at 650 miles per second, 3,000 times faster than the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man-made vehicle, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second. A conventional reindeer can run, tops, 15 miles per hour.

4. The payload on the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium-sized Lego set (2 pounds), the sleigh is carrying 321,300 tons, not counting Santa, who is invariably described as overweight. On land, conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting the ability of ‘flying reindeer’ (see point 1) to pull perhaps ten times the normal amount, we cannot do the job with eight or even nine. We need more. Actually, we need 214,191 more, or a total of 214,200 reindeer. This increases the payload – not counting the weight of the sleigh – to 353,420 tons. Again, for comparison, this is four times the weight of the ocean liner Queen Elizabeth.

5. This 353,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance, which will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as spacecraft re-entering the earth’s atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer will absorb 14,300,000,000,000,000,000 (14.3 quintillion) joules of energy. Per second. Each. In short, they will almost instantaneously burst into flames, exposing the reindeer behind them, who will repeat the process, and they will also create deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire reindeer team will be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second. Santa, meanwhile, will be subjected to acceleration forces 17,500.06 times greater than gravity. A 250-pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of his sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force.

In conclusion, if Santa ever did deliver presents on Christmas Eve, he’s dead now.

Posted by Larry Baden at 02:35 PM | Comments (0)

December 19, 2006

Announcement: New Discussion Forum Unleashed!

Greetings Boy, Girls and Illuminati!

We're happy to announce the opening of a new Theology Discussion Forum. The prior forum has been completely cleaned out and we started from scratch. Our trained moderators are standing by to help with any discussions you may want to join or start.

You can find the New Discussion Forum Here!

Enjoy!

Posted by sdf at 05:40 PM | Comments (0)

December 18, 2006

The day I learned to ride a bike

I guess a lot of my young life was not that different from other boys. However, I did live in the mountains of Colorado in my early years, and that perhaps made some difference.

For instance, waking up to the sound of a cow, and seeing a herd of cattle out the bedroom window, grazing in the yard. The ranchers in our area let their cows run loose. Another was knowing that the our “play ground” was haunted by rattlesnakes and mountain lions. That scared the snot out of our sissy relatives who came to visit – Eastern city folks – but we kids didn’t much care. We were, after all, bullet proof, like all boys.

And speaking of relatives, the summer when I was 16, one of Mom’s eastern, citified uncles came to visit, and he wanted to spend a night camping out. He was, oh, maybe in his 40s, and had never slept outside. My mother told Dean – he’s my brother, two years younger – and me to take him out, so we did.

When we arrived at our chosen spot – not in a “campground,” but in a pretty spot we liked. It was way back, several miles down a rutted dirt trail, alongside a mountain lake. We were Alone. There, Dean and I cut a bunch of branches from bushes and trees and made ourselves a foot-thick pile. Then we threw a tarp on top and our sleeping bags on that. By then it was getting dark, and without a thought, we undressed, climbed into our sleeping bags, and went quickly and happily to sleep, the stars in our faces. We didn’t give a second thought to our guest.

We didn’t know until later – after he had left town – that our uncle had locked himself in the car and stayed awake all night, terrified of what sort of monster or wild beast might devour us, unprotected out there in the wilderness. When Mom told us about it later, we were surprised, and thought the guy was either some sort of pansy, or just had a screw loose. Dean made a comment, something about the uncle’s undergarments and lace. I don’t remember exactly what he said, but Mom didn’t think it was funny.

But back to riding a bike. In my younger days, we faced one problem, living where we did, and that was that there was no flat ground, and no straight roads. Unlike Kansas, where the ground goes from side to side, like all well-mannered dirt, in the Rockies it goes mostly up and down. And it’s not so much dirt as it is a whole bunch of rocks.

Our town, Idledale, was a couple hundred people scattered up steep, windy dirt roads running off of a canyon with a “crick” and a two-lane highway in it. “Downtown” included a small general store, a liquor store and a post office. The liquor store burned down one night when I was about 6 or 7, and it was the biggest event in town all year. I had nightmares for a week.

Our location and the lack of flat land and decent roads were a problem when we got old enough to want to ride a bike. But we were bright and innovative, and with the help of some older boys in town, we adapted. It was a team effort because there were only a couple guys in town who owned bikes, and they had to be willing for us to use them.

So that’s how I found myself up a rocky, steep, winding dirt road one day, with a half dozen other guys. I was going to learn to ride a bike. The routine was simple and fast, there was only one lesson, and there was a big incentive for success.

