Who is Man?

I am taking a personal evangelism class this week and we have to write a one page summary on a topic to share each day in class. I'll post each this week as I finish them. Below is a brief summary answering the question: Who is man? or What has gone wrong with the world?

            Before God spoke the first word to bring creation into existence, he had a special plan to fashion a being to bear his likeness and reflect his joy to one another. On the sixth day of creation he set that plan into motion with the creation of people. Up until that point he had created multitudes of stunning, beautiful, and extraordinary scenes and creatures: the sun, stars, and moon; great seas and continents; the largest land creatures and tiniest crawling bugs; exquisite flowering plants and thick, luscious forests. But the crowning glory of creation was people.

These people were made to live in harmony with God. The love and joy this Trinitarian God shared within himself was extended to humans. People would walk with God, knowing his perfect love. They would explore his creation seeing how every detail pointed to his powerful creativity. God made these people to live in loving relationships with one another reflecting the joyous relationship God had in himself. In the beginning God declared this garden-life to be very good. But it didn’t take long for everything to go terribly wrong.

Soon these people decided that they had the ability to find something better than God’s joy. They wanted to decide for themselves what would bring them the most happiness. They wanted to escape the oversight of their kind and generous Father and discover the world on their own terms, for their own purposes. The God who just spoke them into existence and gave them a perfectly happy home with abundant provision suddenly became a means to the purposes of someone far lesser. They wanted to make themselves god.

Clearly the world today is not what God created in that original glory. What happened? When people decided to subdue the world for their own purposes they committed cosmic treason and flipped the entire creation upside down. Work became a burden, not a blessing. Relationships became battle grounds, not sources of pleasure. Instead of having dominion over creation, creation’s power threatened the lives of people. Most severely, people attempted to subject their loving Father into a servant to fulfill their own desires.

Without the proper source of joy this upside-down creation began to deteriorate quickly. Pain and suffering result from broken relationships, enslaving addictions, and dysfunctioning bodies. Societies develop for the benefit of the privileged instead of the good of all. Creation is subjected for the selfish purposes of people instead of protected for all to witness the creative glory of God. Rather than calling out to God to deliver creation from our mishandling of our privileged position, we double down on our failure by constructing our own paths back to created glory; and we fashion gods who will affirm our efforts to make ourselves god.

It is a deceiving path that appears to get brighter the deeper we run into its darkness. How will we escape this destructive cycle?

Backwards Planning

For my thoughts are not your thoughts,

neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.

9 pFor as the heavens are higher than the earth,

so are my ways higher than your ways

and my thoughts than your thoughts.

- Isaiah 55:8

One of the most difficult things to get through my head is that God has a different plan than I do.  Even when we think we are striving to do His will, it often works out differently than we would have imagined.  It gets more difficult when you are certain you have been called to a specific task, career, or ministry and it doesn't come together like you think it should.

I know we have been called to this major life change to ministry training in Minneapolis.  The way our lives have been orchestrated and the lessons we have learned through those experiences has prepared us just for this time.  With the opening of doors and confirmation from trusted friends, we are certain this is the path.  Yet the steps down that path have been far different than expected.  We knew we had major things to accomplish and assumed there was a logical order: sell house, have baby, find new home, get a part-time job.

We couldn't get a new home without knowing what we were going to get out of our current home.  I figured I'd get a part-time job at some place close to where I lived.  I thought it would be easier to move out of our house before our baby arrived.  God had a different plan; almost exactly opposite of what I thought was necessary.

This entire summer actually reminds me of a book that God providentially brought to me during this transition time which helps me better understand this lesson.  Phil Vischer, the creator of VeggieTales, wrote a very easy-to-read autobiography of his journey toward and ultimately away from the award-winning animation empire he created.  He had what he felt was a godly vision and calling, and putting his nose to the grindstone sought to change the world for God.  After it all came crashing down (too late for him, but wonderfully humbling and rewarding), he realized that he never sought God's wisdom and direction in how he might use his talents.  Phil decided on a path that he thought would best honor God and ignored all voices who may have tried to give wise input. His lesson learned too late was that we don't have the freedom to simply plan our own path and vision without abundant and consistent seeking after God's wisdom and righteousness; even if we think we have a godly vision.

This has been a great part of my learning process in this transition period.  I thought I had a plan that made sense which would create an incredible story that I could tell all my friends about how spectacularly God would provide.  I had a vision and a plan in which God would receive the most glory - and I would receive the most prosperity.

HA!  You'd think I would learn this lesson that God isn't impressed with my plans. He's got even better plans for my sanctification and His glory.

The direction hasn't changed, but the steps to get there certainly has: have baby - stay in comfortable house all summer while baby settles into her routine, announce resignation from work - get multiple high-paying job offers, get turned down for housing loans - stumble upon a last minute opening to live with another seminary family and save some money.  Final steps: sell home and move!

God seems to always set before us a decision between what we are comfortable with and what might be a rewarding risk. What most people don't see is that there is huge risk with comfortable; we risk not growing.  When things go easy, when we are prosperous, when we are safe and comfortable, we have no urgency to always lean on God.  We've been learning to seek wisdom in the decision process and have begun to more and more choose the uncomfortable, risky option because we've seen in the end how God blesses us with more joy and faithfulness through it.

The latest decision which makes our families think we're crazy is that we have chosen to move into an old, large house with another seminary family.  We've always been comfortable living the suburban life in a newer home on a quarter acre lot with nice grass, air-conditioning, and separate living space away from people who annoy us.  Now we are moving into a home with people we barely know (not blindly, mind you, we have been doing our homework), to share living space and be vulnerable to one another in our weaknesses; trusting that God will use our different personalities to mold each of us to be more like Christ and use each of our talents to support and encourage one another for the next few years.

It is certainly a risk to our own comfortable lifestyle.  But when did Jesus ever promise us a life of comfort and ease?  I see the opposite in the New Testament; in the face of difficulty resulting from faithful choices, the church works as a family, sharing resources in order to encourage one another for even more faithful endeavors.