What is natural?

We are use to machines. Things that are mechanized function differently then natural things– things like grapevines, and seeds, and streams. Machines work in the way they were built, over and over the same, when they aren’t breaking down. They are inorganic. They are static, and have toggles, and buttons, and levers, and switches. I remember being in a car as a young child. If one put the key in the ignition without first shutting the car door, a stilted female voice would say, “ The door is ajar.” This really surprised me. I giggled too because saying, “The door is a jar,” to me was like saying, “The hood is a frying pan.”  I kept wondering what it would come up with next. Maybe the seat belt was a jump rope. It was like a new kind of game, sort of like I Spy on dope. I hoped this strange game would continue, but “she” only knew about the door.

These announcements for doors that were jars was very short-lived. It was a lousy feature because the car couldn’t tell when the situation wasn’t dangerous, which was most of the time. The machine couldn’t adjust or adapt. The mechanized, man-made response was the formula solution to a real life, or organic situation. The organic situations bump heads with the inorganic solutions, and somehow we get surprised by that.

Mankind has made machines, and God has made humans. Everything God made is natural. Everything else is unnatural. So then, I guess we can say, if we try to grow spiritually through machine type means, we are attempting to grow unnaturally. This makes me think it could be very unhealthy to grow inorganically. We are not, and never will be, machines. We’re actually jars! We are jars of clay containing the treasure of God’s presence. Jesus said he was The Door, and he came in the form of a jar like us. Maybe that car was just evangelizing to me.

I think we get fooled many times into thinking we are inorganic like machines. We think a process or a procedure will make things work out fine for us, don’t we? We don’t live like machines. I almost said run like machines, and that shows how much mechanism is a part of our world. It’s very saturate into our environment. Yet, we can’t turn off emotions by pushing a button, or move up in spiritual maturity by throwing a lever. We can’t follow an automatic protocol to grow in relational intimacy with Living God.

Life itself doesn’t run like a machine at all either. It’s messy, it’s ever shifting, and it’s a bumpy ride. It’s totally unpredictable in some ways, and yet persistent under certain undeniable principles and structures as well. Spending some time in God’s creation may help to give us a much better sense of how God works more than being in a factory. Since people are not machines, we don’t become more gracious in a mechanized way. Do you see what I mean? It doesn’t truly work. As my inanimate computer informs me, much to my chagrin, “The program you are in has unexpectedly quit…”

The Spirit creates

I think sometimes we are frightened by God, and maybe more so by the Holy Spirit, because God isn’t very much like a machine. The Holy Spirit works on us organically, and growth is organic. Remember, God is the only Being than can truly create something from nothing. The Spirit can create– we cannot authentically create. All creativity has a Source. We borrow from the Source to create. Allowing the Spirit to grow and change us will require that we give up our ideas that growth happens in a mechanized way. God is not boxed, or even tame. He’s not a program, or set of steps. Most often spiritual growth happens in unpredictable and surprising ways. We have growth spurts when we let the Holy Spirit rule. Other times we wither without spiritual sunlight, water and food. Just like a living plant– surprise, surprise.

Manmade or God-made?

It boils down to whether we want to be manmade or God-made. Our man-made ways work just enough to produce the delusion that our way makes us more like Jesus. Mechanics not organics will fool us into believing we can pave our way on this journey. The God-made way may feel uncomfortable and unpredictable at times, but that doesn’t necessarily mean God isn’t working, or things aren’t going right. Nature, and its unpredictable predictability, may be our best example of a God who works for our benefit, giving us true animated life. I mean animated in the original sense, not the Disney Pixar definition where sadly, animated means, lifelike.

Hungry for Stories not Algebra

One of the fascinating things about our postmodern era, to me, is the interest in, or favoring of stories over analytical arguments. Systemic theology has its place and apologetics are still needed, but a non-formula way of engaging our non-believing friends with the Good News holds exciting promise. People hunger for stories I think because their lives are much like unfolding stories. Our stories link with theirs and they feel a connection, a common ground. When we truly hear someone’s story, and give them a piece of our journey too, something will happen. Something we might not be totally ready for. But, you’ll notice the hunger when you see it.

 ©2007

Lisa DeLay