The Hazard of the Future
“Who knows, God may turn and relent and withdraw His burning anger so that we will not perish.” Jonah 3:9 NASB
Who knows– This tiny phrase, uttered by the king of Nineveh, contains the full depth of the world’s desperation. mî yôdea—who knows? Zornberg summarizes the implications for humanity:
“In a world where God hides His face, human life seems to be of no concern to Him. He neither communicates through prophecy nor responds to human distress by miraculous action. What remains is a highly brocaded surface reality, a hallucinatory focus on materials, modalities, laws, techniques, advisers, texts, time consumed in banal successiveness.”[1]
No voice from on high. No mass relief from the rolling tide of evil. No blinding light. We are left spiritual cryptologists, teasing out meanings from ancient ciphers. How we long for some display of His glory, some inescapable voice resounding from heaven, some man or woman who cannot be doubted. But the leaden skies only reflect a barren earth below. We survive, pretending that our miserable attempts to find God in all this human tragedy really count for something eternal. These are the days of apocalyptic howl. Since the departure of the King, these have always been the days of apocalyptic howl. Open your front door and view the wasteland of our souls.
“The hazard offered by the future is a function of God’s withdrawal, face hidden, into silence.”[2]
Can you really keep pretending that all that stuff, all those lifestyles, all the laws, all our techniques, all the world wise pundits, and all the sacred texts we hold in such high esteem really do anything more than wile away our time while we wait for some real, final answer to this mess? Can anyone really think things are getting better? We are not only forced to be spiritual cryptographers, we are forced to decipher our own meaning in somnambulist (go ahead, look it up). Don’t you think it might be necessary to actually confront our self-hypnotic Pollyanna religion before we can hear anything about His purposes here? Isn’t the greatest enemy of the Kingdom the failure to wake up?
Why did God send the prophets? Why did He preserve the Book? Why did He deliver Israel? Why? Not how. “How” doesn’t really matter anymore, does it? He did it, no doubt, but why? Not so we could “get to heaven.” That myopic fantasy is finished. No, He had something else in mind. Something we cannot comprehend is a world of “who knows?” What do you suppose it is?
Topical Index: who knows, mî yôdea, future, Jonah 3:9
[1]Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg, The Murmuring Deep: Reflections on the Biblical Unconscious, p. 131.
I only know that the answer on that “Why” is about Him, not about us.
“Who knows?”….”And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” Waking up is hard to do.
Did God hand us “the wasteland of our souls”? Is it His heart that He withdraws into that silence? Is it not our sins that keep us far from Him? That wasteland of desolation: the fallout of trauma: is this not mercy “that we are not consumed”? Is it not grace that pain gives us impetus to “seek His face”? Is not that silence so that we can hear what it is like without Him?
Is all this HIS fault, or is it ours? Is He not “near to those of a contrite heart”? Whose problem is this, anyway? Because He has provided for redemption – has loved us anyway – has NOT “cast us off” – this is not His problem, because He has already fixed His end of it.The reason we are not getting anywhere is because we are still trying to put the blame on Him.
The heart of God is humble. Humility – which is the ability to accept reality on its own terms – is the only safety in a reality that was built for love: for full connection: for full compliance with all the rules of the road. Anything else on the high speed highway of life is deadly danger. We were designed to participate in setting the pace and direction of life – that we are all too well aware of – but to attempt to do so without complying with the rules of reality; the rules of love; instantly exposes us to the deadly terrors of attempting existence by cutting ourselves off from all we need (which is connection with everything else) for that existence.
Arrogance and pride (which is HOW we cut ourselves off from reality) create a terrifying and meaningless landscape in which only grace can keep us alive – in the silence of suspension – until we come to our senses. Humility is where we come back into alignment with the heart of God which (because that is the only place He can be found) is the only safe place for us, too.
Is the glass half-full or half-empty. This word says it is almost completely empty. I can see that. I see the lack of God in so many people’s lives, including those who would claim to have a relationship. Those in my inner circle would claim a belief in God, but from observation I don’t see a relationship. For me, it is about a relationship with Yehovah and Yeshua. I am thankful it is about relationship and not perfection. It is very much about wanting to please Yehovah by how I live. Living to glorify Him. I think about one of your TWs’ about being the repairer of the wall. I think that is what we in our individual daily walk and as a community must strive to do. Staying on the path is hard but necessary.
