What's In Your Lunch Box?

Current mood: creative
Category: Religion and Philosophy

"I pack You in my lunch box, and I make You pocket sized, but if You're just my pet deity, how can I explain that You changed my life?"

Christianity. Church. God. What comes to your mind when you hear these words? A cross? A stained glass building? A big mean guy sitting on clouds waiting for you to screw up so that he can punish you? I used to think those things and I know some of you still do. Why? Well…that’s all we know… our knowledge is often limited by our experience. What does it mean to be a Christian? What’s the difference between a church/parish/temple? To some, God is a magic genie that we can conjure up through coming to church and/or praying, and he will grant us our wishes. To others, the idea of God is just so big and scary their brain hurts just thinking about it. How many times have we ourselves, or others we’ve heard of, cried out to God? “God, help me!” When people are on the brink of death they often cry out for God’s help and forgiveness of sins. I wonder what God thinks of that… maybe it’s “Why do you want My help now? I mean… you’ve ignored Me all your life…” or “Why should I save your life? So you can go back to being a drug dealer/murderer/adulterer/prostitute?” I hate hearing people say how they wish God would give them money, cars, boyfriends… Why? So they could spend their money on alcohol? Drive to strip clubs? Have pre-marital sex? It would be funny if God’s reply to that was, “Excuse me, but who are you and what have you done for Me lately?” Don’t get me wrong, God loves all of humanity… He knows each of our names and everything about us… His desire is for all to know Him… How do you know someone? Well that’s easy… through relationship… and God does answer prayer… always have, always will… but there’s a difference between the prayers of His children (Christian=little Christ), prayers of sinners desperate for God’s love and forgiveness, and the so called “prayers” of people who don’t even know who they’re praying to. God says He will hear us when we cry out to Him. He will draw near to us if we draw near to Him. We will find Him if we search for Him with all of our hearts. If we delight ourselves in the Lord, He will give us the desires of our hearts. So be real with God… be honest, be sincere… mean what you say and say what you mean. Wearing a cross around one’s neck never changed anybody’s life… Neither has going into a stained glass building every Sunday. And God does not wish to punish us, but to love us. He does love us, and He’s waiting for us to realize that and love Him back. Our problem is that we either make God too big or too small. We put God on the cross, stuff Him into a church, or anywhere where we can “contain” Him. Or we just put Him “out there” somewhere far away where we don’t have to deal with Him or think about Him. We don’t see God for who He really is. Well, how can we if He’s God? But we can… He wrote us a love letter, telling us all about Himself and how much He loves us and the plans He has for us. It’s really quite beautiful. It’s called the Bible… I’m just now beginning to see what a beautiful mystery the Bible is… it’s a treasure packed with God’s identity, and I love getting revelations and glimpses of it… it rocks me to the core. There is so much more to it than just the “Bible Stories” we learned in Sunday School. The theology behind it is so deep, so figurative, so symbolic, it must be revealed by God Himself. It really is the Book of Life, it’s alive… it’s real… it’s practical… and it’s a picture of God. A God who desires a relationship… an intimate friendship… a love so deep it’s really all you’ll ever need/want. It will change your life… and a lunchbox deity genie has never been capable of something so radical.