The victim, er, learner was placed astride the machine while a couple guys held it upright and still. Then, when the “rider” was in place and set – that was me, remember – the two-boy launch crew stepped back and gave the bike a little push. It went like a jet off an aircraft carrier, and reached warp speed in about 3 seconds, bouncing from rock to rock on the way down the hill. I think the tires were even on the ground for a little bit of the time.

Now this somewhat terrifying course of study had a couple tests. To pass, you had to meet two standards. First, you had to make it to the bottom of the road with all your skin and bones unbroken, and with you still on the top and the bike on the bottom. Second, you could not have peed your pants.

Simple, right? No grading on the curve – in fact, you might say the curve did the grading – and no staying up all night, cramming for the test. Just step up to the bike, turn off any hint of good sense you had, and in a state of utter stupidity, climb on. The experience had a wonderfully focusing effect on a young mind.

You might understand the situation better if you knew that on the right side of the road was a solid wall of rough, jagged rocks, because the road was cut into the side of a steep hill. They were big rocks, a sort of light rust color, and just sat there, waiting to rip the skin off your body. Trust me, you did not want to hit them. On the other side was a sort of barrier, consisting of a cable strung between posts about 18 inches above the ground, beyond which the ground fell straight away in a drop of 10 to 75 or so feet, depending on where you were dumb enough to go over the edge. At the bottom was the only paved road around, the highway through town. If the fall didn’t get you, the cars would.

So to fail the test was no small matter. But we thought that was good. Those sissy city kids, with their training wheels and all sorts of helpers and protection, never learned to ride as quickly as we did. No way. Of course, they spent a lot less time in pain, too.

Oh, I forgot to tell you: I passed. I reached the bottom, unbloodied and unpeed. Perhaps that explains why now, old and gray-bearded, I am most at home on my mountain bike, hauling down a fast trail. It’s great fun, and I have an impressive array of scars to prove it.

Posted by Larry Baden at 09:37 AM | Comments (0)

December 14, 2006

Having fun?

I was looking at a magazine and came across an ad that just stopped me right there. I would say it stopped me cold, but it was a warm tropical scene, a beautiful beach with sugar-like sand and transparent blue water. Anchored off the beach was a sailboat — that got my attention right there — and it was a picture that I think must be something like heaven.

You need to understand the immensity of that statement for a Colorado mountain boy. It’s huge. The place certainly sounds like heaven to me, though if I work at it, I can convince myself that it really isn’t.

WE NEED TO PLAY

We all have a desire to relax, to enjoy ourselves, to just play now and then. It’s a normal and healthy desire. When we lose it, we have lost something very important about ourselves. God, it seems from looking at the world He created, has a great capacity for enjoyment. Even in Genesis, at the creation account, God pronounced things good, and then very good. He created a breathtakingly beautiful world, with infinite variety. And reading the prophets, we see a depth of passion and love that is overwhelming. So, created in his image, it’s not surprising that we reflect that capacity for pleasure.

Contrary to the impression we might get from observing some Christians, it’s not a sin to enjoy ourselves. In fact, it might be a sin to not enjoy ourselves, when the source of our pleasure is the God who loves us and redeemed us.

However, when pleasure and enjoyment become the focus of our lives, something is badly out of order, and we are in trouble. We have lost our true focus, and we’re in a dangerous place. A life that focuses on pleasure is guaranteed to be an empty life, and one that results in a tragic ending.

AN EXERCISE IN PERSPECTIVE

It’s a useful exercise for us to occasionally read an obituary or two. I highly recommend it. Obituaries are what other people think of the life of someone who is no longer here. Reading them can be pretty sobering, and sometimes downright depressing. People live for a longer or a shorter time and go through many hard places. When we read their obituaries, we’re struck that many leave behind nothing of significance. Their life served no lasting purpose. People who live for pleasure should consider the obituary: “John lived 43 years, and left a wife and three children. He had fun.” Depressing, isn’t it? Looking at these, we can better understand Aristotle, who said, “The masses choose the life of grazing animals.”

A WARRIOR PEOPLE

We sometimes lose sight of the fact that our life as Christians is one of service to the King, and that we are together with him engaged in a war to the death. We are called to be people with a mission and a focus that drives our lives. In the Bible, God is often called the Lord of Hosts. In Hebrew it is “Adonai tzva’ot.” It doesn’t mean that He is simply the boss of a big bunch of people. The word carries the concept of an army: God is the master of a great army, disciplined and ready to do battle in his name and with his power.