I think the answer involves filling the earth with His glory. He made man in a way that we could choose to reflect His glory. The why is about getting us to a state of holiness that can contain and reflect His glory. Tragically, we spend our energy seeking our own glory. Seeking our glory alienates us from ourselves and our Source. Aliens in human bodies are anomalies. Anomalies do not contain or reflect His glory they oppose His glory. He is seeking true worshippers who will walk in His ways. Those ways are unfathomable to our intellect. They are spiritually discerned. The why involves reaching our spirits,
In response to “Can anyone really think things are getting better?” Through the eyes of Western media: Nope. But here’s a different lense that brightens the present (and future) substantially: https://www.gapminder.org/factfulness-book. As a preterist, i always have a hopeful/meaningful/purposeful bounce in my step; but after reading this book, the bounce became higher 😉
amazing……just amazing. With everything we have been going thru the last few years….estrangement from son and grandchildren, death of youngest son, husband on kidney/liver transplant list and in hospital…I have had to take a BIG step back and ponder on everything I ‘thought’ I knew….and yesterday it rolled like a black and white film before my closed eyes … where I started (RCC) and those beliefs, then non-denominational and those beliefs, and then messianic and THOSE beliefs….and to be truthful…none of the creeds/doctrine/traditions etc have actually SOLVED anything. Yes, the level of consciousness has been raised to what He wants … but not enough to SEE changes in what is swirling around in this world. And your message today……….is exactly where I’m at. I’m at the bottom rung again…..and am simply clinging to this …. “I will love my Elohim with all my heart, soul and strength, and my neighbor as myself” … that is all that I know is true. Thank you Skip for letting me know I’m not alone…even if what you said is not what I heard 🙂
He promised never would He forsake you—nor will we — in many ways we are all in the same boat. Shalom
WATCH!
Stay open to all that is God.
Walk away from all that is not.
His grace is more than sufficient.
“If he comes suddenly, do not let him find
you sleeping. What I say to you, I say to everyone:
‘Watch!’ ”
He wants us to “see” our way home to Him.
He’s already “finished” giving us the Way.
He’s ready when we are.
“Who knows?”…. I’d say he who NEEDS to know. Some things are not designed for human mind to understand…it’s like trying to explain a structure and the functions of an iPhone XS to an ant. It wasn’t build for them nor meant to be comprehended by them…..Hence, the mass-somnambulism (looked it up:)
The clue I find in these words, “These are the days of the apocalyptic howl.” Like Gen. 1:2, we are spiritually at the beginning as the Spirit hovers over us, quoting Thomas Merton, “Our Christian hope is the purest of all lights that shine in darkness, but it shines
in darkness and one must enter the darkness to see it shining.” What is this hope…Christ in us, the hope of glory (Col.1:27)…in this hope we were saved (Rom. 8:24)? During one of my meditations in the Word, I heard these words of Jesus, “I AM the resurrection and the life…do you believe this?” My response is “I believe, help me my unbelief”. This is my work as Jesus said, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent”. I cannot say that I am an overcomer yet…
On a more positive note, below is a link to Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg talking about the beauty of Judaism and the companionship of God. It’s 2 1/2 min. long.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8QqEIRhIco
Thanks, I listened to her talk on Moses and Job-Black Sun as well. She reminds me of my therapist I saw off and on for a few years.
I like how she lives out and internalizes her experience of beauty in reference to the feasts/festivals and her words conjure up images of joy, communion, community, solitude, ritual…an act of worship.
The paradox of joy and suffering that Yeshua lived is a reality and it is for us too.. Do we become totally unhealthy when we choose to live exclusivity in one or the other? IMHO we do I realize for most of you this is just my take and won’t be relevant .Skip is important to a part of that paradox no doubt but he lacks the other part so I appreciate all those who who meet the other part of that paradox. The paradox can’t be separated. Thanks to Yeshua and you all you for balancing us.A special call out to Sugar Ray the loving youngest heart on this blog.
We grow accustomed to the Dark
When Light is put away.
Emily Dickenson
I know we all may get tired of political correctness, but I always think of Emily Dickenson when people make disparaging co
ments about shy or meek people. You
comments….that is