"God won't let the bad man hurt you"
Our Western evangelical religion has slowly developed
from a healthy personal religion in the Reformers, which when combined
with an unhealthy rise of individualism has resulted in an
over-personalised brand of "intimacy". While those whose standard of
living is better than tolerable find great comfort in it a great host
find this stress worrisome and guilt-generating. If we don't feel a
great level of loving intimacy the fault must be ours because it can't
be God's. Since this greater level "intimacy" is what the Bible promises
(isn't it?) and it's what so many others profess we can feel left out, a
bit envious of others and somewhat resentful toward God because
we're left out (and that resentment breeds some more guilt). Then
again, we might think that these others are professing more than they
really "feel" and that breeds some doubt about their honesty and that breeds some more guilt at our cynicism and that in turn can nurture a growing frustration.
The intimacy so many of us look for is that "wooing"
experience, almost romantic, at least always tender and emotion-laden—a
certain kind of "emotion" laden. The word "love" doesn't help since it's
so ambivalent. Much of what we see of love around us is tender
touching, soft smiles, gentle tones, quiet laughter and a lot of verbal
caressing. If God "loves" us it's hard not to think it's that kind of
treatment we should be experiencing from him and feeling toward him in
return.
But there are other kinds of "intimacy" that have their
own verbal and body language. Strong friends who stand together against a
world-spirit and know that they do, they don't have the same "wooing"
experience. Troops in combat have another sense of camaraderie and
brotherhood. In the middle of great conflict where righteousness is on
the line and where injustice is the enemy and joy-filled freedom is the
aim, there the "wooing" and genteel kind of intimacy isn't the kind the
freedom-fighters treasure and feel and smile about.
But these other kinds of intimacy are real
and they have their deep emotional content. There's a deep sense of
assurance and contentment and so there is emotional warmth and security
that the person at your shoulder is there; their presence pleases us!
And knowing that when we're in trouble or danger that there are those
who would come looking for us, that they'd pursue us to the gates of
hell, and a few, a very few, would even go in through the gates to get
us out—knowing all that is to experience and exult in an intimacy that
is no less precious and felt than the sweet wooing that has its rightful place in life.
This ceaseless comparing of God's love for us
with what goes on between lovers and parents and little children is
injurious. To deny that God feels tenderness toward us manifestly goes
against the biblical witness for when he came to us in and as Jesus
Christ he expressed himself toward us in tenderness and gentleness. I
don't know how we should describe God "in and of himself" as he is in
the "land of the Trinity" but then none of us knows God "in and of
himself" as he is in the "land of the Trinity". God has seen fit to
choose not to be God without us. He has eternally chosen to be "God with
us" and we know him in no other way.
Speaking only for myself in my own tiny and very limited
experience, I can and do receive that truth by faith, nothing doubting,
and it fills me with pleasure and warmth. Occasionally—only very occasionally—it
makes the hairs on my neck rise when I "feel" the stirring of the air
when God passes close by me in some moment or other.
I'm not opposed to us offering "intimacy" as part of one's relationship to God but I'm opposed to offering ceaselessly and almost exclusively that wooing kind of intimacy that means to set "our little hearts all aflutter."
A pox on that kind of teaching!
In light of texts like John 17:9-16 and Matthew 5:10-12,
a glorious, loving, strong, affectionate, pursuing Lord Jesus said to
his followers: "The only prayer I have for you of my Holy Father is that
he keeps you from being swallowed up by the world-spirit. As to the
rest, take heed to yourselves, you're in for a bit of a rough ride. The
world-spirit didn't care for me since I came to wreck it and you can be
sure it won't care for you." This is the same one that said to them,
"Come what may, I will always be there with you! When you feel what I
myself have felt, that you've been cut off from the rest of the people
and isolated—remember, I'm with you."
©2004 Jim McGuiggan. All materials are free to be copied and used as long as money is not being made.
Many thanks to brother Ed Healy, for allowing me to post from his website, the abiding word.com.