Soldiers are focused, they are disciplined and mission-oriented, but soldiers do not live lives devoid of pleasure. They enjoy many things, just like everyone else. However, there are two constants in their lives: conflict and change. They live and breathe their mission. If they are not in direct conflict with the enemy, they are training for the time when they will be. And they go anywhere and do anything the mission requires.

REEVALUATION

I have had occasion to examine the reason for my life, and check my priorities. I was “downsized” some time ago, and had to endure the unpleasant process of searching for employment. As I did so, I observed my responses to an array of job prospects, in different locations, for varying amounts of money. I was a little surprised at what I saw in my responses.

After these self-observations, I was thoroughly confused. In the end, I didn’t have a clue what my “perfect job” might look like. So in the end, it came down to this: “God, I’m your servant. Send me where you will, and do with me what you will, and I will serve you.” And this is where it should have been in the beginning, and where I actually thought it was, until it was tested.

I spent the first couple decades of my adult life in the military, and moved extensively. I spent years on alert, ready to go anywhere on a four-hour notice. And I enjoyed it. I had a great time.

Then I left the military, and sought a place to settle down, earn a living and serve God quietly for the next portion of my life. It didn’t happen. To my surprise, I have moved as often since leaving the military as I did in the military. And I found that disturbing. I wanted to settle down, put down roots, and enjoy my “advancing years.”

NO RETIREMENT

However, I lost site of the fact that I am still in God’s “military” and I am still very much on active duty. Someone asked a missionary once what sort of retirement plan the organization offered. “A graveyard next to the mission station,” he replied. There is no retirement from active duty with God until He takes us home to rest in his presence. And it is there, ironically, that we shall have no need of rest.

We resist change, especially as we get older. We like the comfort of familiar surroundings, the security of predictability. But we forget that stability in life, in employment, in our home, is an illusion. We have only the appearance of stability in these things. There is true stability only in God, not in things or jobs or anything else in the world. Our jobs, as many have discovered in recent years, can vanish in a moment. Our homes can become ashes in minutes. There is no security in this world, except in God.

A GOOD RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD?

Despite this, Christians repeatedly put their faith in the world system, ignoring God, disobeying God, and living lives far below what God has prepared for them. In fact, many people who call themselves Christians are de facto atheists, claiming to belong to God, but living as though there were no God.

Most people will say, in some form, that they “have a good relationship with God.” Someone has said that a good response to that statement might be, “Perhaps, but what standard do you use to know if God has a good relationship with you?” Many of us are fooling ourselves, and are in for a major shock.

Consider your life and your relationship with God. What are you living for? Do you truly believe that there is only one God, and that He is the God of the Bible? Does your life show it? Is knowing and serving this God the most important thing in your life? If it is not, you aren’t seeing things clearly.

Amen.

© Copyright (December) 2006 Larry Baden

Posted by Larry Baden at 10:39 AM | Comments (0)

December 06, 2006

What is it like to be God's friend?

What is it to be the friend of God? Perhaps a first question might be, can just anyone just sort of cozy up to the Creator? I mean, say we want some bragging material, and we think claiming God as a friend is about as good as it gets, would God cooperate? What would it take? Does God really welcome us into his life? Or is there more to it? Or maybe the real question might be, does anyone even care about the idea of being “friends with God”?

It is common among evangelical Christians to speak of having a “relationship with God.” But that phrase is pretty vague. I can fight with someone from sunup to sundown, and we can say we have a “relationship.” It isn’t a good one, but it’s certainly real. It’s one thing to speak vaguely of a “relationship with God,” and it is something else to speak of being “friends” with God. Even among those few who have even thought about the idea, not all of us want to be friends with God. In fact, most people would probably be just as happy with God at arm’s length, if they let him get even that close.

But for a lot of us, the idea just draws a blank: We cannot imagine any statement about us that includes both of the words God and friend. God is someone to keep at a safe distance, someone who demands things from us that we don’t want to give up, who basically takes from away our life that we both enjoy and want to keep. The fact is, God is dangerous, and so we avoid thinking too much about him.

But that’s not living in reality. It’s living in denial, and a lot of us live there and like it. The fact is, though denial may be utterly foolhardy in the long run, it can make life a lot simpler and more fun in the short run. But we are too often sprinters in a marathon life, right? Life does not consist in the “short run.”

However, there are a few who don’t fit in the description above. There are some people who have a longing in them that draws them to God like the proverbial moth to a flame. These are people who want to know God and to serve him, no matter what the cost. It is from this group that God chooses his friends.

Moses was a friend of God, as was David. Abraham was one of God’s best friends, and we can learn a lot from him about this sort of friendship.

