Gambling on the Possible Life-Shaping Narratives of Human Destiny

Somewhere deep inside each of us we know that we exist as someone originally created for a specific eternal destiny in a never-ending story. Consider with me a moment where this yearning becomes manifest like one gazing across the ocean longing for something that lies just beyondthe horizon. This moment of gazing out across this sea of divine mystery into a possible eternal destiny, everything lying behind us becomes a distant memory. Within our innermost being we feel a sense of urgency that fills our soul with a hopeful yearning for something beyond what this fallen world can offer us. This hopeful yearning stretches out into the unknown, trying to grasp and retain the belief in what cannot be seen. As this yearning intensifies, a faint possibility of eternal happiness rises on the horizon. It beckons us with a promise that if we explore this ocean of mystery and entrust our future to our conviction in the actuality of this possibility, then we will find that which we have been seeking all our life without knowing what it was we sought.

Over time, this search for a greater good or higher end to live for available to us in this world has become suppressed under the weight of “reality,” because the realities of adulthood tend to stifle this childish hope of a “castle in the clouds”. Such a hope, subsequently, becomes set aside, only to be entertained as a hobby or through a work of fiction or all-together demeaned in the world of grownups. In consequence, at the close of each day of unrest has forced us to come to terms with the reality that this was a naïve hope for that which cannot be found on the shores of this world. Even still, at this present moment as we gaze out into the transcendent unknown, our gaze re-ignites the spark of the once-burning candle of eternal hope within our soul. We have experienced similar re-awakenings of this candle’s flame when we have read, listened to, or watched a story play out that reminds us of this inner longing for the possibility of some higher destiny beyond what has become the mundane everydayness of human life here in this world. But in contrast to these illusory possibilities inspired by the human imagination, at this moment a storyline appears on the horizon that presents these dreams as indeed a possible actuality. This moment gives way to a crossroads of faith that accompanies this resurrection of hope in finding lasting fulfillment for the inner yearning of our soul somewhere beyond the immediate horizons of the life of transience we now live.

While our gaze pierces the immediate horizon of our present life, hope in a blessed eternal destiny is kindled by the fires of the imagination. Although, our imagination comes along side our gaze to infuse it with the desire to act. This impulse comes to us in such a way that it feels as though some true substantiality lies at the root of what inspires us to believe that an actual possibility of eternal good actually lies available to us. This desire to act is greater than the inner promptings after fictional narratives became portrayed before our physical eye or our mind’s eye, since they clearly come to us as a momentary escape from carrying out our roles in real life. The bent towards taking action comes to us now, when it did not in relation to these works of fiction, because a part of us truly believes that what now calls out to us to real not imaginative action has always been calling out to us. Somehow we know that this same call that brings us now to an existential halt before a crossroads of destiny has rung out from a mysterious deep place ever since the awakening of our self-consciousness within our innermost being. Therefore, we believe it has not come from or has been placed in us from the outside, but rather lies innately imprinted upon our soul with a void of eternity that nothing in this world of transience can fill.

Scripture explains this human situation of inherently desiring the possibility of an eternal good, as eternity lying pre-written on the human heart (Eccl 3:11). For this reason nothing within the immediate horizons of this world of transient goods[1] permanently satisfies us human beings just as the book of Ecclesiastes makes quite clear. In contrast, the animals inhabiting this world alongside us seem to find what we humans can never find: true existential rest in spite of transience. Somewhere deep within us, we know that we were created to inhabit eternity. Accompanying the desire to act before this crossroads of faith, we inwardly feel a prompting that beckons us to begin our journey of exploring the spiritual ocean of our Creator’s self-disclosure. It beckons us to embrace the rekindled hope experienced most clearly in our childhood that trusts and believes in what cannot be seen: that out there lies all the answers to the enigma concerning our true place in the universe. This hopeful belief inspires within us a vision that appears before our mind’s eye that we can come into an eternal, not a mere transient, good as our potential destiny. Such a destiny, as we inherently know, extends beyond this present mortal life and dying world. This hope enriches our gaze with a longing expectancy, inviting us to leave everything behind to sail these waters of mystery until we find what we have been seeking since we became conscious of being discontent, restless, of not fitting in, of transient meaninglessness, of being out of place, of being homeless. 

