Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Vows...and such...

11:39 AM by Christi Bowman

I sat through a service at Willow Creek Community Church a few Saturday nights ago and listened as Bill Hybles eloquently honored Mother Theresa. In honoring her, Mr. Hybles took the congregation deeply into this mother's vows, and then gave everyone present a chance to repeat those same vows at closing time.

The vows that I remember most were:

That she would refuse God nothing.

That she would obey without delay.

That she would love God like He had never been loved before.

I said those vows out loud and I meant them. As I left the building I felt bitterness creep into my soul. I began comparing Bill Hybles sermon to other "Take God out of the box" sermons I have heard many times before. People and pastors alike appreciate these sermons. The pastor feels like he has shaken things up and the people feel challenged. I believe it stops there.

It is actually quite scary to take God out of the box you have him in; if it is even possible for people to take Him out of their boxes at all. I propose that God takes Himself out of the box and we either refuse to follow or with child like curiosity we let Him lead. He does not lead us solely by sight if by sight much at all as I suspect that would lead to dependence on things or people other than Him and He is a jealous God. I have found that it is a blind faith type of leading that comes face to face with opposition most of the time.

It comes face to face with opposition because most people, pastors and fellow congregants alike are only comfortable when God is taken out of the boxes that they have already taken Him out of themselves. If it goes much beyond that people want very little to do with the box you have allowed God to remove Himself from.

Fellow Christians want you to refuse God nothing as long as it is in keeping with the things they have not refused God. They expect you to obey God without delay (and sooner) as long as it is congruent with the commands they choose to obey without delay. And they whole heartedly agree with the fact that you should love God like He has never been loved before as long as you acknowledge that everyone else including them loves Him in that same way.

I came across something in "The Shack" that I would like to leave you with. It sums up how I have been feeling...in a nice little box!! :)

"In seminary he had been taught that God had completely stopped any overt communication with moderns, preferring to have them listen to and follow sacred scripture, properly interpreted, of course. ...Nobody wanted God in a box, just in a book. Especially an expensive one bound in leather with gilt edges, or was that guilt edges? ...He realized he was stuck, and Sunday prayers and hymns weren't cutting it anymore; if they ever really had. Cloistered spirituality seemed to change nothing. ...He was sick of God and God's religion, sick of all the religious social clubs that didn't seem to make any real difference or affect any real changes. Yes, Mack wanted more..."

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