The Last Chapter

Editorial comment: I hope I'll be able to get this thought down concisely... but don't bank on it.

I've been struck recently (from a number of angles) by the simultaneous arrogance and folly with which we interpret our lives and the times we live in. From the smallest details of our day-to-day living to the largest trends of global topics... we tend to think we understand "most of it" and can explain even more of it. And we are fooled by our own thoughts.

A book which was thrust upon me recently proved very rewarding... so first prize to author Nissam Nicholas Taleb. His book (Fooled By Randomness) proved more than a little thought-provoking. He focused mostly on how people interpret financial results. (For example, he analysed the dangers of assuming that "Since Warren Buffett has done so well over three decades, he must be a superior investor." Well, that is very possible. But it's also possible that he's the luckiest coin flipper among 40,000 starting contestants. After 15 flips you can expect at least one person to have demonstrated "a real knack for flipping only heads.")

Taleb's point is that we tend to look at what happened and then construct a story around why it had to happen. Why Harry Potter was destined to succeed. Well, it's often easy to explain why something had to happen, once you know that it did happen. How many other fabulous writers never become well-read? Quite a few. We only know about the ones who became big. And (after the fact, as always) gushing journalists explain why it's obvious the author earned the fame, deserved it... had written in such a way as to guarantee success.

It comes closer to home when we examine our own lives. I still remember to this day a lousy day back in 2nd grade. I was in a crowded room in a Christian camp-ish setting when the leader said that beneath a single chair was taped a candy bar. I reckoned I'd had a lousy day and was a good candidate to receive such bliss. I told God as much. And lo and behold... it worked out that I did (!) win that candy bar... it was under the seat of my very own chair. A 1-in-a-hundred winner... but if I had not won, I am sure I would not remember the incident today, 35 years later. I remember also vaguely that on other such days my views were not so honored by God's stamp of approval. Days on which the candy bar went to someone else, so to speak. I still wonder to this day about the distinction between "I won that candy bar by fluke" and "I won the candy bar because God decreed it."

Too often we use that latter definition, and it's sooo easy to do in hindsight. But the folly of it is that we cannot seem to predict God's sovereign decrees in advance nearly so well as we employ insights into his sovereign will after the fact. We construct so many stories, explaining what God is teaching us and providing illustrations of how God has been doing it...

And I am as guilty as the next person in this perilous adventure. Perhaps even more guilty. I am deeply confident that God is teaching me treasured lessons through a prolonged investment misadventure. Sure that God has my family through the financial debacle through gainful employment... but others will tell how God sustained their family through loss of their home... loss of every asset they own. We each weave our tales in order to explain the outcome we currently face.

It seems to me sometimes that agnostics, atheists and others are not quite so much prey to this folly. I remember the figurative slap in the face from 20 years ago. I commented that God had been kind to me, seeing as my leg in a full cast had been spared some discomfort by a very mild summer. The woman (not a believer) looked at me in awe and said, "Do you really think God gave the entire midwest a cool summer just for the sake of your leg??"

She had a point. I found myself stunned, not sure how to answer. How easy it is to make ourselves the center of the story, and to pretend we know how it ends and how it is proceeding.

What takes more bravery is to say, "I have no idea how this story ends. In fact, it's God's story. Not mine. And my story is only relevant insofar as it pertains to His story. And God has not revealed to me what role I have yet to play."

I mostly don't say that. I instead have a habit of thinking about today as if it's more or less a page in the final chapter of a book. I can explain so much about how God got me to this day. So much about where God is taking me. We know, of course, that today is (for most of us) not nearly the last chapter of our books. But we talk all too often with the confidence of someone who has read the whole book. When we haven't.

The story belongs to God. And I don't know what he's up to most of the time. And I take strong positions more often than I should.

So what inspired me to write this blog? A number of things. More than a few... Here's one...For example, note how many of us Christians alive today, when pressed on the matter, share a hunch that the Lord will return before we die. Hidden in there, I believe, is a commitment to the notion that we are integral to the story. How can it end after we're gone? Of course that sounds absurd when stated baldly. But count me among the guilty. Do I see signs that the end is near? Yes! But then so have past generations. A bit more humility here is due, both from me and the rest of the living saints. More than likely we'll join the ranks of the dead saints and God's story here on Earth will be still in full stride. The last chapter coming some time after my own death? Perish the thought.