On The Altar of the Human Heart (Created to be a House of Fire)

Intro Scriptures

“Be on guard so that you do not forget the covenant of the Lord your God that He has made with you, and that you do not make an image of any kind, just as He has forbidden you. For the Lord your God is a consuming fire; He is a jealous God” (Deut 4:23).

“As I watched, I noticed a windstorm coming from the north – an enormous cloud, with lightning flashing, such that bright light rimmed it and came from it like glowing amber from the middle of a fire… In the middle of the living beings was something like burning coals of fire or like torches. It moved back and forth among the living beings. It was bright, and lightning was flashing out of the fire. The living beings moved backward and forward as quickly as flashes of lightning… I saw an amber glow like a fire enclosed all around from His waist up. From his waist down I saw something that looked like fire. There was a brilliant light around it, like the appearance of a rainbow in the clouds after the rain. This was the appearance of the surrounding brilliant light; it looked like the glory of the Lord. When I saw it, I threw myself face down, and I heard a voice speaking” (Ezek 1:4, 12-14, 27).

Re-Contextualizing Scripture for Today

What we need today is to be caught on fire by One who is a Consuming Fire. Our inner person needs to be ablaze with the fiery heart of the Living God, whose name is Jealous, Jealous.

We have had the fires of illicit passion burn within us for the spoiled fruit of lawlessness. We burned for satisfying sexual cravings. We burned for satisfying carnal lusts for immediate self-medicated pleasure of the senses. Our heart burned for Hollywood that the lusts of our eyes may partake in sensuality and violence, that our ears may partake of profanity and sexual innuendoes, that our mind’s eye may partake of self-escaping fantasies.

Our heart desires to be the character on the screen. Our heart desires to possess the romance depicted on the screen. Our heart burns for the heights of romantic highs of hormone driven ecstasy. We seek to satiate the fires kindled in our heart by the stories in romance novels, in romantic cinema presentations, by the sizzling articles in magazines.

We search craving for satiation of these desires that burn seek a way of escape into our entire livelihood that we can become caught up in the realm where our fictional fantasies become concrete reality. The fire within us cries out to be released. We search to find release. We seek the reality of our fiction. We move from person to person, occasion to occasion, seeking our true first love. Our heart craves to have its yearning kindled by fiction to become fully and never-endingly satiated with the self that freely partake in the height of romantic enrapturement, where loneliness ceases, where emptiness ceases, where striving for acceptance ceases, where the thirsts for more ceases.

The script has been written, yet we seek the actor (actress) who can join us in our masquerade of romantic fiction. Our heart yearns for the story that kindled this fire to become ours, that our candle can be lit. Reality sucks and our heart becomes kindled for escape. To pass into another world through a screen, a mouse, and a keyboard. To play a role on social networking to numb the isolationism that has become one lonely candle burning.

 Our heart burns for pleasure. We eat. We drink. We overload the senses. Then comes the pain. Then comes the regret. The fire has turned into a self-consuming fire of insatiable lusts. We eat and eat. We drink and drink. We watch and watch. Yet the more we do the more the emptiness of our existence turns into an abyss with a floating candle gradually fading in the whirlwind of unbridled desire. In moments the candle bursts and unleashes forth pain in the lives of those around us, who no longer play the role we had set for them. They no longer serve our dreams. They remind us of how lost we are to our dreams. We hate these reminders.

We escape into fires of career, the fires of video games, the fires of social networking, the fires of hobbies, the fires of partying, fires of friendship, the fires of identity crises. We burn to find our self elsewhere.

The American "I" Syndrome

Old Testament Passage
“A son naturally honors his father and a slave respects his master. If I am your father, where is my honor If I am your master, where is my respect? The Lord who rules over all asks you this, you priests who make light of my name!” (Malachi 1:6)

“My, how good you have become at chasing after your lovers! Why, you could even teach prostitutes a thing or two!... But, watch out! I will bring down judgment on you because you say, “‘I have not committed any sin’” (Jeremiah 2:33-35).

