An Epidemic of Spiritual Amnesia

 

An Epidemic of Spiritual Amnesia

An Epidemic of Spiritual Amnesia - Audio/Visual 

              Heaven is declaring God’s glory; the sky is proclaiming his handiwork. One day gushes the news to the next, and one night informs another what needs to be known. Of course, there’s no speech, no words — their voices can’t be heard — but their sound extends throughout the world; their words reach the ends of the earth. (Psalm 19:1–4)

What if you were told to stop praying? What if you were told to stop talking at God for just a minute and consider him before you speak another word? Solomon warned not to rush into God’s presence with words because that’s what fools do. (Eccl. 5:2) The wise man comes to God without saying a word and stands in awe of him. It may seem a hopeless endeavor – to gaze at the invisible God. But Romans 1:20 tells us that, through creation, we see his “invisible qualities” and “divine nature.” We are a culture that relies on technology over community; a society in which spoken and written words are cheap, easy to come by and excessive. Our culture says anything goes, and a fear of God is almost nonexistent. We are slow to listen, quick to speak and quick to become angry.

Thanks to the Hubble telescope, and now the James Webb Space Telescope, we are now seeing what’s been in the universe for thousands, perhaps millions of years and we didn’t even know it. For instance, why would God create more than 350,000,000,000 galaxies (and that’s a conservative estimate), which generations of people never saw or even knew existed? Maybe it was to make us say, “Wow, God, you’re unfathomably big”? Or perhaps it’s because God wanted us to respond, “Then who do I think I am?” And how about the other side of creation? Did you know that a caterpillar has 228 separate and distinct muscles in its head? That’s quite a few – for a bug. The average elm tree has approximately six million leaves on it. Or have you ever thought about how diverse and creative God is? He didn’t have to make hundreds of different kinds of bananas, but he did. He didn’t have to put 3,000 different species of trees within one square mile in the Amazon jungle, but he did.

And how about the way plants defy gravity by drawing water upward from the ground into their stems and veins? Or did you know that spiders produce three kinds of silk? When they build their webs, they create sixty feet of silk in an hour while simultaneously producing a special oil on their feet that prevents them from sticking to their own web. Coral plants are so sensitive that they can die if the water temperature varies by even one or two degrees. Or did you know that when you get goose bumps the hair in your follicles is actually trying to help you stay warm by trapping body heat? Or what about the simple fact that plants take in carbon dioxide, which is harmful, and produce oxygen which we need to survive? I’m sure you knew that, but have you ever marveled at it?

Whatever God’s reasons for such diversity, creativity and sophistication in the universe, on earth, and in our own bodies, the point of it all is his glory. God’s art speaks of himself, reflecting who he is and what he’s like. And that’s why we are called to worship him. His art, his handiwork and his creation all echo the truth that he is glorious. There is no other like him. He is the King of Kings, the Beginning and the End, the One who was, and is and is to come.

There’s an epidemic of spiritual amnesia going around, and none of us are immune. No matter how many fascinating details we learn about God’s creation, no matter how many pictures we see of his galaxies, and no matter how many sunsets we watch we still forget. Most of us know that we are supposed to love and fear God; that we are supposed to read our Bibles and pray so that we can get to know him better; that we are supposed to worship him with our lives. But actually living it out is challenging. Frankly, it confuses us when loving God is hard. Shouldn’t it be easy to love a God so wonderful? But when we love God because we feel we should love him, instead of genuinely loving out of our true selves, we’ve forgotten who God really is and our amnesia flares up once again.

We are programmed to focus on what we don’t have, bombarded multiple times throughout the day with what we need to buy that will make us happier, sexier or more at peace. This dissatisfaction transfers over to our thinking about God. We forget that we already have everything we need in him. But because we don’t often think about the reality of who God is, we quickly forget that he is worthy to be worshipped and loved. So, if the gravest question before us is what God himself is like, how do we learn to know him? We’ve seen how he’s the Creator of both the magnitude of the galaxies and the complexity of caterpillars, but what’s he like? What are his characteristics? What are his defining attributes? And how are we to fear him? To speak to him?

