The Sylvr Pen

We want a little god. The desire runs in our tainted bloodstreams.  Some of us keep seeking one god after another, till all the little gods we embrace let us down, and finally, in desperation, we cry out to the Big God Who really is. Some of us try to make the Big (True) God little, and bring Him down to a level where we can use Him as we please.

Exodus 32 has me thinking like this. But life does, too.

Moses is long gone up on the mountain, and the people miss his presence. As much as they grumbled against him in the past, now they’re without a visible leader to look to for answers, to lean on for strength, to rely on for handouts, and to follow… somewhere, anywhere. So they feel lost, destitute, afraid. And the God he supposedly represented is lost to them in deep darkness and dense vapor on the mountain, up where Moses is.

So they are god hungry–as we all are, at heart. That “infinite abyss” in every human that Pascal wrote about longs with ravening hunger to be filled, and so we try to quench the soul-deep famine with human contrivance. “Come, make us gods that will go before us.” They said that then, and our hearts say that now. Only make this god small enough that he can’t overpower us, small enough that we can instead control him — or her, or it. Bring him/her/it down to our level.

And so the Aaron priests of this world give the customers what they want. They present a molded calf or a beautiful home, or style themselves or somebody else into a movie idol or political savior.  Or they write a book like The Shack and reshape God into the form of a robust African American mama (or mammy?) with a “questionable sense of humor,” who loves to cook and jive to the blues. For money they’ll promote our own personal fame and “success” as an attractive god, or our occupations or pre-occupations. They’ll even help us style our spouse or child or ourselves into our own god. In fact, we can probably do the last quite nicely, without anyone else’s help.

Whichever god we choose from this great variety store, we bow down inside ourselves and worship and sacrifice to it, and are smug and happy — for a while. We sit down to eat and rise up to play, celebrating our possession of our shiny little god.

But big-G God, infinite invisible God, isn’t like that — any of that. And that’s not what we need. What good can finally come from a god that can be ground to powder or killed in an instant? We are meant to be the possession, the big-G God of ultimate love and holiness and wisdom and power the Possessor.

Everyday I ought to ask myself, “Which am I seeking or serving: some small-g god deified by human imagination—or the true God of all, before Whom someday every knee will bow?

True God of everything, lead me out of temptation!

The sky is falling! —in tiny pieces, white crystalline fragments, swirling down so densely they block my view of everything else. I can’t see either heaven or earth—even a few yards down the road. It’s a blizzard!

Sometimes it seems my life’s sky is falling.  My spiritual eyes can’t see a bit of heaven—or even my next steps down the road.  I’m having a spiritual whiteout.

I love the snow—if I have nowhere to go.  I don’t need to see ahead then. I can calmly watch while flakes swirl down in solo dances or tight little groups, swiftly coating the ground in gossamer, then gauze, then deep fuzzy blanket.  The sooty road becomes pristine.  The trees get dressed in lace.  The mud and the clutter of wind-delivered twigs and leaves disappear beneath a spotless veil.  Stillness reigns, traffic ceases, people snuggle down in houses, while Heaven’s white pours earthward.

But when I “need” to keep appointments, go places, do things, how different my reaction:  tension and restlessness, anxious pleading for the storm to stop!   In such a state, I miss the beauty of the moment.

I must realize: Normal activity will resume…later.  But now the falling of the sky, slowing life to standstill, is probably just what I really need.

How often in the midst of life my deepest need is to “stand still, and see the deliverance of the LORD,” to “be still, and know that [He is] God” (Exodus 14:13; Psalm 46:10).  How often (though I hate to admit it) having my “sky fall” is the only thing that will bring my noisy hustle-and-bustle to a halt, my heart, mind, and soul to stillness.  How often only the fallout of a blizzard can cover with white the mud and debris my scurry has churned up, so that I can afterward view the outlines of life in clear simplicity.

What are you leaving behind? That’s what I’ve been asking myself lately. As I sat looking around my living room, I couldn’t lay my eyes on anything I thought any of “the kids”–or even any close friends–would want when I leave this world. A few framed photos on the bookshelf, maybe–but they even have copies of those.

When my dad died and my sibs and I had the colossal task of going through all that Depression-influenced hoard, the next-door neighbor said her kids had told her that when she departed they were going to take care of her stuff with a match.

All that “stuff” we accumulate and guard! Worthless to those still hanging around on earth–and worthless in eternity, too. So I’ve asked just what could be of value. And I decided: the stories.  The testimonies of amazing things God did, the family histories and anecdotes and sagas still untold, and the told ones that will soon fade or get distorted.  That’s what I can leave behind: the heritage of faith and eternal blessing–valuable on earth, and valuable in eternity.