Then they will know that I am the Lord.

I just finished reading the book of Ezekiel. While I had read it before, it had been a couple of years since I read it in its entirety. The overwhelming theme, in the midst of a mind-boggling amount of rebellion by the Israelites and a mixture of justified punishment and freely-given mercy from the Lord, is this: that they might know that I am the Lord. Everything God does, He does so that the people might know and understand that He is the Lord. Everything the Israelites do wrong, it boils down to the fact that they are placing themselves or some other idol higher than the Lord.

Is God so egotistical? Does He really have such a petty need for glory and attention that He would act out like an ornery two-year-old? Or is something else at work here? In A.W. Tozer's The Pursuit of God, he writes that "the cause of all our human miseries is a radical moral dislocation, an upset in our relation to God and to each other." We are not God. As long as we live as though we were, we will know a life of deep dissatisfaction, a sense of strangeness and discomfort that comes from trying to be that which we are not and trying to carry a load that we were never meant to bear. How much trouble could be saved if we would simply humble ourselves before the Lord and give thanks for the position He has given us? Let it be enough to be God's dearly loved creation, to live in a right relationship to one another and to Him, and to bear His image humbly as we walk this earth.

On debate and action

Quite a number of my acquaintances and good friends enjoy a pastime that I spent a lot of years avidly avoiding: theological debate. Often, after a good meal or sermon, when friends are relaxing together and conversing, the conversation will turn to one or more of the often-debated aspects of our faith. There are a handful of topics that come up repeatedly, but I would place predestination/free will/the sovereignty of God as the favorite.

For a long while, I avoided these conversations because I was not sure we could ever arrive at an answer. Or, worse, we could arrive at the conclusion that there was no possible answer that allowed for the existence of the God in whom we believed, and my entire world would come crashing down. My arrival at a place of secure enough faith that I can engage in these debates is a story for another time, but suffice it to say that I now rather enjoy them-- to a point.

I value the exercise of engaging with the loftier concepts of faith and life and God. I think the practice can help us to grow immensely in our understanding of God, and I think He has given us minds capable of thought so that we could use them for such purposes-- again, to a point.

For a couple of years, I have been working through A.W. Tozer's book The Pursuit of God. It has been slow going, largely because the book is so full of challenges and solid truth that you cannot simply breeze through it in one sitting. Last night, in the section that I read, Tozer (himself a man of great intellect) addressed the idea of debate and higher understanding better than I ever could have. I encourage you to read the book for yourself, but his conclusion was this: "Prying into [those things] may make theologians, but it will never make saints."

So yes, debate. Engage with lofty ideas. Discuss difficult concepts within the context of Christian brotherhood. Think and wonder and grow. But, at the end of the day, what are you doing with the knowledge you have acquired? It is not what you know, but your response to that knowledge, that paves the road to glory.