Comfortable

I just went there to pick up some eggs. Martha really likes to get farm fresh eggs. Not only are they cheaper, but they are also generally much better. So off I go, because Martha won't be able to get there till late and me, still unemployed, have all the time in the world.

The lady who answered the door was really nice. I gave her the money and she gave me the eggs. Being who I am, we started to chat. It was a typical conversation, superficial at first. Upon hearing the talking, her husband came out of the other room to join in the conversation. He went to politics right away. Fortunately, for me, I leaned on the same side as him...though that didn't seem to matter much. I think he was looking for an argument. His wife even said several times, “He is agreeing with you!” No matter, I didn't really mind, and with a couple of slurred words and almost falling on the floor from a stool, I figured the guy just had one to many.

It was when the conversation turned to religion that it got disturbing. He said he was a Christian. I told him that

I was as well. He then, as though he felt he needed to teach me something, started telling me how things were. As he bantered on, I came to realize the man did not believe in the bible as the word of God. “It was written by men” he said.

I know, there are a lot of people who believe this. I did myself when I was very new as a Christian. Yet he went on to say how he believed God was a God of love, so he therefore God accepted anyone who worshiped God...Muslim, Buddist, etc. So, I told him that Jesus himself claimed to be the only way. I said as well, that a Christian is a follower of Jesus. Someone who believed and followed His teaching. That apparently did not matter to him. He did not listen much and since he was beginning to get heated, I bowed out and left.

This type of conversation was not new to me, but yet it bothered me for several days. Why, I asked myself, do so many people make up God in their own image and REALLY believe that it will work? This guy got stuck on this idea that God is Love so God can't reject anyone. The problem I realize, is how people define words like Love, Sin, God and so on.

The scriptures are clear. God does not want anyone to worship any thing but him, not a stone statue, not a picture or image, not a angel, not a man and not even an idea. No God wants to be known as HE is, not some made up image that we are comfortable with. Would our spouses want anything less themselves? Why would God accept that at all. Our comfort is not a requirement of walking with God, no, on the contrary, the sacrifice of our comfortable view to accept God on HIS terms is.

Seeing that God is, well, a multidimensional, omnipotent, omnipresent, being who is outside of time and space, our knowing of him is going to be limited. I truly believe, that aside from the whole sacrifice for salvation thing, this is a big reason why Jesus became a man. God wants us to seek him, that is clear. God also wants us to know him, in an ongoing process. Our unwillingness to go beyond what we are comfortable with, is a big problem...one that may even cost us eternally.

Seek God, the God who can be known. If he is real, and he is, then we can know him and relate to him. He made that doable. To think otherwise, is at worst foolish, and at best...lazy.