Call of the Wild (2)
The men were amazed, and said, “What kind of a man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey Him?” Matthew 8:27 NASB
What kind of man – We are not equipped to encounter real holy men. Peter once exclaimed how wonderful it was to see his Messiah in the presence of the holy, but he was quickly converted into a cowering figure when the full impact of God’s involvement became clear. All of the disciples had more or less the same experience when Yeshua walked on the water to meet them. They just didn’t know how to react to this person. Was he really like them? It certainly seemed so—until these awe-filled experiences demonstrated that his life couldn’t be explained in exactly the same way. In this story, Yeshua speaks and the forces of nature obey him. Frankly, his actions scare his followers to death. Are they in the presence of a human being? They thought so, but now they aren’t quite sure. In fact, they don’t know what to think.
This biblical account should remind us that whenever God’s presence arrives, we are likely to be afraid. That’s because we are so used to a tame world. We have our parameters. We know what to expect. But all of this is thrown to the wind when God shows up, even if He shows up in the life of someone we thought was just like us. What we really encounter is what it means to be fully human, to be that representation of God as He intended when He created us in His image. God didn’t make linguistically expressive, rational bipeds that day. He made creatures who could be like Him, who could act as He acts, feel as He feels and respond as He responds. He made potential godly verbs. But what we have learned since Adam tried to hide is that we are too scared to be fully human. The potential is beyond us. Why? Because it taxes our sense of control. Suddenly we are thrust into God’s realm, and there’s no room for personal sovereignty when the Creator comes calling. Dante might have intended the statement to portray the entrance to hell, but he comes pretty close to describing any human experience of divine encounter when he says, “Abandon hope, all you who enter here.” We don’t have to go to hell to realize we have to give up all our pretentions about control when God arrives. Dante was writing about Hell, but I’m pretty sure we will find the same thing is true in heaven. It seems to me that God’s intention when He breathed life into the body was to create an opportunity for mutual participation. That opportunity pushes us out of the reign of the yetzer ha’ra in the direction of the yetzer ha’tov, and for most of us, especially since we have been so comfortable with the wiles of the yetzer ha’ra, participation in God’s presence is incredibly frightening.
We can tell ourselves that it shouldn’t be. After all, God loves us. He wants us to be fully human. It is “safe” to be with God. We can tell ourselves all this, but when it happens, it overloads the control panel and we are suddenly thrown into a world we didn’t expect. Confusion. Fear. Concern. Disorientation. Perhaps even breakdown. Encountering someone who is comfortable with God leaves us with some very big questions. About us, about him or her. Making sense of the world just got harder. But (there’s always one of these, isn’t there), God seems to want us to be pushed out of our comfort zones. He seems to think that disorientation is an important step in the right direction. So maybe we must re-evaluate. Maybe when life seems to be stretched beyond our ability to handle it because we our sense of how thing should be evaporates, we should be saying “Thank you, Lord, for giving me just a taste of Your magnificence. Help me live accordingly,” rather than “What in the world is happening here?” Maybe the flow matters more than the oars.
Topical Index: holy, encounter, fear, Matthew 8:27
Acts 10:38 “How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him.”
What does it mean to ‘be good’ in a world gone bad? What should be good’s reaction to evil? Is it some version of the three monkeys? Should we hide our eyes from seeing, our ears from hearing, and our mouths from speaking about it? Should we keep ourselves pure of the mud of the world by insisting on avoiding all contact with the world? Should we disguise ourselves from the world by looking LIKE the world and “tolerating” (new worldly politically correct substitute for compassion) the rest we don’t want to assimilate? Should we pass by on the other side of the road when we get too close to the misery and insanity of sin, or are we curious enough (barely) to peer over the edge of the ditch just to be able to pat ourselves on the back and say “sure glad I have God’s favor and so am not like that poor sinner”?
OR, do we have God’s reaction to the world? On one hand, we see God on His throne, too holy to have any contact with evil, but on the other, we see Him BECOME that sin FOR us. On one hand we see the command to
abstain from all evil” and “touch not the unclean thing” (and we all know that those who lie down with dogs get up with fleas), but on the other hand, we see that God can never pass by any misery whatsoever, and His allergic reaction to sin consists of jumping right down into the ditch with it and taking the load of it all on Himself; and then telling US to “go and do likewise”.
