From Psalms 15
H,
I always saw the man described in Psalm 15 as incredulous. Don’t you think? As constant failures in the exploits of the divine (and not so divine) pursuit of being, you and I always avoid this man of the psalm. He is a bit annoying. He is who we are meant to be.
In another sense, He is who we will be. Christianity is being like Christ. This is what our narrow trip toward God is about. Everything else is ancillary. To share in His glory is to share in His nature. We have all that theology sorted out. But the now…the brutal now and all it’s falling down.
It makes no sense that all my hate and anger and want and wrong lust will ever cease. I skipped writing to you yesterday because I was on the verge of giving up the whole charade and letting the currents of self carry me where they will. Communication is so often a remainder of the things you truly believe. We do not live up to those things. Why bother?
Well, first because we believe there is nothing else. You cannot put your body and mind through the disciplines if you do not think that this is utter reality. You should not do so unless you believe. There is a certain rock bottom of the heart that is the starting point of Christianity. It may not be the way you get in the door but it will happen. The giving over of that last bit of dignity of self to God is the beautiful surrender that breeds grace. There is us emptying out and there is God filling us up with Him-self. When we give up the traps of the world we get the sense that we are now in bore town.
That is just half the story. The other half is God giving us His nature over the years we live and into the non-years of eternity. It is not smoke and mirrors. It is not a magic trick. It is the eternal story of man and woman and God in absolute unity.
Yet, what of now and all the things we get wrong? They will continue in degrees. I know it is unpopular to say this. The pop gospel wants us to breed holiness in ourselves like all that right needs is the will not to do wrong. When everyone is alone in their own hearts we know it is not true as individuals or as a body. We mistake our shame of hidden sin for helping others ‘not to fall’ or not slandering Christ. Fools we are if we think there is a better slander of who He is than the false sense of covering up the insides so the outsides can preach a gospel without power to change. We are only helping ourselves when we do not tell the truth about who we are now as well as the journey we are undergoing (most of it in that grand hospital called Grace) to reach the very heights of the God experience.