God doesn't take attendance

"I don't object to the concept of a deity, but I'm baffled by the notion of one that takes attendance." The quote from the character, Amy, from The Big Bang Theory has a good point. I've only watched an episode or two, but that line struck me.

We know from scripture that God, the Creator, made us, walks along side us, interacts with us, died for us, lives in us, etc.  From the Old Testament to the New, that's the story.  We're not a side project that he put together for kicks and checks in on occasionally to see how it's going.

Understanding a bigger picture about someone can help make sense of the smaller pictures we get about them.  Sure, we sometimes assemble a lot of smaller pictures so we can make a larger picture, like we're detectives in a story, trying to solve complex problem from a few clues - I get that idea as well.

But we don't have to do that from scratch with God.  We actually do have this thing called scripture and it does actually paint a very large picture of who he is, who we are to him, and what our interactions are or can be like, depending on what we know and decide about him.

But we don't do that very much.  Instead, we let other people feed us smaller pictures that, added together, will craft a very personalized picture of a god they follow and want for us to join them in following. Again, it's all part of the learning process, but with God, faith, etc...too many people stop learning.

Consider how much and how little we learn "in church".  Unless you're from certain flavors of religion where they actually have classes to attend and pass, you're lucky to get three to four hours of exposure to some kind of teaching each week.  And it is *exposure*, it's certainly, usually not actual "learning".

What is learned is the importance of "being there".  Sure, a few Bible stories get spoken about and homilies or sermons get done to us, but the illusion of learning much of anything at any depth in that context needs to be taken seriously.

The important thing is the community and the comfortability that people have within it and around it. And there's nothing wrong with that at all!  What's amiss is when the important thing to the group (the getting together) becomes what we project as the most important thing to God.  

God doesn't take attendance, we do.

And why do we do that?  Because, over a long time, being at a certain place on a certain day, doing certain things in a certain way, have become ingrained into the minds of many as what God wants more from us than anything else.  Oh, and 10%+ of your money too.

Can you feel that weird tension?  Especially if you grew up in it!  The idea that God's primary goal isn't for us to go to church and give, sacrifice, and pour ourselves out seems like it's from the devil.  And I think the devil probably likes that.  He likes it when we have an unpleasant picture of God.

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Do you have people like that in your life?  People that breathe over your shoulder, letting you know they're watching you and that if you're not doing something a certain way, they're there to express disapproval and to offer shame and correction.

I don't mean the kind of fun, goofy jabbing at each other like guys do over when is the right time to flip a burger on the grill or how long should you smoke a certain cut of meat and at what temperature.  I mean the kind of people who are there to nag, scold, imply, growl, etc to you that, "You need to ______."

And they can be all over the place and anywhere in your life.  And you feel them coming sometimes.  They are often the people who will brighten the room by leaving it.  They bring tension with them because they bring high expectations of you into the room to remind you of them.  That's just their job, they feel.

They don't know how to let something go.  Even if something "wrong" has been done and they are the person who is there to correct you, they need to spend a few extra moments saying more words, turning the knife, ensuring that you are punished and shamed.

They can be as positive as the next person, but if you go off task for a moment, they can and maybe will turn like the skies during Spring and bring a thunderstorm down on you.  There is little to no grace is this person's dynamics and, if you counter them, they must attack or whither, becoming the victim.

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My word, that was unpleasant just typing that.  But I do so in order to give a picture of what I experienced a lot of - or at least from my limited point of view, perceived to be going on around me.  People who, "on behalf of God" needed to let me know God sent them to correct, threaten and, if need be, punish me,

My life isn't some kind of church version of the kid's movie Matilda where overtly bad people have abused me constantly.  If you were to watch a movie of my life, you might say, "Yeah, there are some cranky people there, but for the most part, that seems kinda normal."

And yet, the vision or version of God I got from seemingly "regular people" was heavily weighted toward one where God is really, really interested in me keeping a set of arbitrary rules that are sometimes super specific and sometimes very vague.  And because others felt that pressure too, they had to pressure me.

So now, I have a lot more grace for people at times when I see or hear them being strong on things God isn't strong on.  I know they're a victim of circumstances as well.  Sometimes I'm not so graceful toward them, especially when they lean in a little more, thinking that just a little more pressure will break you.

And so it can be hard at times interacting with people who are defending a hill that you are walking away from.  They want you to come back to that hill.  And if you walk back to approach them and discuss why they can have the hill to themselves, they want you to stand there and get their shame and disapproval.

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I really do feel sorry for people who feel as if God's main thing is "going to church and being a good person".  I'll do another post soon talking about why I don't think that is true AT ALL, but I 100% understand how some people's world is built on that and any question about it incredibly disruptive.

It's very difficult to have your worldview and your God-view questioned or threatened.  And that's perfectly normal and fine.  Doubt and questions are a normal part of faith development and growth, but we've talked about having questions as if that's a problem.  And it causes more doubts, later on.

I'm curious as to what the next few months/years hold as church/people of faith are challenged by larger things that put a God who takes attendance on the shelf.  What will they do when a culturally powerful voice they admire challenges their idea of a god and they don't know how to answer?  It's coming.

A day will come when having well intentioned church people around who offer a little more scorn regarding church things will not hold water.  It will be like trying to arrange the deck chairs on the Titanic as it's turning and listing and sinking underneath your feet.

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And that is probably one of the freedoms I feel now - the freedom not to agree with people about things I don't believe God sees as important.  I don't need to be a jerk about it, but I am certainly not obliged to "go along to get along" and leave the impression on anyone that I agree that God is as petty as they are.

To me, it's spiritual warfare - the law versus grace dynamic.  The devil wants constantly to bring people under the law and condemnation so they feel like they've earned something with God or fear they could lose it all.  God wants us to see it's not possible to keep the law and he invites us to live with his spirit.

It's all complicated stuff that will be unpacked later, but I want to verbalize the strong, strong connection between what people in our lives say and do in regards to God and church.  We often believe, without question, what others have taught us, entertained us with, and/or threatened us with.  That needs to stop.

If God can fit in my box, he's not God.

There is much better and larger news about God available.

And the people you've always let answer your God questions don't always know about it.

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Live in freedom.

Grace and peace and much love.