People who have been made in the image of God will have the same reactions He does. Our great Representative came to walk the road we are to take, for the only way to avoid doing sin (fracture of relationship) ourselves is to BE the reconnection: to jump into all synapse gaps we come into contact with, like a positive charge reacting to a negative one. This is HOW to heal the fracture of a world gone bad. This is what our Example did and told us to do. This is how to care; how to love – the ONLY way TO love – in a world gone bad. The only way to BE righteous in such a world is to have this reaction TO it, for any other reaction whatsoever will be some sort of complicitness with the problem instead of partnership with the Solution, Who came to pave the Way and Hound us all until we are either cured or driven into our walls. The only righteous response to a world gone bad is to act like a Saviour, in fact.
We are called to be the hands and feet of the Hound of heaven, so we need to learn how to copy heaven’s response to evil, but ‘saving souls’ (only sane – righteous – response to lost ones), I have found, looks a whole lot less like a revival meeting and a whole lot more like a “friend of sinners” than any of us start out being comfy with. It is hard to be a drowning person’s last straw, and it is hard to make our bed with the dogs and NOT get up with fleas and it is hard to eradicate sin (deliverance) in the lives of others without hurting them. In fact, it is impossible to “be as wise as serpents and as harmless as doves” unless and until we are fully separated from sin ourselves, but it seems the only way to learn that separation is in the context of the trial and error process of figuring out how to pull others out of ditches, all the while forgiving them (and ourselves, too) for the ensuing mess reversing entropy always seems to entail. I am ok, in fact, only when you are ok.
Time to roll up the sleeves and get started! (Dana, and Ester, and all those like you ladies who are actively involved with lost people; you are my heroes!)
Like a fish out of water flailing,
Exactly. There are no ‘rules’ ,I have found, when it comes to human encounters because we are all unique. We all make it up as we go, but if we can learn from the tigers to ‘puff’ a lot when we are near each other it may make it less likely that anyone gets inadvertently hurt while we are learning to dance.
“…..especially since we have been so comfortable with the wiles of the yetzer ha’ra, participation in God’s presence is incredibly frightening.”
That’s true. When I have become comfortable with the wiles of the yetzer ha’ra and I am then confronted with the greater fullness of His Presence, however that may come about, I do feel frightened. Frightened of what may happen if I stay comfortable with those wiles of the yetzer ha’ra. Frightened that if I try to get free from them again, I might not be able to. Frightened that He really does disapprove of me now, doesn’t like me, hates me, is done with me. Also frightened that if I get free of those wiles and I do participate in the greater fullness of His Presence, I will actually become a “what kind of man is this?” man. I’ve actually had those kind of experiences at many various times in my life. It wasn’t easy getting to that place of His favor, and they can actually come with their own heavy price, of testing and “persecution” and of many kinds of distress and disappointments.
But it’s not only that I can feel frightened. I also feel guilty and ashamed and humiliated and sorrowful and sad and hopeless and remorseful and self-hatred, and probably more. All together, it’s just plain painful, and I think whether we have experienced His magnificence a great deal or we’ve just read about it or we’ve been suddenly confronted with it out of nowhere, it can make us feel all of these things, if we are not too hardened of heart to have feelings still, at least maybe those other than just anger. Then that is just what we need to experience. Something of His greater Presence that makes us feel all of that so much, that we are moved to turn to Him. Moved to draw near. Moved to cry out to Him. Moved to want to be healed, delivered, saved, restored. Moved to want to be fully human again. Then maybe He will turn toward me. Maybe He will draw near to me. Maybe He will hear my cry. Maybe even the winds and the sea of my life will obey Him too, and He will deliver me of all those feelings, if not circumstances, and He will renew a right spirit within me, and I will know and be known as that kind of man again.
Amaze me, YHWH. Amaze us.
” But all of this is thrown to the wind when God shows up, even if He shows up in the life of someone we thought was just like us. What we really encounter is what it means to be fully human, to be that representation of God as He intended when He created us in His image”.
I once had the chance to hear Madame Sheik, a Pakistani princess who gave her life to Yeshua, tell her story. It was compelling, not because of great exploits but of her extraordinary determination as an ordinary woman in a culture anathema to the Gospel to follow God even at the cost of her life. the missionaries who preached to her refused to baptize her because it would insure her death, so she baptized herself in her tub, and lived abandoned by family, knowing that outside lurked those who intended to kill her for leaving Islam .
I felt like i was in the presence of one of the apostles who had been in Jesus’s presence.i was moved to get in line to meet her. At my turn, when about 10 feet from her, I was flattened to unconsciousness, later waking in the floor; so unlike many of the “slain in the spirit” experiences I had witnessed. Here was a person who continued so yielded to Yeshua in the face of sure death, and in her ongoing life manifested a level of confident trust I had never imagined. I encountered a Godly radiance of such astonishing power that I was rendered unconsciousness, and have never forgotten the experience.