Diametric Faces of God

“These days I own a Dellapple”

And He said to him, "'YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.”

How is it that two people can walk into a church and have such drastically different experiences? One person finds a life giving, inspiring, and inviting group of people that immediately enables them to relax and breather a little easier. They smile and energetically engage the people and place that they have just entered. The other person immediately puts up their guard, full of suspicion and critique. Not able to accept that the motives of these “nice” people can truly be real and sincere.

What do you do when you realize you are both of those people at the same time? Is that possible? When you see, that you are someone who finds identity and purpose in this community in which you have spent most of your life. Yet at the same time, you are someone who somewhere along the way has become cynical, wounded, and distrusting of the very community that you used to find life in.

I am that person and I am confused.

The threads of this “Christian” experience, both good and bad, have been woven so intricately into the fabric of my life, that I can no longer separate them without destroying the entire garment.

These days it seems like I have two gods’ I’m trying to worship and follow and I don’t know which one is real anymore. It’s like trying to please Bill Gates and Steve Jobs at the same time. One god is the god of tradition, of conservatism (whatever that means), and the god of the four spiritual laws. This god provides right principles, a bastion of safety amongst a crooked and depraved generation, and a systematic theology. This is the god that sees homosexuality and abortion as the ultimate assault on the purity of the Church and morality. This god is definitely a He.

As much as I tend to see things from this first god’s point of view, this god makes no sense to the other god I’m trying to follow. The god that values humanity, cares about things like social justice, the environment, the poor, and sees constrains to the love of God when faced with choices between red and blue. This god also makes no sense to my first god. To my first god, this god seems fickle and “blown by the wind.” Infected with new age ideas and gender confused. This god is he, she, both, and none of the above.

In an odd way I find myself reflecting on Matthew 6:24. “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other.” What if I have been tormenting over a choice I was never expected to make? I am beginning to think more and more these days that this struggle has been a war between lesser gods; one that has left my heart and mind bloodied as its battlefield.

More and more I know longer care if I’ve found the perfect face of God, because more and more my hope is in the scandalous love of a God that many days appears as absurd as the Dellapple I’m writing on. I may be confused about many things, but I am becoming more and more sure of one thing.

Sorry if you wanted to read something a little more lighthearted. You might check out this video instead "Baby got Book"