Why do we stop at caring?
Why do we forget our calling?
Why do we ignore our calling?
What makes my comfort and convenience more important than the advancement of the Kingdom?
What happens when we live like The King is on the throne?
Here's some news for us all, there would be no throne if The King were not residing on it. Think of the implications of that. If God is not God, then there is no God. Most of us are familiar with the idea of "making gods" out of the things around us. But the truth is that we cannot make God. We cannot put something on the throne. Because no matter how much we idolize something, it cannot be God. It can't provide for our needs. It can't help us live outside ourselves. It can't be the source of Truth for our lives because there is not Truth in it.
There are some inequalities that I should highlight.
"truth" does not equal "Truth."
"god" does not equal "God."
"a throne" is not "the throne."
There is a fundamental shift in mentality that we must make to understand the difference between God's Godness and a romantic relationship's godness. God's Godness obsoletes the godness of self-focus. His Truth exists on a level beyond that of your News Feed. His is the throne of justice and love, of power and mercy, of glory and grace. We cannot make this throne nor can we or any of our idols occupy it.
So back to the questions. Why do we stop at caring? Why is it that, with all our good intentions and after so much good teaching, we consistently fail to do good? Simultaneously, this question has no answer and many answers. It has no answer because nothing can occupy God's throne (see above) and in light of that fact, there is no reason for us to not live accordingly (see below). But it also has many answers because, with our broken (but naggingly persistent) human perspective, we find all sorts of other thrones to set our sights on.
Again, these are not the throne of the Most High, and they cannot provide the way He can. I reemphasize this because it is this crucial fact that we so often forget or ignore. THE THINGS OF THIS WORLD CANNOT BE GOD. Or, to put it in a nicer way that may... resonate more with some of you, "Creation cannot sustain what a Creator was meant to provide." It's when we forget this that we begin to make things more fundamental to our happiness or identity than God. Just the other... okay, it was this morning. Just this morning I found myself telling myself (and God) that if I just got this one thing, then I could serve Him better. If He would just gift me in this one certain area, then I would be able to obey, but if not, then I would just be stuck in sin.
I was blatantly crafting idols in the presence of God. There He was on His throne and there I was bowed down before it, telling Him how awesome He is and how blessed I am by Him. As I was talking, I sat up, pulled out a pocket knife and a small chunk of my heart. I started carving and telling Him that if I could just have this one hole filled, if He would just make this one part work a little differently, then I would start living like I was praising. Fortunately, on this particular morning, I realized the eminent consequences of my actions and allowed Him to fix the parts I had tactfully destroyed by filling them with Himself and His Truth.
One bit of this Truth was that I would never be satisfied, equipped, or fulfilled by anything but Him. The temporary things of this world will always betray us and will never provide what we truly need. So it's senseless to turn to those things in attempt to solve our problems. It's time we started living like we know this.
To return to the questions, what does this life look like? What does it look like when we realize (as in, "make into reality through action") that God is God and [insert "god" here] is not? To put it concisely, it looks like Jesus. But the idea of Jesus is an awfully large package. To unravel that a little, it looks like going into the world showing how much He loves us. A little more unpackaging and we start to see things like seeking after justice and having real, honest humility. We look a little deeper and the packing-peanuts of love (noun), joy, peace, patience et al. start to appear. After sifting around in these for a while we find some of the Bible's most explicit directions: love (verb), heal, preach, pray, give, serve.
So the question is not "Who?" nor "When?" nor "Why?" nor "What?" nor "How?" That leaves us with just one option. "Where?" And if we are looking and listening, He is faithful to provide an answer to this question as well. Then it's our turn to start living the answers.
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