Have A God If You Want

On the way back from the wedding I was a part of this weekend I had a wonderful passenger in my vehicle. I was giving the photographer of the wedding a lift back to Portland. We were blessed to spend 2 hours together listening to music and discussing life. She was a fantastic and interesting 19 year old girl with some cool religious history. She was raised Catholic and baptized as an infant. Later she started examining her experience, her self, and other "religious options." She now feels she is a deity in the sense that she has power over and in herself and, of course, is attracted to buddhism, though I don't recall her saying she is all that familiar with it in experience or study. She also invests her mind in astrology. One of her first questions to me was "What's your sign?" I thought that was great to finally be asked, especially with a lady on the other end. I wanted to laugh a bit (because that always comes off as a pick-up-line in humorous conversation) but the conversation was sincere and it wasn't the time so we pressed on with our fun conversation.

As we discussed our religious histories (her choice of conversation by the way) she mentioned her tolerance/acceptance of other people's beliefs. She is very concerned with respect and love so we found a lot of common ground. As an undefined pluralist, she is completely happy to say "If you have a god then have a god! Whatever god you want to have for yourself is fine with me." Her message is nothing new to me. It's a very common view. You do you and I'll do me and we can still do we. That whole gig. Her specific words, however, struck a chord in me. I didn't address my thoughts with out-loud words because we had something else going on that I was more than happy to entertain. I thought on her words "If you have a god then have a god! Whatever god you want to have for yourself..." She spoke as if God was something or someone to possess or claim as owned by self.

I wanted to say to her gently, "You speak as if gods are something we shop for in magazines or on a website. We point to one and say , 'Ah yes, that god suits my desires well. I'll take it.' But God, in the way scripture speaks of God is not a thing or even being to own or possess like we would a piece of clothing. We don't exchange gods based on the season, latest trend, or our newest pattern of fancy. No, according to Christian scriptures we are owned by God. We belong to God and while we may come under him and possess him in a sense we are never big or great enough to have power over him. We may treat him like a commodity or a slave but he can be neither in his true nature. At that point we're only fooling ourselves. God is not so small as to be had by man. He may be had by us in the sense that we have him in our lives and within our being (this is true of every person) but we can not lay hold of God like we lay hold of a pair of shoes. He is quite unique. He is... holy. He is different from anything we know in our world, especially the things we have created. He is the source of life and love. He is the source of you and me and we can only give ourselves to him. And he asks us to. Any person who thinks they have God like they have their books, movies, car, phone, bank account, hats, pets, friends, children, toys, or anything else is fooled and serves a small god which is unworthy of their worship. The one true God owns all that exists and tells us that everything he has is ours if we just ask for it. He also tells us that we are his children and he celebrates over us when we return to him and accept Him for who he says He is and who He says we are (His children)."

Side thought: But I didn't say that. And that's fine. We had a delightful talk and she is a wonderful gal. I'm so glad I got to meet her. Meeting new people is always amazing. If this gal and I keep chatting from time to time I'm sure this topic will come up again and we can continue speaking respectfully and enthusiastically with one another. Honest and kind dialogue is, I think, essential for Christians when they speak with the nonreligious or other-religious. Respect and love are seeds for the gospel. I mentioned Jesus, my history, and some of the essential truths I believe and even if I had not I would have felt as though I was faithful to Christ and the spreading of his Gospel by displaying the candor I did. I don't believe we need to speak the Romans Road, recite the Ten Commandments, offer an "alter call" or anything like to to truly communicate the Good News that Jesus is Lord to people. Sure, words and scripture help a great deal but being a good friend, full of love, showing the good in people, and treating them the way we'd wish to be treated is living out Jesus' good news and they'll recognize him well when they see Him if they see you when you imitate him. We're seed planters. We're farmers. It's beautiful.