EDGY GOD
It’s soothing to think that God would never call any of us into something scary. Like a warm blanket and a cup of hot tea on a cold night, it’s comforting for me to think that God want to keep me away from dangers and risk, and ask only that I be a good person, slip into a pew on Sunday morning with some regularity, and chase my dream. It’s like I imagine God to be tamed and domesticated, a conservative spirit who loves nothing more than to drive on a quiet lonely road with the radio dialed to some worship songs, and I know exactly why. If that’s God, then I have permission and maybe even an obligation to chase something I crave.
Comfort, It truly is an addiction. I am drawn to the things that I can handle and the things that I know: the safe bet, the person whose life is stable, the nicer neighborhood, the no confrontational conversation, the proven idea, the higher-paying job, safety, and a certainty about what tomorrow will bring. I want to live comfortably, in a thick-cushioned-couch state of being. I want my life to be easy, and I often find myself doing whatever I can to make it so. On some level, most of us tend to operate within this frame work.
Oh, even Jesus’ disciples did. One of the first bible stories I ever heard was the story of peter and Jesus walking on water. I love that story. Its part romance, part mystery, part suspense, and part horror film. And it’s told in a way that tickles all the senses. On an angry, stormy night, the twelve disciples are passing over the lake, when the eye a figure approaching on the water. The figure climbs the waves, sneering at the wind. All frightened, only peter speaks up, and when he does, he asks the figure to prove that He is, in fact, Jesus. When peter has enough evidence to believe that it is his Rabbi, he climbs out of the boat and walks toward him.
It’s amazing, if you really stop and think about it. Peter actually does it! He walks on water. But, like we all know, it doesn’t last very long. A few minutes later, peter begins sinking, drowning in the unforgiving waters, and we often blame his undesirable development on the fact that peter takes his eyes off Christ. He looks at the obstacles. The waves, The rushing wind, The worst-case scenario, The fear. And because of that, he sinks.
For a long time, this didn’t make sense to me, but it does now, and I see the truth in it. When I stare at my fears and worries instead of my God, it seems that sinking and the sensation of being overwhelmed are unavoidable; but I have to tell you, most of the time, in looking so closely at this moment in the story, I miss something else that is even more important.
I am not like peter. Peter was willing to go with Jesus wherever He went, whenever He wants. He went with Jesus into the most precarious of situations, even onto the ranging water. Peter was willing to try walk on water to be with Jesus. Peter’s life and his relationship with Christ weren’t based on convenience. They were based on faith, and when I consider my own life, I have a hard time finding much of peter in myself. What I do find, though, is a lot of the other eleven disciples. While peter was with Jesus on the waves, they were clinging to the secure wooden vessel below them. They were hiding from faith, and if I were there, that’s where I would have been too, Hiding.
In that moment, the other eleven disciples didn’t want faith. They didn’t choose faith. They only wanted one thing comfort, Safety. So when the opportunity to live in faith and walk with Jesus into the horror film, presented itself, they politely said, “no thanks, I will stay right where I am.” They exchange faith for comfort, and as I came to a cross road in my life, it’s the exact exchange that I wanted to make.
As I continue to think of this story and how God have been working on me and in my life, shaken, the notion that I was just a target of an evil attack, or that God wants me to have a quiet and unchallenging life began to disappear, and it was replaced by an even more un-settling suggestion that began to crop up within my soul. Maybe I was supposed to experience all that I have. Maybe God wanted me to pass through all this trials and tribulations. Maybe he loves me too much. Maybe that’s his way of proving to me that he is God and showing how powerful he is.
With afternoon fading into evening, I began to consider that God, like some sort of matchmaker or scientist, wanted me to encounter Him in a strange and unique way so I can reverence Him just like He did in the case of Apostle Paul. And beyond that, I began to consider that maybe God desires and invites all of us to those kinds of faith-dependent moments. Like I said, it’s an unsettling idea. I don’t like it. But is it really that far-fetched?
If I consider the God of scripture, the answer is probably no. After all, that God sent a boy to fight a ruthless giant who was ready to tear him limb from limb, and a man to randomly build a giant boat called an ark. He pitted young, inexperienced followers against petrifying demonic forces and encouraged others to leave all that they had. He asked a young virgin to face accusations and public humiliation and, oh yeah, He later sent his own child into the desert where Satan himself was waiting.
These aren’t the actions of a domestic God. These are the actions of a wild edgy God, and that God freaks me out. That God is unsettling to me. But it’s even further unsettling to consider that though it’s been thousands of years since the events of scripture, maybe God hasn’t lost his edge. Maybe, instead, God still invites me to become a person of wild faith. To depend and rely on him, to quit jobs, to move into troubled environments and dangerous countries, to pray big, to give what I feel I don’t have, to reach, to dream, to take risk, to do something that seems crazy to everyone else.
I love saying that God is the same yesterday, today, and forever, but what I really mean when I say that is, ‘’the parts of God that I like and seem to work to my advantage are the same yesterday, today, and forever.’’ Those parts of God don’t change. There are other parts of God, parts that I am not sure how to handle, parts that, on the surface, don’t work to my advantage, parts that I consider exception. I think I want this part to be different now. But maybe it’s time that I, and all of us, accept that God is still a wild God, accept that God hasn’t lost his edge… and accept that maybe it’s his followers who have. Have you?
Sometimes, to evolve into a more powerful agent of change, my heart doesn’t need an injection of more church, prayer, or friendship. Sometimes my heart needs an injection of God, of edgy faith. Sometimes my heart needs to grow in its believe in an edgy God and move out of comfort and onto the water, or the highway with him. And sometimes, it’s only when I’m willing to do that, that I, or anyone, can be healed and bring healing to others.
We are ruled by fear. We fear love, we fear community, we fear our dreams, we fear intimacy, and we fear overcoming. In short, we fear what we desire most, the life God has created us to live, and our rebuttal to the fear has often been avoidance such as I have always done. It’s almost like we have taken God’s words ‘’fear not’’ to mean ‘’pursue what you do not fear.’’ Rather than ‘’walk in faith in the midst of our fears.’’ We’ve responded by staying where we are comfortable, and that’s exactly why so many of us end up lonely, in lifeless jobs, and distant from our creator, because avoiding our fear so easy is that it seems so normal.
People staying where it’s comfortable are normal. People avoiding their fears are normal. People who don’t chase a dream are normal. People who reject intimacy are normal. The eleven disciples in the boat are normal. But people who face their fears, chase a dream, take risk, people who are willing to live in faith—now that’s rare. Peter is rare. But it’s those rare people like peter who take others out of fear. It’s those rare people who live lives of faith that move others toward faith too. It’s those rare people that this world needs, and I would like to be one of those people, I think. I would like to be a person that moves others toward the things the long for, toward the things God has created them for, and with God’s help, I am very slowly becoming one. Part of what I have had to do in that process is face a fear that grabbed me is to submit myself totally to God and allow him take control of my life.