Abraham was called “exalted father,” and he experienced things with God that leave us amazed. For example, there was his initial call: to pack up, taking all of his considerable property, his family, and more, and set out, headed southwest. And here’s the interesting part: Abraham had no idea where he was going. He knew neither where the destination was, nor how to recognize it when he got there. God simply told him to “just go, and I’ll tell you when to stop.” But Abraham obeyed. It’s interesting to imagine what Sarah’s initial response might have been to that.

Abraham did some things that impress and amaze us, and then he did some other things that we wonder about. His near-sacrifice of Isaac is one we really have trouble processing (Genesis 22). We struggle to understand this, but (perhaps to save our own sanity) we can look at it and acknowledge that there may be something very good about this event that we simply don’t see or understand. It has some perhaps poorly understood redeeming value.

But there are some things that are simply appalling, any way we look at them. For example, letting his wife—who was very attractive—be taken into the harems of not one but two kings (Genesis 12; 20). How could he possibly have done that? What could he have been thinking? The modern American mind is appalled at the thought. But Abraham obviously saw it differently.

Abraham teaches us at least two things about being God’s friend.

First, God’s friends are not people who “have it all together.” David and Abraham both had appalling incidents in their lives.

Second, Abraham teaches us that God’s friendship comes at a cost.

God, who wisely does not lightly enter into friendship, will test us first. After all, when we seek friendship with God, we are asking for direct access to the throne room of heaven. So we will undergo experiences that will reveal to us who and where we really are in life, and that will move us more into a carefully chosen, solid relationship with God.

Some years ago, in a difficult time, I visited a church in Denver and heard a sermon on this subject that changed my outlook on life. The speaker spoke of three areas where Abraham was tested. I think Abraham was somewhat typical, so let’s look at some events from his life.

First, Abraham had to trust God for physical provision.

Abraham was a wealthy man when God called him, and he became even richer with time. However, even great wealth was no guarantee of safety and continued prosperity in a nomadic lifestyle where anything from bandits to storms, from disease to drought could quickly devastate even the wealthiest of men. And to simply pick up and go, heading into a land that was unknown but not uninhabited, was a risky proposition. People—like Abraham—with large flocks of sheep need space and lots of it. They also need a reliable and adequate supply of water. They need protection from others who are not thrilled to see all these grass-chomping, water-guzzling sheep moving onto their turf.

Abraham started a long trip with little certainty about anything, except that he was convinced that he had heard the voice of God. And he certainly knew that he was vulnerable and protected only by the shelter and care of God.

We don’t know if this dependence on God was an easy thing for Abraham. We do know that a similar reliance on God for our own care can be very difficult. Some of us know the experience of God telling us to pick up and move, and He will fill in the details later. It’s a feeling a little like trying to bolt the wings on an airplane while rolling down the runway. We hope to have all the parts fastened tight before we reach takeoff speed. Depending on God for physical provision is a challenge for us, and many of us utterly reject anything that we call “living by faith,” not recognizing that we all live by faith. The only difference is in where we place our faith. Some of us have faith in ourselves only, though we profess to trust God.

And Abraham arrived in what would one day be the Promised Land only to find it locked in drought, with little grass or water for his flocks and herds. So, off he went to Egypt.

The second test for Abraham was to trust God with his reputation, a much more difficult task.

I greatly admire Abraham and in many ways envy him. However, his life was not always easy. And it’s important not to idealize him, as we often do with biblical characters. He was as human as we are, and we can see that in his relationship with his wife, Sarah.

Sarah must have been a supremely beautiful woman. When Abraham took her to Egypt, she was about 60 years old, and he was afraid that he would be killed so someone could take her. From our vantage point in modern America, that is pretty hard to imagine. But it’s true.
Sarah was indeed taken into the harem of the Pharaoh—as Abraham’s “sister”—and it appears, comparing “Sister Act I” (Genesis 12) with “Sister Act II” (Genesis 20), that in Egypt, Sarah was sexually compromised. Read the passages, paying special attention to God’s response in each case.

So Abraham, who was very rich and very well known back in Palestine, is now known in a different light: He’s the guy who gave up his wife to save his own skin. That’s a pretty big stain on a reputation, and there was nothing Abraham could do about it, but to trust God to make it right.

From experience, I can attest that it is far easier to trust God for material provision than it is to trust him with my reputation. We hold our reputation close to our hearts, tied to our self esteem. Few things are more important to us. Yet, it is evident that we cannot enter into a really good relationship with God if we can’t trust him even with this.

