i can’t quite put my finger on this thought but if i don’t release it i’ll explode.

all these things somehow get mixed in to what the bible says. things that are good, things that may even be right…but aren’t really in the bible. they’re just ideas, maybe even truth.

i think somewhere in this labryinth christianity came to mean fulfillment; came to mean the perfect life, and so anything that gets us to the place where we can have fulfillment must be christianity (even though christianity isn't about fulfillment at all).

take, for instance, safety. safety is one of the biggest goals for many christians…to build a good suburban family with christian friends with christian kids in a christian school. these christians could never go out on the streets. they could never have friends that were atheists. they’re involved with youth group and they give money to good places. they’re safe. they’re in their community and they don’t take risks. and somehow along the way this gets equated with christianity, if you step outside the safety box, there’s something wrong with your doctrine.
because i think safety makes sense for some people. it seems to be a good goal. the world is a scary place to many people. since safety makes sense, that must be what god wants and that must be what the bible says.

or a million other things that go unsaid or are supported by little proof texts from here and there. somehow in our labryinth we got confused and thought god didn’t tell us enough in the bible, and that we should have a manual with all the good ideas so we can have happy lives.

but the bible isn’t a manual at all. it’s different than all other truth out there. the bible is extremely hard to figure out and follow. it’s very unsafe. it’s anti-intuitive. it’s tricky. it’s risky. it’s the lion’s mane. but it’s all truth, it’s all things we’re supposed to do whether or not the things make us happy or fulfilled. and we have to figure out what exactly it is we’re supposed to change and how we should change.
and somehow, i think if we did that, instead of worrying about things god must have forgot to tell us, i think we would have better relationships with each other, among other things.
because loving your enemy isn’t really easy or fun or safe, but our christianity has become easy, fun, and safe, so we laugh at our enemy and how dumb they are. whether that’s the dumb conservative christians or the dumb liberal christians or the dumb atheists or the dumb racism-fighters or whoever.
if i actually loved my enemy i wonder what it would look like.

it’s like we took all these assumptions and styles and belief systems and wedged them in with the good things of god, and we got a big and confused mess (though a very nice-looking sort of mess, i suppose).

and i don’t mean to say a bunch of things. i understand that all truth is god’s truth, and i certainly understand following and doing things that aren’t in the bible because they’re good ideas. but we have to remember that those things are ours, not god’s, and we can’t force god into liking our ideas. i hope eventually, through a lot of different ways, that god will make me into a person that emphasizes exactly what he does, that i am transformed into a person that lives the bible. not perfectly, but that i won’t be about a bunch of my own things.

and i understand that the bible is very hard to understand and that it isn’t easy to figure out what god wants us to do. and i understand that the writers of the bible have selfishness and pride and all sorts of things, but that doesn’t change the fact that it is god’s truth and we can’t secondguess him. and yes, i believe the bible is art and story and we have to understand it in the culture that it was written in, but that doesn’t at all change its relevance for us—sometimes we just have to get a bigger picture to understand what god is trying to say.

i want my eyes to be able to see what god sees when he looks at people. and i believe the way to find that is in the bible, not in a three-step brochure or powerpoint presentation, not in an –ism or a philosophy, i think it’s just in the bible. if that’s what people mean when they say that they believe in the bible, then i think that is beautiful and i want to be a part of that.