“Hear the word of the Lord, you Israelites! For the Lord has a covenant lawsuit against the people of Israel. For there is neither faithfulness nor loyalty in the land, nor do they acknowledge God” (Hos 4:1).

New Testament Passages
“Who then is the faithful and wise slave, whom the master has put in charge of his household, to give the other slaves their food at the proper time? Blessed is that slave whom the master finds at work when he comes. I tell you the truth, the master will put him in charge of all his possessions. But if that evil slave should say to himself, ‘My master is staying away a long time,’ and he begins to beat his fellow slaves and to eat and drink with drunkards, then the master of that slave will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not foresee, and will cut him in two, and assign him a place with the hypocrites, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matt 24:45-51).

“If you love me, you will obey my commandments” ( John 14:15).

“My commandment is this – to love one another just as I have loved you”( John 15:12)

"Then he said to them all,' If anyone wants to become my follower, he must deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me" (Luke 9:23)

Re-Contextualizing Scripture for Today

How easy we find it to say that God is our Heavenly Father. When times get rough we say, “Our Heavenly Father will provide”. When we have requests to bring we pray “Our Heavenly Father”. How easy we find it to say on Sunday, “Jesus is Lord”. To say, "We love you Jesus".

Now in the passage in Malachi, God accuses His priests who found it easy to carry out their position in society without showing Him respect or honor. He essentially accused them of religious hypocrisy. He condemned them for treating His name lightly, for saying YAHWEH is ADONAI (Lord/ Master) but then not living as if He was truly the Master of their lives throughout the week, as God pointed out how they have ignored His commandments (Mal 1:10-15). They obeyed God half-heartedly and were devoted more to their own prosperity than their loyalty to follow His standards.

To the New Testament Jewish believers, calling Jesus Lord meant calling Him Adonai. To them this meant He was the master of their existence and that they no longer lived for themselves. Jesus, knowing this, accepted being called Master and said, “If you love me[, which includes honor and respect, then] you will obey my commandments”. If one loves Jesus than one recognizes who He is and loves Him for who He is. Seeing as He is the Lord, to love Him means to love Him as Lord and recognizing this position of lordship. In other words, we must live as if He is the Lord over our relationships, choices, career, schooling, etc.. It means to seek His will and not my will or your will over our lives.

How can one say, “I love my wife”, if he does not recognize her as his wife and instead sleeps around with other women? This would be flat out hypocrisy, especially if the man continued to say that he loved her while living an adulterous lifestyle. In a similar way, how can we say we love Jesus, but not obey His commandments? In this way we show no respect for His position over our lives, as those who identify Him as our Lord. Only by identifying Him as Lord are we saved, but mere identification does not represent the actual fulfillment of this claim. If I identify “Anne” as my wife, does not mean that I actually love her like my wife. This claim necessarily entails responsibilities or else the claim rings hollow.

Is He my Lord? Is He your Lord? Only how we live will reveal the answer to such questions?

Biblical Foundation for The Glory of a Grieving God

“I will commit myself to you in righteousness and justice, in steadfast love and tender compassion. I will commit myself to you in faithfulness; then you will acknowledge the Lord.”

“The Lord said to me, ‘Go, show love to your wife again, even though she loves another man and continually commits adultery. Likewise, the Lord loves the Israelites although they turn to other gods and love to offer raisin cakes to idols.’”

“Hear the word of the Lord, you Israelites! For the Lord has a covenant lawsuit against the people of Israel. For there is neither faithfulness nor loyalty in the land, nor do they acknowledge God.”

“Come on! Let’s return to the Lord! He himself has torn us to pieces, but he will heal us! He has injured us, but he will bandage our wounds! He will restore us in a very short time; he will heal us in a little while, so that we may live in his presence. So let us acknowledge him! Let us seek to acknowledge the Lord! He will come to our rescue as certainly as the appearance of the dawn, as certainly as the winter rain comes, as certainly as the spring rain that waters the land.”