Well, first, God is holy. Now, a lot of people say that whatever you believe about God is fine, so long as you’re sincere. But that’s like describing your friend in one instance as a 300 lb. sumo wrestler, and in another as a five-foot-two, 90 lb. gymnast. No matter how sincere you are in your explanation, both descriptions of your friend cannot be true. The preposterous part about our doing this to God is that he already has a name; an identity. We don’t get to decide who God is. “God said to Moses, ‘I am who I am.’” (Ex. 3:14) We don’t get to change that. To say that God is holy is to say that he is set apart and distinct from us. Accordingly, there’s no way we can ever fathom all of who he is.

But God is also eternal, and most of us would probably agree with that statement. But have you ever seriously meditated on what that means? Each of us had a beginning; everything in existence began on a particular day, at a specific time. Everything, that is, except God. He always has been since before there was an earth, a universe or even angels. God exists outside of time. And since we are within time, there’s no way we’ll ever completely grasp that concept. Not being able to fully understand God may be frustrating, but it’s ridiculous for us to think we have the right to limit God to something we’re capable of comprehending. What a stunted, insignificant god that would be! For instance, if my mind is the size of a bucket and God is the size of all the oceans, it would be ridiculous for me to say that God is only the small amount of water I can scoop into my little bucket. God is so much bigger, so far beyond our time-encased, air/food/sleep–dependent lives.

God is also all-knowing. Isn’t that an intimidating thought? Each of us, to some degree, may fool our friends from time to time about who we really are. But it’s impossible to do that with God. He knows each of us – deeply and specifically. He knows our thoughts before we think them, our actions before we commit them, whether we are lying down, sitting or walking around. He knows who we are and what we’re about. We cannot escape him, even if we wanted to.

God is also all-powerful. Colossians 1:16 tells us that everything was created for God: “For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him.” However, don’t we live as though God is created for us? To do our bidding, to bless us and to take care of our loved ones? Psalm 115:3 reveals, “Our God is in heaven; he does whatever pleases him.” Yet we keep on questioning him: “Why did you make me with this body, instead of that one?” “Why are so many people dying of starvation?” “Why are there so many planets with nothing living on them?” “Why is my family so messed up?” Or even, “Why don’t you make yourself more obvious to the people who really need you?”

The answer to each of these questions is simply this: because he’s God. Frankly, he has more of a right to ask us why so many people are starving than we do of him. As much as we want God to explain himself to us, his creation, we are in no place to demand that he give an account. “All the peoples of the earth are regarded as nothing. He does as he pleases with the powers of heaven and the peoples of the earth. No one can hold back his hand or say to him: ‘What have you done?’” (Daniel 4:35) Would you actually worship a God who’s obligated to explain his actions to you? Or could it be our arrogance that makes us think God owes us some sort of an explanation? Do we really believe that, compared to God, “all the peoples of the earth are regarded as nothing,” and that includes us?

Finally, God is fair and just. If what we truly deserved were up to us, we would end up with as many different punishments and rewards as people who responded. But it isn’t up to us, mostly because none of us are good. (Rom 3:10) God is the only being who is good, and the standards are set by him. And because God hates sin, he has to punish those guilty of sin. Maybe that’s not an appealing standard but to put it bluntly, when you get your own universe, you can make your own standards. So, when we disagree let’s not assume it’s his reasoning that needs correction. Frankly, it takes a lot for us to comprehend God’s total hatred for sin. We make excuses like, “Yeah, I might be a bit prideful at times, but everyone struggles with pride.” But God says in Proverbs 8:13, “I hate pride and arrogance.”

In other words, you and I are not allowed to tell him how much he can hate sin. He can hate and punish sin as severely as his justice demands. God never excuses sin; he’s consistent with that ethic. And whenever we start to question whether God really hates sin, we only have to think of the cross where his Son was tortured, mocked and beaten because of sin. Our sin. No question about it – God hates and must punish sin, and he’s totally just and fair in doing exactly that.

So, should you stop praying? No, but the next time you approach the Creator of a billion galaxies, and the Maker who knew you, intimately, before you were even born, consider his holiness and then approach his throne and “cast all your anxiety upon him, for he cares for you.” (1 Pet. 5:7) You know, on second thought maybe a little amnesia about ourselves wouldn’t be such a bad thing after all.

Grace,

Randy