An Expressway Angel

Yesterday while driving home on  I-16 somewhere in the middle of nowhere, a tire blew on the camper.  I pulled over at Exit 27 which was the Jeffersonville Exit.  Jeffersonville is just one of those small towns which dot South Georgia.  Not much there anymore.  So, out there in the middle of nowhere I was getting the jack under the tire when a truck pulled up, a burly bearded guy pulled up with a truck of equipment and ready to help.  Within five minutes I was back on the road and he was on his way.  Unbelievably, he was the boss and owner of a truck and car shop in Jeffersonville.  He came and went like an angel.   

Over the recent years it has become our practice before leaving to ask for God's care as the trip is undertaken.  The prayer is usually a prayer asking God to keep us in a safe place each mile of the way.  Yesterday afternoon that morning prayer immediately came to mind and another one filled with gratitude was lifted toward the holy One who keeps us in His hands.  The road is like our life.  There is always around us the possibility of things going awry.  To know the care and blessing of God at the end of each day is a greater blessing than we often realize.    

It is good to know we are not alone.  It is good to know that goodness lingers in the places where we go.  It is good to know that care and provision often comes to us in surprising ways and through the most unlikely of circumstances.  Over and over I have found this to be true in the ordinary living of my days.  Yesterday, I was reminded of this as an expressway angel stopped to give help and care.  By the way, you may not believe it, but his name was Chris.

Thinking For Ourselves

Some folks are unforgettable.  Over the years of ministry there have been a lot of people whose paths have crossed mine.  There are times when I can vaguely remember the crossing, but somehow know it happened.  There are others who involved me in their struggles in such ways that they remain etched in the memory.  One such woman would come to our Sunday evening worship though she was a member of another church which she attended on Sunday morning.  She finally quit coming because her pastor told her she should not be exposing herself to Methodist doctrine.  When she told me her reason for stopping, I could only say, "Don't let other people to do your thinking."     

Of course, it is always easier said than done.  Most of us must confess to believing some things about our faith, not because we have examined a doctrine, but because someone else told us it was true.  Many of the things we grew up believing we continue to believe because we were told it was the right thing to believe.  And while some of the teaching people in our past may be trustworthy, it is still a good thing to figure out what we believe because we believe it to be true and not just because we were told it was true.    

A lot of us can remember this kind of faith struggle taking place when we left home and the church of our childhood for our first taste of life beyond the borders of such comfort and safety.  I remember those years well.  Before I got to the end of that season in my life I had thrown away much of what I had been taught to believe.  But, my real problem was not having anything to fill the spiritual vacuum I had created.  It took some years to come back to a strong sense of faith, but when I did it became more of what I looked at, thought about, and decided was true.  It is never a good idea to give someone else the power to do our thinking. 

The Original Self

The first two chapters of Genesis do not say anything about original sin, but they do speak volumes about original intentions.  Original intentions speak of the intended plan of God for the creation and the creatures like you and me.  At one point the Word says about the creation He had made with the words, "indeed, it was very good."  (Genesis 1:31)  As we read this section of original intentions, we see a picture of humanity before what is known as the Fall, before sin entered the picture, and before the original self given at creation was tainted and flawed with something which did not speak of the divine intention.    

The original self is that part of our inner essence which bears the hand print of the Creator.  Our original self is made in the likeness of the Lord God.  It is at this point in our being that we bear the likeness of the One who created us and brought us into this world.  We can never be as He is, but each one of us in some way bears the essence of our Creator within us from the moment of conception on through our life in the eternal home which He readies for us.    

Of course, the problem for us is that the original self is soon compromised and tainted by what might be called the false self.  The Genesis account speaks of an intimate, unique, and personal relationship with the God who is described as coming into the Garden in the evening.  Genesis speaks of that relationship as one framed by openness, transparency, empty of fear, and loving.  As we begin to choose what God does not intend, the false self begins to be the self through which we seek to relate to God, but in the change, everything changes.  We become afraid, seek to hide, and only express trust and love when it fits into our needs.  The brokenness with which we walk as we walk with our false self to guide is away from our original self and it is our openness to the grace of God and Christ Jesus which make us alive once again in such a way that we are at one with the One who has made us.  

Birthday Blog

Today marks another birthday.  I am not complaining, but they are piling up.  They are piling up to the point that there is more to remember in the past than there is to dream about for the future.  When I was a young man the years seemed like an inexhaustible resource, but now they are counted with much gratitude and hope that there are still some more to come.  Being seventy-three provides a different perspective than the one possessed by the young man I once knew to be me.     

