We live our lives making assumptions. Assumptions about how we approach people, how we will drive, how we will eat, how we will be active. Each day begins with assumptions. I assumed many things about my 30-hour retreat that turned out to be false. The accommodations were fantastic, though simple, and the location was rather peaceful. To some degree, there was no real “silence” with birds chirping, woodpeckers pecking, and animals scurrying around at the edge of the woods. The hermitage was modern and offered an atmosphere designed for reflection, with a flare of utility for good measure. Much nicer than I expected (which was some camp-like room with nary a bed and a dingy bathroom, and the smell of wet concrete that won’t go away). To my delight these assumptions were wrong.
Unfortunately, we all have (and many of us share) certain assumptions about God that are not quite true, though we somehow believe and feel that they are true. More dangerous are beliefs about God that are true, coupled with ones that feel true but are not. For instance, we all believe God is love, and he wants what is best for us, and he wants us to be holy. And each of these is true. What endangers us is when we turn that into a formula, A + B = C. If God loves me (A), and I am holy (B), then the best will happen to me (C). And this is fine, so long as life goes well, we’re good people, and nothing truly gets in our way and we feel like God is blessing us. But what happens if something goes wrong? What then? Does God not love us? Of course not. Is this not best for me? Of course not. We are then forced to believe that we are not being holy. Which may or may not be true. Maybe we should instead question our assumptions about God, rather than keep assuming.
Does it make sense that assumptions get us all tied up with God? Is it fair to say that when we make too many assumptions about God, and he doesn’t work the way we expected him to work, we then become disheartened? But who loses out? Is it God? Is it us?
I believe it is both. While God doesn’t “lose,” he certainly becomes saddened by our distance from him. But our loss is not only because we are distanced him; it runs deeper still. Bad enough as it is, the distance is only a temporary loss. The real loss is a long-term loss, a feeling that creeps inside of us that says that God is simply this far away from us. God is not near. God is out there. Sort of a Deist view, but we still claim God is interested in us. Perhaps it would be like a child truly believing that his father is involved with him, loves him, and wants the best for him while he is playing in the yard, while his father is watching from the porch. The father may be cheering him on, encouraging him to play harder, run faster, jump higher, build that tree house, all the while standing from the porch. He’s interested and fully engaged in what the child is doing. But he’s on the freakin’ porch! It’s bad enough that there is a distance. But if that child resigned himself to believing that this was the way the relationship with his father had to work, we would each declare this a tragedy.
So let’s start out with a clear statement that we often don’t assume about God: he is near. God is near. Around us. Close by. Beside us. In the yard playing with us. And Jesus tells us that, as any good shepherd does, he goes one step further: ahead of us. Now, I don’t claim to have any intimate experience of this, but I do know it to be true. I do know that at times Shiree and I have had conversations with people, and somehow in my spirit I know that God was working in their hearts as well. Sometimes it is something simple and “non-spiritual,” but important nonetheless. Sometimes it is profound. It is this way with many things in life, but we normally don’t have the eyes to see it, especially in the moment. We probably don’t realize that God is going ahead of us, making a path for us. Perhaps it’s that conversation you’ll need to have later today. Or perhaps it is the couple you’ve never met who live on the other side of the country who can’t make their flight, and somehow you’ve been waiting on standby for eight hours and really need to make it home. You know, that “mysterious ways” cliché that we all know. When it happens, we thank the Lord. But we simply don’t expect it.
I want to assume proper things about God. And I don’t typically have proper assumptions, or expectations, and so my life goes by, day by day, same old, same old, hoping to be better each day. And in many ways it is. As I ponder the last three years of my life, I’m struck with a tremendous amount of awe in what God has allowed me to accomplish in my life. I’m now married to the woman of my dreams (she’s even better than I dreamed––really!), I have a beautiful baby boy, I’m about to graduate with a Master of Divinity (funny that you’ll never really “master” it), I have a private pilot’s license, and I’ve been promoted twice at work. We’re completely debt-free, and on the horizon appears to be the purchase our first home. So many things. So many dreams fulfilled, hopes fulfilled, and for the most part, our world is pretty darn nice.
What scares me is my expectations for the future.
