Forever I thought that if I tried hard enough and thought long enough and read enough of my Bible I could figure God out. I could argue His existence and win the whole world over to God through my vast knowledge and wisdom of scripture. It would be easy. All the world needed was my great knowledge.
I hated experience and believed that the Holy Spirit only served to tweak my heart and make me a Christian and then never rear His ugly head again in my life. Never would that weird ghost do anything to me. After all, I heard he makes people get emotional. Emotions make us illogical and liberal! Like a girl. Well, more like a very emotional girl. I didn't want to be a girl because I am a man. I want no emotions, please, thank you! Emotions make us weird, like the Pentecostals. I feared if I let this Holy Ghost guy into my life He might make me fall down on the floor and start convulsing and speaking gibberish and telling people I talked to God. That wouldn't be right. After all I am a Presbyterian and we are too lofty for that mess. In fact we are very logical and resonable. There is no room for emotion in a Presbyterian. Especially a male Presbyterian. This Holy Spirit guy scared me and I wanted nothing to do with Him or His crazy antics.
Knowledge is safe. It keeps me from having to do anything. I can sit and read and learn all I want and don't have to do anything for anyone else or "feel" moved to do so either. "Feeling" moved sucks. What does "feeling" moved mean anyway? Without this feeling, I am better off because I can stay logical and self-controlled. I don't have to cry or feel convicted to feed the poor or be nice to my mom. I can just think about it and say that it is right and that is good enough. That IS good enough right? hmm!
I felt this way until just recently.
I think my wife was supposed to be a pentecostal and she just got lost somewhere along the way and by chance she fell into marraige with me. Poor girl. She likes to say she "feels" things and she cries a lot (that part may be my fault), but there is something even stranger than that that she does. She loves people unconditionally! Why would anyone do that? How could you possibly love someone without asking anything from them? She especially loves special needs people. This drove me nuts because all I could think was that God would give her one of these kinds of kids one day and my life would be over. He would give her this kind of kid because He knows she would love that person more than anything in the world and she would be completely content.
What about me God?!! I was freaking out. This kind of love was way to weird for me. I mean I need to get something back from a relationship. How can I possibly ever be godly if I have to be so self-sacrificial? I wouldn't have the energy to do anything good. She would though, and that makes me feel like crap.
Being married five years has taken it's toll on my spiritual ego. I always thought I had everything figured out and was waiting for just the right moment to transform the world with my great knowledge, and make the world ready for Jesus to come back. I might even sacrifice myself upside down to show the world that I knew how to do it. Then this wild eyed, beautiful and crazy girl came along and messed it all up for me. Just when I thought I was ok, and just when I had God wrapped tightly in my gift wrapped box with a red bow on top, she came into my life and showed me how ridiculously wretched and awful I was. The audacity!
How could she do this to me?
My wife is the most illogical person I've ever met. Everytime I try to reason through something with her she just tosses my great knowedge to the wind and goes on her merry way. She is illogical and WAY too loving. If it were up to her all of our possessions would be down at the homeless shelter and I would be sleeping on a hard wood floor. She would give away her only meal on a deserted island to a starving monkey if she had the chance. This pissed me off! I would always tell her, "you can't just love somebody like that. I mean it's not natural. You have to look out for yourself in this world." After all, isn't that what Jesus said? Somewhere? Maybe? Now you are getting a good idea of what my God box looked like.
It baffles me that my wife is so godly. she really is. I actually think she is as close to Christ as anyone I've ever met. She has shamed me in ways that I can't tell you because she is so much better than me at everything spiritual. I sometimes fear that I will come home and have a homeless guy eating at my table or some mangy old dog eating my steak! She would do that too!
It used to tick me off that I put so much effort into figuring out God and after years of learning and figuring and building the systems to being an awesome Christian philosopher/ preacher/ guru, that this strange and emotional girl would enter into my life, never having read much of any scripture and off the cuff be more like Christ then me. It wasn't fair!
How could I have missed it. I'm supposed to be the one that is more like Christ because I have studied Him more.
I'm learning that God LOVES to break our boxes. I think it is because He likes to pop the bubble wrap inside. Every time I thought I had God figured out He destroyed my system. This is why we need the Holy Spirit. Because there is not a soul on earth that can understand this God that we serve. No system or law can hold him. He can break all of our petty little legalistic rules and it's ok. He's God! There is only one way to know God and that is through the Holy Spirit. My wife has the Holy Spirit coming out of her ears. The Holy Spirit is why we know God, and how we understand anything at all. He is the force within us that drives us to the truth, that sits with us on top of the Blue Ridge Mountains when the sun is setting and that shows us how filthy we are through emotional girls! In fact, He is the one that shows us through these emotional and unreasonable girls that we suck at life and they don't!
If I were going to leave you with anything it is this. Don't put God in a Box. He gets VERY clastrophobic! and don't let knowledge rule you. It only makes you dumber. Let the Holy Spirit guide you to the truth and let Him open your eyes. Trust His work in your life and not your own. And do not! I repeat, do not! marry a Spirit filled women if you want to keep your ego.