But the most recent impetus (and by that I mean the last 120 minutes) was from a comment that theologian Mark Noll shared in a recent interview. He pointed out that neither Martin Luther nor John Calvin would have tolerated the notion that the earth revolves around the sun. But just two generations later, Noll notes, Lutherans, Calvinists and Catholics would together with one voice lend credence to that which is taken for granted by all educated people regardless of creed. Noll wryly (and astutely) proceeded to assure his interviewer that he (Noll) is not enough of a scientist to shed light on current topics of interest. (I can imagine one or two he might have had in mind...), But Noll felt very comfortable as a historian to say that in light of these historical episodes we Christians should not be too hasty in our assessment of God's truth where the latest hot scientific debate is concerned.

To use my own words, I think Noll would point out that the last chapter on many such matters is not yet written.

So let this rambling blog try to wrap up with this observation. Where one cannot predict the future, humility must be afforded the past.

God, grant me the humility to admit I have no clue what you're doing. You're God, and I'm not. It's enough to know you love me, and, where the future is concerned, to not presume too much beyond that.

Hidden Commitments

I've been reflecting on the turbulence of life lately. How we find things so complicated and intractable. Poverty. Politics. Church problems. Family problems.

It seems that there is always a general idea that some Christian principle ought to apply, and yet that somehow it can't be used in this situation because of XYZ. And embedded in XYZ is a hidden commitment. XYZ is usually something that seems good. Or almost good. One thing is sure, however. If XYZ is keeping us from complete abandonment to Jesus and his ways, there's a hidden commitment in there somewhere. It has to go.

I've been struck frequently by the image of Jesus "slicing through" snarly problems, not unlike how he walked through that murderous crowd on one occasion. How is it that a host of threatening things does not prevent him from the straight path out?

Disciples of Christ find themselves at the juncture between subsonic flight and supersonic flight. We're drawn to the supersonic. We know it's smoother and faster. As we draw closer to the threshhold, however, the plane starts to shake and shudder. We're not comfortable. And we're not flying supersonic. And we're at risk of crashing the plane.

Then there is Jesus. Somehow he slices through. His road is not easy nor fun, but his way is smooth. Isaiah didn't have jet fighters in mind, but he did say pretty much the same thing. Make straight in the desert a highway...

Even Jesus had his Gethsemene moments, to be sure, but this is the broader picture of the gospel. A man who sliced through and seemed to glide through all our turbulence.

Why else does Jesus slide through? Said a different way, Why is it we cannot slice through as he does? These two words were added to my reflections this morning...

Hidden Commitments.

The answer is in our hidden commitments.

Supersonic flight requires a smooth aircraft. No clunky bricks attached to the wings. Our hidden commitments not only keep us from bursting through the sound barrier. They also make our flight extremely unpleasant. And the harder we strain to follow Jesus through the sound barrier, the worse and worse (and more painful) our hidden commitments become to us.

No wonder the rich man went away so sad. He could see where he wanted to go. His heart was basically there. Jesus was only a few feet away. But his hidden commitment to wealth prevented the last smooth step into supersonic flight. You can almost see the brick attached to his shaking wing as he veered off.

Hidden Commitments. As these word rattle in my brain this morning, they make a good fit much of my journey these past few years. I've been dropping commitments at a startling pace. I still have more commitments to drop, and some that I have dropped were dropped poorly. None perfectly.

But as I find myself clinging to Jesus more, and other things less, I find my life less turbulent in pleasant ways. Am I still buffetted by many winds? Absolutely. Do I feel less turbulence? Absolulely. And people sometimes turn away. But it is the way forward. I want to fly with Jesus.

Let me not be blind to my own hidden commitments, Lord. When my plane starts to shake, Lord... grant me courage to examine my wings and find the brick.