Question: how many deer are in this picture? One or three. Depends on whether or not this is a time-lapsed composite picture, doesn’t it? Yes, there are many, many things that are difficult to truly understand.
Yesterday, I enjoyed an excellent sermon by Caleb Colley ( Lakeside church of Christ in Florida) entitled “Choosing friends” see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OIQxwumrHM&t=1680s. He started with the following verse and quoted many, many others, especially from the book of Proverbs.
1 Corinthians 15 ( World English Bible )
33 Don’t be deceived! “Evil companionships corrupt good morals.”
Later, in the afternoon I watched a movie called “Arrival”, made in 2016 with Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner and Forest Whitaker. An unusually good Sci-Fi flick with some thought provoking questions about communication, time and others. At the end of the movie my wife Linda said that she missed the point of the ending. I told her what I thought: The movie was about communication; really understanding another person’s point of view and not making too many assumptions. In this movie, aliens used circular forms of “drawings” made with mist to communicate. Unlike humans, these beings did not view time as linear, but rather circular. Now, that is a difficult thing to understand!
Still later that day, I thought about not only choosing friends, but about being one. And then the following passage came to mind…
John 15 ( WEB )
10 If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and remain in his love.
11 I have spoken these things to you, that my joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be made full.
12 “This is my commandment, that you love one another, even as I have loved you.
13 Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.
14 You are my friends, if you do whatever I command you.
God in the flesh, explaining to mere human beings how to be HIS friend. Sounds simple, but really it is not. God, the creator of the universe, someone for whom time is NOT LINEAR explaining friendship. God, who is a being of absolutes (Love, Perfection, Holiness, Intelligence etc.) schooling beings of many limitations. Then I thought of this passage from the book of Isaiah...
Isaiah 55 ( WEB )
8 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” says Yahweh.
9 “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.
10 For as the rain comes down and the snow from the sky, and doesn’t return there, but waters the earth, and makes it bring forth and bud, and gives seed to the sower and bread to the eater;
11 so shall my word be that goes forth out of my mouth: it shall not return to me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing I sent it to do.
In both the movie and the John passage the recipients were being given a gift – of friendship. The path forward is a choice of the hearer; accept the gift or not. Only time will tell what we will do. Why not really listen to Jesus and accept his friendship by obeying his commandments while you still have the chance?