Claiming God, freedom, etc.

This is a bit rough for me, I'm still thinking about it and I'll probably wish I said it differently later on, but I havn't posted anything in a while and here's what I've been thinking about.

No one’s freedom to choose God or not to choose him is affected by my holding to him as absolute truth. Regardless of what I think or say, people are free to do whatever they want. I’m not going to oppress anyone by thinking that they are wrong. Disagreeing with someone isn’t rubbing their face in arguments or condescending clicks of the tongue. I can totally disagree with someone and still love them. I can disagree with someone, acknowledge that to them, and still live in peace with them. Compromising who God is by the way I talk about him tangles me up inside—plus, that’s rude to him! Why act like someone who is your friend isn’t your friend when certain people are around unless you’re ashamed of him.

No longer will I refer to God as spirituality itself, just some idea of goodness, or some lesser person just to help him fit into the worldview of those around me without offending anyone. I’ve compromised God for the sake of making him fit into my world because of a fear of offending the ideas of others.

But like I’ve said earlier—this is his world, his land, his people, his ideas. I’ve been reflecting especially on the academic world in relation to this idea. It’s a bit silly to tell the God of the universe that he can only make an appearance on the campus that’s his, in the buildings that are his, and in the ideas that come from minds he created, if he comes packaged in a sweet non-threatening box, gift wrapped with generality and tagged with tolerance and politically correct terminology.

I struggled through college classes discussing oppression, poverty, and injustice—only occasionally working up the nerve to bring up something about “love” or some other code word for Jesus. Stifled. I was continually frustrated, stifled, and afraid. Afraid of misrepresenting Jesus by offending them with Christianity.

I’ve been thinking these past few weeks—and praying to God saying, “Hey! I just want to know how real you are, I want to understand your reality.”

Because, if God is so real, if I really understand the world in his spiritual terms, with spiritual causes and effects—why in the world would I continue allowing my brain to function on two separate plains when it comes to approaching people and their problems:

One side: Seeing the world, it’s people, and problems with My God and his love and power included in my reason and understanding of those issues.

Other side: Trying to code that understanding into terms that appease a secular audience. In the process, the fullness of the meaning I understand is almost always lost, and always depreciates.

This is big business. God is God of everything, infinitely everything. When I think about that, religious and secular categories just melt in comparison to his person. I’ve been so limited by them in my understanding and ability to take action in my secular settings for so long.

It’s time to make a difference. Not just as idealistic chasing after the dream kind-of a difference—figuring God into the equation raises the bar on possibility, and not just by a little bit either.
If I am going to make a difference that I believe in, those two sides of my understanding are going to have to converge. In everything: environmental stuff, social stuff, medical stuff, even just tapping into an infinite creative resource for ideas. Why act as though it were two different worlds I am living in.

Someone said one Sunday a few months ago, “God is not against reason, he just doesn’t like reason that doesn’t include him.” Abraham had the faith to walk up that mountain with Isaac, because for him, it was within reason that God could raise him from the dead, even though that had never ever been done before. Sure, think it through, but don’t forget who loves you and who can do more than anything you could ever ask or imagine.

I came back home from Bolivia a few years ago with the realization that me, my ideas, and my plans were not enough to make a significant difference for the poor people I met and for their communities. A disheartening conclusion to reach after planning to move abroad and save the world some day. I feel so encouraged now to take hold of something that I feel can make a more impacting, fruitful difference for individuals, communities, even nations. And not just a smiley-face, we’re probably making a difference for the better, grin and bear it, kind of difference—I want to carry the presence of my God with me with such strength that everyone I come to know will have a very real encounter with his love for them. For all you activist out there, check it out, God loves justice. God defends the poor, God is abundant. And God is real. Why count him out of our plans? Why expel him from our proposals and interpretations?
If I ever go back to school, which I still mostly think no way in the world, unless it was just too perfect to pass up, I’m a little excited to see how different my experience would be. Last week in the shower I kind of felt like I wish I would go back, but I couldn’t do it if I had to keep my thinking separate like I felt in college. It would probably be pretty hard, but as each day passes I’m more willing to be misunderstood for the sake of my God, more willing to be the weird girl, and the fanatic. I’d be so excited to see a non-watered down way of talking about God of the Bible be readable and acceptable to a secular audience, yet still resonate with his very truth. God is real, he’s at home in the entirety of the universe, not only on the airwaves of Christian radio stations and the four walls of the church. He holds this world together, and acknowledging that is freedom for me.