~ Oh God Help me

The life of a Jesus follower, A.K.A. Christian, is not easy. That is not to say that it is invariably hard, either. Thing is that Jesus calls us into a new world system, one that is countercultural to the life that people all around us live. It is different, there are different parameters and different value systems, and there are different rewards for different decisions.

When He calls us out of the world system and into Father’s Kingdom, He doesn’t transplant us instead He leaves us, more or less, where He found us. This has been picked up by writers of science fiction both as books and TV/Film writers, they call it the parallel universe: but He has a deeper reason than to have a laugh at our expense. You see when He leaves us where we came from; He doesn’t leave us in the same state. We have been changed and we are different. This difference is apparent to those who knew us in the days prior to our meeting Jesus, even if it may take a while for them to work that out. And we may be unaware of just how different we have become for some time as well.

I remember a photo that was taken in my recruits phase of National Service where a positive from a Polaroid camera was labelled “Preachers Brains” and found its way into my gear. I only found it many years later. Now the point of that yarn is that I was unaware of this difference but that the rest of the platoon must have been, or at least some of them, and that at best guess I had made a remark about where I had come from, a Mission Station, prior to my call up.

You see when He leaves us where we were He is having a joke. We are that joke and it is at the expense of His spiritual opposite number, wanna be, by not removing us to a better place we become God’s Guerrillas. We are the proof to those friend from before that there is a better way, that God really is, and that the prince of the air no longer has any control over you. This conveys to them that they too maybe able to break out just like you did. Anyone can break out and never go back that is just running away, breaking out while staying put is a whole different kettle of fish.

Often as we grow in our faith we can experience heartaches that may be greater than we understand. All to often we turn around and cry. ”Why God why?”As if to suggest that we should have been spared this trauma or that sacking. When that happens we tend to think subjectively rather than try to find out whether there may have been a “higher” reason for the experience. Maybe the eyes of our friends, workmates, or neighbours may have been upon us and someone needed a spiritual jolt that there may have been another way. Jesus was asked by His disciples who sinned the the blind man or his parents. His answer was that this blindness was for God’s glory. Later when writing to the Romans Paul pens the words, “All things word to the good to then that love God” then statement is that all things, good and bad, work to the good to them who love God. There is no Biblical promise that we will be spared pain, just that we will be able to prevail against the tide.

I have known people who have breasted up to all sorts of hurt and even illness, metaphorically speaking who have taken it on, learnt from the experience and come out the other side. I have seen others who have had half the bother but who have  just rolled up their eyes, turned to the wall and said it is over. The latter in one case was dead within three months, for him it really was finished, but he just didn’t know by how much.

The life that Jesus promises to usher into our lives is not escapist; it is the real adventure of a real life lived in real victory with no favours and no shortcuts. Knowing that He is with us through whatever and that He knows full well what our limits are means that even though we may not know all the answers, we certainly know Him who does have all the answers even if He may be withholding some answers from us.

My question to you what is the point of living the great adventure if we know all the answers? Adventure without questions is like placing a bet on a horse you know is going to win: no bet.