I love you Bonnie! He has done more for my walk with Christ through you than anyone else in the world.
Your brilliant youth pastor (I AM being sarcastic) Mark Wells
10 comments:
Mark, you need to get in touch with a publisher ASAP. This has to be the best thing I have read in a long while. Honestly you have a way of saying things in writing that is hard to find. You need more than a blog. You are like Mark Driscol: a Reformed emergent (kinda). You rock man.
phenomenal post, Mark.
a fav line:
Knowledge is safe. It keeps me from having to do anything.
Lots more well-said stuff in here. Not gonna take time to elaborate how much that post slammed into my heart right now, cutting through the current mess and forcing me to an "oh crap" moment when I realized where your post was going and how desperately I needed to hear this (and don't want to).
Praise God for B. ;)
..........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................That's about how long i thought about this post after i read it ( each "." representing 5min).
First- LOVVVVVVVVVVVVVE YOU BONNIE! The fact that you and your amazing-ness can screw Mark up so much, made me laugh xD!
Second- Mark, Bro, Dude, you just made a KICK-BUTT start to the new blog! Couldn't have been a better way to show us that we need to not only realize that "Godly" people are normally the stuck up ones that get confused and limit themselves, but also we need to stop over-thinking and know that loving "self-lessly" is not only harder but WAY MORE FULL-FILLING then loving "Self-ishly!"
-Colt
Dude i love it!
Nice post Mark. I like your thoughts on emotion, knowledge and action. And you're right that every man will in some way be humbled by his wife.
Though when speaking of action and the Holy Spirit, I would be more specific on this point, "There is only one way to know God and that is through the Holy Spirit."
I like the way the Westminster guys say it [emphasis mine], "The whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for His own glory, man's salvation, faith and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture: unto which nothing at any time is to be added, whether by new revelations of the Spirit, or traditions of men. Nevertheless, we acknowledge the inward illumination of the Spirit of God to be necessary for the saving understanding of such things as are revealed in the Word: and that there are some circumstances concerning the worship of God, and government of the Church, common to human actions and societies, which are to be ordered by the light of nature, and Christian prudence, according to the general rules of the Word, which are always to be observed." They require both the Word and the Holy Spirit.
When speaking of "good works," they say it like this [emphasis mine], "Good works are only such as God hath commanded in his holy Word, and not such as, without the warrant thereof, are devised by men out of blind zeal, or upon any pretense of good intention." i.e. We have to be in lock-step with God's Word.
They get more specific in the Larger Catechism:
Q. 154. What are the outward means whereby Christ communicates to us the benefits of his mediation?
A. The outward and ordinary means whereby Christ communicates to his church the benefits of his mediation, are all his ordinances; especially the Word, sacraments, and prayer; all which are made effectual to the elect for their salvation.
Q. 155. How is the Word made effectual to salvation?
A. The Spirit of God maketh the reading, but especially the preaching of the Word, an effectual means of enlightening, convincing, and humbling sinners; of driving them out of themselves, and drawing them unto Christ; of conforming them to his image, and subduing them to his will; of strengthening them against temptations and corruptions; of building them up in grace, and establishing their hearts in holiness and comfort through faith unto salvation.
In short, you can't just make something up and say the Holy Spirit told you to do it. It has to be consistent with scripture. And if you're not reading scripture, then you likely won't hear God. Doesn't mean that the Christian life isn't emotional, just a recognition that we are still sinful and being sanctified.
I love you Rob, but if I put all that in there it wouldn't have been as fun. I'll save that for a lesson. :-)
Mark,sooo good!! Thanks for the reminder of how we need to love people :) I'm thankful for the work of the Lord through Bon bon!!
Just to clarify though, what I meant by that quote is that you can read scripture all you want and never really know God. It is only the work of the Spirit that enables our eyes to open and our hearts to soften
I'm sorry I can't write as much as all u smarties but I like the first part I read cause I can't read at a 6th grade level
Praise the LORD for the Holy Spirit, cause I definitely didn't do anything to earn it! One of my favorite passages of scripture is Ephesians 1:16-17. "Making mention of you in my prayers: that the God or our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him"! I remember right after I read this I was like Yes! Not that revelation is something I believe to be a new thing, but Paul was speaking about revelation in the sense of the Holy Spirit working in reveling the LORD's Word to us. Is this a correct understanding Mark? I starting praying for you for that all the time after I read it.
Anyways, thanks for the sweet words because ultimately I know that God purposes me this way for your good because he designed you to work diligently unto His Glory.
And no this is not the New Cov Youth Pastor, but B. The LORD might have gifted me with His Holy Spirit but not with the gift of understanding how to log into a stinking blog. So sorry Mark it automatically pulled me up as you and I can't figure out how to change it. :(
B, you CRACK me up.... which is like reason #15967473 why I love you. :)
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