The third area of testing was that Abraham had to trust God with the deepest dreams and longings of his heart.

So Abraham seems to have passed the first two, though it doesn’t seem from our perspective that he did so “with flying colors.” But now we get to the really tough stuff. We don’t give our fondest dreams up to anyone, but that’s what God was asking of Abraham. But we resist giving up our dream until we are in a place of desperation, because if we give The Big Dream to God and He doesn’t come through for us, we are out in the cold. There is nothing left, and we are without hope. Let’s read about Abraham from Genesis 22:

“Now it came about after these things, that God tested Abraham, and said to him, ‘Abraham!’ And he said, ‘Here I am.’ He said, ‘Take now your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I will tell you.’”

Notice the way God describes Isaac: “your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac.” It’s almost as if God were rubbing in the pain of this thought, in addition to giving a command.

“So Abraham rose early in the morning and saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him and Isaac his son; and he split wood for the burnt offering, and arose and went to the place of which God had told him. On the third day Abraham raised his eyes and saw the place from a distance. Abraham said to his young men, ‘Stay here with the donkey, and I and the lad will go over there; and we will worship and return to you.’"

Many scholars believe that Moriah, the place of the binding of Isaac, was later to become the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

“Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son, and he took in his hand the fire and the knife. So the two of them walked on together. Isaac spoke to Abraham his father and said, ‘My father!’ And he said, ‘Here I am, my son.’ And he said, ‘Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?’ Abraham said, ‘God will provide for Himself the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.’ So the two of them walked on together.”

This scene is even more poignant in Hebrew, because Abraham doesn’t actually say “God will provide,” but “God will see.” (Adonai yireh) The implication is that when God sees the need, He will supply it. Also, notice that Abraham says God will supply “for himself” a lamb, not “for us.” The offering belonged to God.

“Then they came to the place of which God had told him; and Abraham built the altar there and arranged the wood, and bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. But the angel of the LORD called to him from heaven and said, ‘Abraham, Abraham!’ And he said, ‘Here I am.’ He said, ‘Do not stretch out your hand against the lad, and do nothing to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me.’”

This has to be one of the most dramatic events in scripture, and perhaps in all of literature. What was going through the mind of Abraham? What was going through the mind of Isaac? It’s an amazing scene.

“Then Abraham raised his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him a ram caught in the thicket by his horns; and Abraham went and took the ram and offered him up for a burnt offering in the place of his son. Abraham called the name of that place The LORD Will Provide, as it is said to this day, ‘In the mount of the LORD it will be provided.’"

Again, Adonai yireh: God will see, and when God sees the need, He supplies the need as we are obedient to him.

“Then the angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven, and said, ‘By Myself I have sworn, declares the Lord, because you have done this thing and have not withheld your son, your only son, indeed I will greatly bless you, and I will greatly multiply your seed as the stars of the heavens and as the sand which is on the seashore; and your seed shall possess the gate of their enemies.”

The bottom line is, Abraham trusted God with his deepest dream, with the fondest longing of his heart, and God honored his obedience.

I think this is beyond question the most difficult step God can ask of us. We can risk going broke, being hungry, or even—if we think the stakes are high enough—our reputation. However, when we risk the deepest longing of our heart, the central desire in our life, then we put ourselves in a terrible place. If God doesn’t “come through” for us, we are left with nothing. We have already given up material goods, plus our reputation, and now we give up our fondest dream. What’s left?

But this is precisely what Abraham was asked to do when he was told to sacrifice Isaac. There is no question: It is hard to imagine how God could fulfill the promise to Abraham without Isaac, and the request had to cut to the core of Abraham’s being.

From the text, we are unable to see into the mind of Abraham. He seems confident, trusting, certain that God will come through before he is required to kill this one, the son of promise. And his actions seem to say that, even if God did not come through, Abraham was still prepared to carry through with the killing, apparently trusting that God would make another way. The writer of Hebrews ascribes to Abraham a great faith, a certainty that God would bring Isaac back from the dead (Heb. 11). But it’s difficult to imagine this scene without some serious emotional turmoil.

To be a friend of God is no small thing. It is through his friends that God works to change the world. And it is the friends of God, indeed, who in the end, have the richest, most fulfilling lives. God has called us to friendship with him. It’s a great privilege and a high honor. It is not something we should take lightly.

A life of friendship with God is a life with God. As I finish this, I have received an announcement of a conference, called “The With-God Life.” God calls us to a with-God life. And a with-God life is the only life truly worth living.

Amen.

Posted by Larry Baden at 07:41 AM | Comments (5)