There’s another thing that I’ve run into that I think adds to the hindrances that keep us from truly relating to God first and foremost as a personal being. That thing is all the talk that goes around about the concept of the “End Times.” If you don’t know anything about the end times, or if they evoke in you a response similar to “…the end of what?”, then first I would ask you which rock or building you have been hiding underneath, and then I would probably dismiss the subject all together, reasoning that you are most likely better off in your present ignorance.
A word of caution – don’t think that I’m advocating an attitude of laziness concerning knowledge of God. The problem here, I think, is that most people who delve into this madness of End Times conjecture are not simply seeking knowledge of their God. And I’ll explain why.
Think of how it would be if you were married to someone. If you actually are married, then this will be easy. Say that you’re newlyweds, and that you are firmly locked in the trance of love that many newlyweds are immersed in during the early stage of marriage. And now say that you are separated by thousands of miles for a significant period of time.
What is going to occupy your time while you’re not together? Most who have been in this situation will know that your spare time – the time that you would normally have spent with your spouse, were they present – would be filled with thoughts of how much everything is reminiscent of them. During every moment of every day, you will at some level be conscious of the fact that you lover is not with you, and that when you go home at the end of the day, they will not be there. I think anyone who has been in love and separated from their lover for a long time can identify with what I am attempting to describe here.
But what of their return? What would be your greatest concern? Obviously, your greatest concern would be what they will do when they return. You would be occupied with wonder over the fashion in which they will choose to return. You would talk to your friends everywhere about the date and the hour at which they would return. You would agonize over what type of car they would choose for their drive hoe. You would get other friends to talk to them to attempt to deduce as many details as possible. Every conversation between you and your spouse would be devoted to how they would chose to return to you, what clothes they would be wearing, whether or not their hair has changed and so on. Am I right?
No. I think I’ve missed the point.
I think that you would be much more taken with what you would do to receive your spouse, and how happy you would be after their absence is through. I think you would be devoted to learning as much as you could about their experiences along the way, and you would be waiting to end your discontentment and bask in the satisfaction of being with them.
The correlation is pretty obvious, I think, to our relationship with God, if we claim to have one. I hear a lot more talking in Christian circles about how the End Times will transpire (how our bridegroom will return, according to the Apostle Paul), than I hear about how will respond, and how satisfied we will (or should) be after we are finally united with him. So, I don’t think that our thirst for knowledge about the End Times is generally out of a desire to feed our anticipation of being finally united with him. I think that our fascination is out of a desire to satisfy our curiosity, our prideful desire for conspiracy theory, and to fall in line with the trendy marketing forces that sweep us up in American capitalistic culture. The last time I looked, the Left Behind series had sold a lot more copies than A Celebration of Discipline or Knowing God. The horrifying truth is that our appetite – in the supposedly born-again Christian world – for conspiracy-theory-like master plans and exciting, entertaining story lines is bigger than our appreciation for the personality of our God.
The biggest detriment to Christianity in this is that it emphasizes Christianity as a “system”, rather than a relationship with a person. And you can’t communicate that in a post-modern culture. Christianity is a relationship with a personal God – a person, named Jesus Christ. And this relationship affects every inch and layer of everyone who opens up their heart to him. It is this, and it is not a system of belief, if a choice between the two is necessary. Touting Christianity against other world religions as a superior system of belief does not give a post-modern world a reason to believe that a personal God even exists; describing loyalty to God with sentences that begin with, “In Christianity, we believe…” only fuels the modern post-modern idea that Christianity is mostly just a religion. And religions are systems of belief which people were born into and pay homage to twice a year in the world of yesterday. They were creations of primitive peoples who attempted to explain the things they couldn’t otherwise understand.
But a relationship is not a system. And an experience is not a system. My experiences are unmistakably greater than a system of argument, because my experiences are real – they are tangible. I could, at the moment when they happened, touch and feel and hear and see them, along with the effects that they had. And so the point is unmistakable – my Jesus is my friend, my companion, my Father, whom I am not currently with in the physical sense. But I know him, and I love him, and I can’t describe the anticipation with which I look forward to finally being with him. My thoughts are taken often with how I will respond to being with him. Borrowing a phrase from popular Christianity, I can only imagine. And therefore, I will not treat him with the same attitude that I have toward my earthly fascinations with conspiracy and scandal. I will only engage that which helps me understand him better now, and which increases my anticipation of being with him after he returns. This is the attitude I would have toward God, concerning his return, if I truly understood him as my perfect, holy, personal companion.
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