“For I delight in faithfulness, not simply in sacrifice; I delight in acknowledging God, not simply in whole burnt offerings. At Adam they broke the covenant; Oh how they were unfaithful to me!”

“Woe to them! For they have fled from me! Destruction to them! For they have rebelled against me! I want to deliver them, but they have lied to me. They do not pray to me, but howl in distress on their beds; They slash themselves for grain and new wine, but turn away from me. Although I trained and strengthened them.”

“O Israel, do not rejoice jubilantly like the nations, for you are unfaithful to your God. You love to receive a prostitute's wages on all the floors where you thresh your grain.”

“When Israel was a young man, I loved him like a son, and I summoned my son out of Egypt. But the more I summoned them, the farther they departed from me. They sacrificed to the Baal idols and burned incense to images. Yet it was I who led Ephraim, I took them by the arm; but they did not acknowledge that I had healed them.”

“How can I give you up, O Ephraim? How can I surrender you, O Israel? How can I treat you like Admah? How can I make you like Zeboiim? I have had a change of heart! All my tender compassions are aroused! I cannot carry out my fierce anger! I cannot totally destroy Ephraim! Because I am God, and not man – the Holy One among you – I will not come in wrath!”

“Ephraim has surrounded me with lies; the house of Israel has surrounded me with deceit. But Judah still roams about with God; he remains faithful to the Holy One.”

“But you must return to your God, by maintaining love and justice, and by waiting for your God to return to you.”

“Return, O Israel, to the Lord your God, for your sin has been your downfall! Return to the Lord and repent! Say to him: “Completely forgive our iniquity; accept our penitential prayer, that we may offer the praise of our lips as sacrificial bulls. Assyria cannot save us; we will not ride warhorses. We will never again say, ‘Our gods’ to what our own hands have made. For only you will show compassion to Orphan Israel!’ “I will heal their waywardness and love them freely, for my anger will turn away from them.”

“Who is wise? Let him discern these things! Who is discerning? Let him understand them! For the ways of the Lord are right; the godly walk in them, but in them the rebellious stumble.”

(Hosea 2:19-20, 3:1, 4:1, 6:1-3, 6:6-7, 7:13-15, 9:1, 11:1-3, 11:8-9, 11:12, 12:6, 14:1-4, 14:9)

 
[For a more complete context of these passages taken from Hosea read Ezekiel 16, which is fittingly entitled "God's Unfaithful Bride" in the NET.]

The Glory of a Grieving God: Part I

Without adequately taking into consideration how God is agape (love) and phos (light), conceptions of who God is and what is the Glory of God will inevitably be misunderstood. Such misconceptions leads to a hazardous conception of what it means to glorify God according to a conception of God where His to-be is not defined as self-emptying Agape. This further leads to a misleading way of understanding what it means when our guide tells us that the “Lord [our] God is a consuming fire; He is a jealous God” (Deut. 4:24). Our observations along this journey have clearly shown that all such conceptual idols that although may have emphasized phos and noumenos, they have wholly neglected agape, which itself is a caricature of God that ceases to be God. This is not to say that love is God, but that a conception of God that fails to recognize that God is love in the sense that His very infinite to-be is essentially self-giving. A God who is not an essentially self-giving Loving One is not the God revealed throughout the pages of our Guide, who is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Our God is the one who tells us the following immutable disposition of God’s part of the covenant between Himself and mankind even in spite of the unfaithfulness of man: “Do I actually delight in the death of the wicked, declares the sovereign Lord? Do I not prefer that he turn from his wicked conduct and live? For I take no delight in the death of anyone, declares the sovereign Lord. Repent and live!” (Ez. 18:23, 32).