Whenever a birthday comes, it always is a moment to pause and remember some of the ones who started the journey with me, but who were not blessed with the years that I have known.  I remember a high school friend who died when he was only thirty-three and after him there have been more who have come and gone leaving me still here.  To be honest I sometimes wonder why.  It is something I have never really answered, but asking is a reminder that even on the days which are filled with storm clouds, there is reason for gratefulness.   

My father never lived long enough to see children grown.  I have.  I have been blessed with over 50 years of marriage and five grandchildren.  There is still meaningful work to do.  God continues to be ever present in all that I do even though such a gift of presence is both the least deserved gift and the most treasured one of them all.  As I count another birthday come and gone, I am mostly grateful.   I am grateful for those who have shared it with me and for the Christ who called me to come along for the journey that will finally take me home.   

The Original Dilemma

This doctrinal business about original sin brings us to what we might be described as the original dilemma.  On the one hand there is the idea that we are born in sin in a way spoken of by the Psalmist when he said, :Indeed, I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me."  (Psalms 51:5)  And then on the other side there is the Genesis story of creation which speaks of humankind being created in the image of God and as the section of the sixth day draws to an end, there is the word which says, "God saw everything that He had made, and indeed, it was very good."  (Genesis 1:31)     

Maybe it does not have to be one or the other.  Maybe it is more about both holding their own truth.  Regardless, sin does not seem to be a part of the human experience in the very beginning.  It appears that it came only after a measure of time had passed. What is certain though is that sin has in some way become a pervasive and powerful negative influence over humanity.    

The Apostle Paul with all of his propensity toward theological understanding spoke so well of the predicament common to us all as he wrote to the Roman Christians, "I do not understand my own actions.  For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.  in my flesh I can will what is right, but I cannot do it.  For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do."  (Romans 7:15, 18-19)  While we may not be able to get our mind completely about the origin of sin, the Apostle Paul spoke of the ongoing problem in a practical way that expresses how it is that we live and why we need the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross.  

Changes

Some might say I did not plan for retirement.  I did not plan any great things to accomplish like writing a book, or visiting all the national parks, or starting a furniture making business.  I just moved to a farm where there were  hay fields to manage, pecan trees to tend, gardens to hoe, and cows to feed.  While all those farm things do have a way of keeping a guy busy, they do not demand things on a schedule like churches have a way of doing.  Life is slower.  It lends itself to a different pace.  It creates time for thinking, or ruminating, a term I learned from watching the cows.     

What I did not count on was the way the slower lifestyle would cause major shifts in the theological foundation upon which I had walked for a life time.  Of course, it was not just the change in lifestyle, but also the experience of being immersed daily in the creation.  Doing thinking with creation speaking softly in every moment has a way of wearing down things which had been poured in concrete.  Experiencing God which had always been somewhat relative to the life and ministry of the church was replaced by an awareness that experiencing holy presence is only as far away as the next step and as close as the breath of wind which comes neath the branches of the trees.    

God is not everything.  God is not the trees or the growing grass that feeds the cow.  But, it is also true that God is in everything around us.  This is a way of saying that there is no where to go and there is nothing to see which does not hold within it the possibility of a moment of divine epiphany.  Signs of the Almighty abound and the holy Voice is constantly whispering through the things which have passed first through His creating hands.  All that is left for us to do is to seek the teaching Spirit who is eager to help us learn to see, to listen, and to know.  

Another Choice

When the story of the third chapter of Genesis begins and unfolds in the Word, it comes as a bit of jolt.  It might even be described as a surprise.  Who would think that after such a grand start such a terrible thing would happen?  No one would expect sin to show up with such devastating consequences, but it came creeping into the Garden to forever change the face of humanity's experience with its Creator God.  Traditional Biblical scholarship speaks of it as a kind of dark plague that infects the heart of every one born to breathe this earth's air.     

Original Sin is the first theological framework put around it sometime in the fifth century.  Since then ts has been a major plank in the church's doctrinal position.  This idea of human depravity had such a pervasive hold that at one time new born children were baptized quickly just in case they died soon after birth.  And while infants are no longer baptized because they might die in their sin, it remains a dominant doctrine within the traditional church.    

One of the verses in the New Testament which is used to support the total depravity of all of us is found in Romans 5:12 where the Words says, Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death came through sin, so death spread to all because all have sinned."  With this word sin came to be understood as a deadly infection of the soul passed from one generation to another as surely as physical characteristics are passed genetically.  Another choice might be to say that sin came into the world because humanity chose to experience the horrible choice given to by the love of God, the choice of spurning the love of God and the choice of making love our absolute response to Him and His goodness.  To look closely at the story of the Garden couple and our own story makes such a viable explanation for the way sin has such a hold on the life of each one of us.