God's Trademark

A year or so ago, I received as a gift a beautiful wallet - one that I would never have bought for myself. It was designed by one Louis Vuitton, and is probably worth more than any money I'll ever have in it at one time. People are often interested by this wallet, and the first question I am often asked is "Is it real?" Well, it came in a pretty fancy-looking box, with a tag inside that said "Made in France for Louis Vuitton, #801" (actually, I'm not sure if the number is really 801 and I'm too lazy to go and dig it out right now, but you get the picture...) One girl told me that there is a way to tell for sure if an item has truly been made by Louis Vuitton, and that is to check the pattern stamped onto the leather. Since each genuine article is stamped witht he LV symbol after being cut, the symbol should never extend past the edge of the wallet. That's how you know you have the real deal.

My recent reading in Daniel has reminded me that God, too, places a mark on those who belong to him. His trademark is humility, and it has been indelibly stamped onto the lives of those who have come to know him.

Take Daniel, for instance. This is a young man who has been dragged out of his own country and carted off, a captive, to Babylon. King Nebuchadnezzar in the beginning of the book of Daniel is about ready to do in the whole lot of his advisors and magicians, because none of them could tell him what his strange dream means. (Apparently, what these crafty gentlemen had been doing was getting together and agreeing on what they would tell the king, so that it would appear that their stories matched - but Nebuchadnezzar was no slouch, and had found a way to test the validity of their 'interpretations'.) When he hears why he is to be killed, Daniel offers quietly to tell the King is dream. To make a long story short, he is able to tell the dream and its meaning and is made very rich and powerful in short order. Human nature says that it's time to make the most of such a promotion, but here's what Daniel says:
"No wise man, enchanter, magician or diviner can explain to the king the mystery he has asked about, but there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries...But as for me, this secret is not revealed to me for any wisdom that I have more than any living, but to the intent that the interpretation may be made known to the king, and that you may know the thoughts of your heart."
Can you believe this guy? Everyone thinks he's a superstar, but he wants them to know he has no special powers. He doesn't hold a big Judaism rally with long robes and mood music. There are no big promises, no fantastic claims. There's no capitalising on King Nebuchadnezzar's change of heart. This is clearly a man with God's mark.

Anyone who has ever come face-to-face with the God of Eternity has first had to have a good look at the destruction in their own heart. And it's not easy to be the "big man on campus" when it's not just your accountability partner you are accountable to, but a Holy God.

In this age of mass-mediated everything, including Christianity, there are so many confusing messages. Everyone claims to speak for God. The Bible gives a good picture of the genuine article, so we don't get fooled by all the big claims.

There are some good fakes out there. Keep an eye out for God's mark.

Faith Like a Mustard Seed - Or a Lab Rat

I spent Saturday with my grandmother, participating in a Hallmark channel movie marathon from the comfort of her couch. One of the movies' heroines had dealt with the loss of her husband by renouncing her faith in God and was being counseled by a wise old missionary who advised her earnestly that "God's ways can't be understood."

I was immediately struck with the dichotomy the movie offered. It's the same one we are offered everywhere. On one hand is the person who seeks to understand, portrayed alternately as the truth-loving scientist and the hard-headed empiricist; on the other hand is the person who accepts without understanding, depicted either as a noble idealist or as a pie-in-the-sky dream-chaser. The options are only two. Either we can utterly relinquish all claim to that which cannot be held in the hands and counted like peas, or we are forced to shut ourselves into the walled gardens of our fantasies and reach for our ideals by wishing upon stars. Perhaps it is this divide that has left 'faith' romanticized almost beyond repair. It has come to mean a idealistic clinging to what I want to believe at the expense of all that I know. By contrast, to insist upon reason is to reject out of hand all that is not see-able and smell-able.

Hallmark's gentle missionary was presented more as a noble idealist than a brainless fool... but her words made me feel tired. Is this all we really have to tell people? You don't need to understand - just accept it? Must faith be a blind leap into the dark?

But no! God's ways CAN be understood - more and more, as I come to know him. He doesn't ask for blind belief, but action that is based on what I DO know.

It is true that God asks me to trust him when I don't like or understand what he is doing - but he doesn't leave me there. He does let me see some of his plan. I do eventually come to understand the 'why's, as I come to know God himself.

He doesn't explain it all up-front. I do have to trust him - for a little while. The difference is this: I know who I am trusting. He asked for a little trust in the beginning, when I knew him a little; now that I know him better, he asks for more. But it's only a little while that I have to wait without understanding. God is not the enemy of the intellect - he created it. He does ask that we subject our understanding to him, but only for a while, and only to the degree that we know him.

God is not fully encompassed by reason, but he is never unreasonable. Every life winds through dim wastes, and when I find myself in its dark corners, I am driven to reach for his hand. But when I emerge into the sunlight again, understanding casts its rays backward onto the way that I have come and illuminates the reason why. And then, too, with every experience I know more surely the One who has chosen it, and that I can trust the hand that has led me. As I come to know God, his choices for me seem less and less incomprehensible, and more and more I can appreciate the Good he offers, though its wrappings frustrate and sadden me.

My confidence is not based upon the fact that God will give me what is comfortable. It is based upon the fact that God will give me what is Good. How do I know that? Trial and error. I understand how, contrary to appearances, the things that he has already given me have been Good. The things I have chosen for myself have not always been, but His choices have - every time.

A lab rat can exercise that much faith.

Heard in Passing

"Love can be measured only by what it gives." (M. Radcliffe)

For God so loved the world that He gave...
His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him will never perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16)

What Love Is

Love: (Verb) to will the good of another at my own expense.

View From a Small Window on a Weary Day

Eternal God, unchanging
Mysterious and unknown
Your boundless love,unfailing
In grace and mercy shown

Bright seraphim in endless flight
Around your glorious throne
They raise their voices day and night
In praise to you alone

Chorus:
Hallelujah
Glory be to Our great God
Hallelujah
Glory be to Our great God

Let every creature in the sea and every flying bird
Let every mountain, every field and valley of the earth
Let all the moons and all the stars in all the universe
Sing praises to the living God who rules them by his word
(Fernando Ortega and Mac Powell)

And I beheld, and I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne and the beasts and the elders: and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands;
Saying with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing.
And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever.
(Revelation 4:11-13)

I have struggled for several days to bow myself before the only worthy One. At last, I can can confess that His right is over all - even the pride that sends its roots deeply and quietly into my heart, and tears me all apart when it must be uprooted. How I long for the day when all within me will bow willingly, without raging and tears! I will take my place in a universe resounding with one song, and I will cry with an undivided heart that the God who is Love is greater than all.

Sunset, Seen On My Way Home

Great, heavy drapes of sky were flung wide tonight,
Laying bare a broad canvas, swept
With tangerine fire
And a thousand half-attempts at flame-soaked cloud
In strokes that swirled and dabbed and scratched and bubbled and scudded.
Smoke-blue mountains
With snowy caps
Rose pale and clear in the light,
Suddenly visible;
A stretch of urban grey
Became a blazing panorama beyond the windows of the Skytrain,
In whose vinyl seats
Slumped hundreds of dull-eyed commuters in home-bound stupor,
Oblivious -
Too weary to wonder;
Used to the grey.

A Rare Perspective on God and Africa

This is for my little sister, who lives and breathes Africa and its beautiful, amazing people:
As an Atheist, I Truly Believe Africa Needs God
Matthew Parris - Times Online