 

Our God is unconditionally the Loving One, for even in spite of the persistent unfaithfulness of the beloved, Israel, God remained ever faithful, such that when reflecting on this covenant while condemning the beloved for finding no place for repentance to her unfaithfulness, He grieves with the following lament: “I spread my cloak over you and covered your nakedness. I swore a solemn oath to you and entered into a marriage covenant with you, declares the sovereign Lord, and you became mine… I will deal with you according to what you have done when you despised your oath by breaking your covenant. Yet I will remember the covenant I made with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish a lasting covenant with you” (Ez. 16:8, 59-60). Thus, even when giving the beloved over to consequences of stubborn unfaithfulness in spite of His persistent patience and longsuffering, He cries out one last time: “Repent and turn from all your wickedness; then it will not be an obstacle leading to iniquity. Throw away all your sins you have committed and fashion yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! Why should you die, O house of Israel?” (Ez. 18:30-31). This is the manifestation of the heart of the Loving One who is unconditionally self-giving, for to be anything less would be to-be untrue to who He is. Though what is also necessarily entailed in being self-giving is that the Loving One does not force the beloved to repent, instead endeavors to discipline her and woo her back, but ultimately is willing to let the beloved go, if the beloved so desires (Hosea 1:2, 2:6-7, 2:14-17, 2:19-20; 3:1-5, 6:1-3, 7:13, 11:8-9, 14:1-2, 14:4).

The Glory of a Grieving God: Part II

It is the absurdities revolving around this paradox that make it what it is: a divine unconditional gift freely given without regard for whether or not it is returned by a reciprocation of an authentically free self-giving disposition. This gift is essentially a self-sacrifice of divine love, characterized as absurd by the human understanding in view of a love willing to risk being grieved by unfaithfulness in spite of God’s absolutely unwavering faithfulness all for the sake of the realization of authentic infinite-finite communion rooted in mutual self-giving. This mutual self-giving is often identified throughout our journey as a dialectical circle of love that brings to completion the love of God and thereby truly manifests the glory of the God who is Agape (I Jn. 4:16-19). The end of this passage states the following which is an affirmation of the absolute paradox of God’s unconditionally loving disposition towards all of us: “There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears punishment has not been perfected in love. We love because he loved us first” (I Jn. 4:18-19). This reciprocation of love is a freely poured out self-giving that itself is fueled by the love of God that invokes this response in the heart of the sinner who comes to wholeheartedly believe in the veracity of this absolute paradox. It invokes weeping to hear Christ say from the cross, “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing,” in view of one’s conviction that he or she is rightfully deserving of eternal punishment, seeing as he or she has not just been unfaithful to their neighbor and themselves, but ultimately has been unfaithful to the one “who loved them first” and never stopped loving them with ‘His’ loyal love that is unconditionally faithful in spite of how our stubborn prodigalness has grieved ‘Him’ so (Luke 15:11-32, 23:34; I Jn. 4:10, 19).

One who wholeheartedly risks believing in this absolute paradox, can only weep at the Loving One’s inhuman response of not just forgiveness but lavishly pouring out His love upon the unfaithful beloved who has returned with the desire to be true to the covenant: “Bring the best robe, and put it on him! Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet! Bring the fattened calf and kill it! Let us eat and celebrate, because this son of mine was dead, and is alive again – he was lost and is found!’” (Luke 15:22-23). With such a sinner who comes to believe in this absolute paradox, comes to believe in the absurd notion that God not only does not give us what we deserve for our repeated offences, licentious faithlessness, and decadent prostitution, but wholeheartedly pours Himself out to the truly repentant faithless love with the aim at establishing a lasting intimate infinite-finite koinonia of the God-Relationship, with this “person the love of God is made complete, for the fear of punishment has been cast out” in view of what the absolute paradox has shown God to truly be (I Jn. 4:18). Now that God has bought back the adulterous beloved, the beloved when she believes in this absolute paradox and holds firm to this conviction comes to the subsequent response of declaring, “You bought me to set me free, now all I want to do is be your slave and to pour my life out You as an offering. Though such an offering of my life, is a gift I can only give if You teach me how to give freely of myself to You, just as You have given freely Yourself to me.” 

