SafeGod
The holy wild is wilderness. But, if you walk and don’t faint, you find what Job did:
Though he slay me. Yet I will praise him.
You find that the God who walks with us through the valley of the shadow of death is infinitely better than the dull, safe god who lulls us into borderland, seducing us with false comforts, spinning a cocoon around us that doesn’t protect, only entraps, and from which we emerge wingless.
Jesus life was one whose life is completely his own possession. He was free to give whoever he pleases, however he pleases, whenever he pleases. Or not to give it.
“I lay down my life, only to take it up again. No one takes it from me- I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.”
(John 10:17-18)
The all-too-easy thing to do is to take up residence in borderland, adopt some hybrid philosophy that:
crossbreeds stoicism - just grit your teeth and take it like a man.
with hedonism- you only go around once, get it while the getting’s hot.
with epicureanism- leave me to my patch of sunlight, I’ll leave you to yours.
with nihilism- nothing matters anyway, so just do what you want.
Thinking like this there’s nothing to give real pleasure or deep meaning to an activity. There’s nothing to ground opinions into truth and shape them into convictions, nothing to translate busyness into fruitfulness, nothing to convert selfish ambition into holy purpose.
Unceasing prayer is a constant awareness. It’s a continual, though usually silent dialogue. It’s a fixed habit of mind, a constant and deliberate gesturing toward and response to God that after long practice becomes unconscious and instinctive. Praying without ceasing is the fruit and sap of all prayer: what keeps it alive and what makes it worthwhile. Because, above all, its what makes God’s presence real to us.
Mark Buchanan
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