The Glory of a Grieving God: Part III

Contrary to the opinion of many who postulate a doctrine of God, the fact that God grieves is not something that exposes weakness on the part of God and neither is it something that detracts at all from His glory, omnipotence, or absolute self-sufficiency. A grieving God may not be the God of the philosophers or many theologians, but it certainly is the God revealed by the voice of our guide. Some would even postulate that it is more comforting to believe in a God who always exerts absolute sovereignty to the degree that the free will of the beloved is compromised. As for me, I contest that it is far more comforting to believing in a God who grieves in spite of my abuse of the free will ‘He’ has bestowed on me as part of ‘His’ vow of unconditionally love for me, whether I remain faithful or forfeit my covenant with ‘Him’ for another lover. I find it far more moving to my soul and a sweeter melody to my ears to hear the voice of our guide revealing to us that our God has created us to be beloved who can only enter and remain in a covenantal relationship with ‘Him’ by an authentically free self-giving reciprocation of ‘His’ unconditional self-giving, which is a self-giving on the part of the Loving One that is potentially received by all, even though such a story involves the contingency that the beloved stubbornly continues in being hardhearted towards this unconditional gift of God. This is the absolute paradox I saw when I looked upon the cross with the eyes. It was the absurdity of a God who risks being grieved all for the sake of having an intimate relationship grounded in mutual self-giving that stirs within the soul the composition of loving adoration as I pour out my thanksgiving at the foot of the cross.

I find it sweeter and more moving than if I were to believe that I can never fall away from my covenant with God because of the absolute compulsivity irresistible grace that necessitates absolute perseverance on my part in ‘committing’ myself to the infinite-finite dialogue that is in actuality God ruling out the contingency that the gift is rejected in spite of ‘His’ desire and will for it to be received. If this were true reciprocal self-giving would in actuality be impossible which would render the dialectical circle of love not truly authentic to the love made manifest in scripture. The dialectical circle of love between God and the single individual only exists where the absolute paradox is presupposed, only then is the drawing of the beloved to the place of repentance is not merely a decree of the mind of God but a wooing of the heart of God. A marriage covenant build upon anything less ceases to be a covenant grounded upon mutual commitment that is authentically exchanged by a self-giving commitment to unconditional faithfulness that becomes a covenant based on love because it is built on the risk of unfaithfulness that comes with the possibility for departure from the koinonia of the marriage covenant. Therefore, the Koinonia of Agape presupposes the existence of such a risk when it involves a finite entity, who is himself or herself not essentially self-giving. Only with such an enigmatic equation of mutual self-giving inter-course does the infinite-finite dialogue take on its distinctive theme as essentially a love story, though such a theme of this is not build around a melody of sanctified ‘hedonism’ but rather a melody of self-emptying agape. 

The Glory of a Grieving God: Part IV

Let us refer once again to the parable of the prodigal son that is the exemplary illustration of the absolute paradox of a God who is essentially and unconditionally self-emptying (Luke 15:11-32). In doing so, we will interpret this parable via the theological context of our journey into discovering God’s self-disclosure throughout the oikonomia of finitude. According to this Biblically rooted theological paradigm of the infinite-finite dialogue as it revolves around the realization of the God-relationship, it can be said that the prodigal son’s father is glorified as being one who unconditionally and faithfully remained one who is Love no matter what the conclusion turned out to be regarding how the prodigal’s son carried out his part in this covenantal illustration ultimately. The Father would have been glorified both if the son returned, which would have evoked the delight of the father conveyed by Him rejoicing, and if the son did not return, which would have evoked sorrow in father conveyed by Him grieving. The reasoning of man would deny this conjecture, yet this is a tainted reasoning of a finite entity who is not love, as such he or she calculates the degree of being being glorified in a relationship based on the outcome not on the disposition of the loving one in this relationship. In relation to the story of Hosea and his relationship with his wife, the exceptionally reasonable people would have certainly scoffed at Hosea for repeatedly taking back his unfaithful wife who turned to prostitution time and time again, even when He bought her back and had more than proven his faithfulness, commitment, loyalty, and devotion to her. They would have condemned him as one whose glory was being ruined by his lovesick blindness that from their perspective should be pitied rather than held up as an exemplary form of agape.