There is no other Life but God, the Lord

            Why is God’s request ‘death’? Why is it so despairingly severe!

Well, because of chapter two; we are in the most harrowing of situations. We are ruined by Sin, ravaged by pride through and through. Though we think we are living, if we continue in this present way of life, with ourselves as god, we will decay and die and perish into an eternal existence outside of our Father, outside of Life.

 

And it is the only Life we were created to know.

It is the only Life there is.

There is no other way to live—in the fullness of what that word should mean and what we hope it does mean—outside of God. God is Life. But he cannot force us to live. We set ourselves outside of him because we are made in the image of God and we had that choice. We can choose to be loved or not to be loved. But if we choose to attempt existence outside of him, though we do not understand it now, we are choosing death.

That is severe. That is really, really serious.

And so for such a serious situation, a serious request is dictated. God understands better than we the stupor under which we languish. Therefore he must awaken us, awaken us from ourselves to the bitter reality of this Story. We must be aroused to the reality that we will die unless we let God do his work, in the world and in us.

So…leave your country, your people, your father’s household and go to a land he will show you.   

            Notice that God did not tell Abram where his land would be.

            He said to go to a land I will show you.

            Why?

 Like everything else we have discussed, it is to protect us. Humanity has this tendency to think we know what is best, the heart of Sin. If he told us the full plan, if he put the sword in our hand, we might try and wield it ourselves and accomplish it on our own and thereby absolutely destroy what he is doing. If he told us the full plan, we do not need faith anymore, because we have full truth.

But Faith is the most important thing to our God.

Faith is the most vital component in order for his adventurous plan to work.

Because in his plan, in his Great Story, Jesus holds the sword, not us.

The whole point of this Story is that we cannot accomplish life on our own. He must do it and we must have faith that he is doing it. So he only gives us the next step, the next step, the next step. And in every moment, we must choose to take that step, to trust him or not. And while we are trusting him or not, we are told to love…Father you anger me sometimes. You ask too much too quickly.

This is the constant theme of the Great Story. It is always little steps of faith walking toward a land unknown but promised by God who says he is our Father (because we can’t remember) that it is the land of our home and a paradise of such beauty you will blush.

            What God would ask for such faith at the front end of the relationship? What God would ask for such blind trust before he had even proven himself trustworthy to Abram?

Well, I guess a God who knows that he is the only God. A God who realizes that the situation is seriously tricky would. A God who is obsessive in his love for his creation and refusal to let them perish and who voluntarily bound himself beside us; that God would.

 

Abram thought he was doing fine in life. But then an invisible God shows up and says ‘Everything you thought you knew, you do not. Come and follow me. I am not going to tell you where we are going, but I will tell you that I will be with you every step of the way, and that it is so magnificently better than anything you can imagine.’

            Please also notice that Abram was a human like us…but he recognized the voice of God.

Abram was not a Jew. The Jewish race had not come to be yet. Circumcision as the sign of God’s people was not around when he was called. There was no Book of the Law, no prophets, none of the spectacular events which make up the fascinating Old Testament—the first chapters of the Great Story. He was simply a man. We do not know anything about Abram’s life prior to God showing up. All we know is that before Abram’s call, all men were at their most wicked. After Abram, civilizations rose and fell and humans were still utterly wicked. Abram was just another man in the sea of humanity. But God came to him and Abram recognized his voice. And though it does not say, if Abram was a human, I am convinced he must have had intense, internal battles between his soul and his mind, the belligerent twins who refuse to live in harmony.

            His mind shouted at his soul, ‘You’re a fool! Do you really believe that this is the one true God speaking to you? It is just me playing tricks on you. I am just trying to give you hope to pass the time in this dull life of existing.’

            To which his soul replied, ‘No, no, no. You’re lying! I know that voice. It is my Maker’s voice. You are a mind ruined by treachery and you are a stumbling block to me because you demand proof. You think you are god, that you created yourself and can rule yourself. But you cannot. I know my Creator. I know that I am formed to live within that voice. That voice I heard is the true God, the one I pay homage to, the one who gives life. I am created to worship that voice.’

And truly, it is an anti-climatic experience and I do not wish to manipulate the moment.

A fairy tale is never a fairy tale for those within it.

It really is blind, sputtering, endearing faith which impels us children onward through the darkness with a faint pillar of fire flickering on and off in front. Thus, I am unable to offer you any help when your moment of controversy arrives. When God shows up to you and asks you to come die with him, no words of man, no songs or poems or experiences of your life will be at all relevant. Everything will feel like the wind. It will be an unregistering panic gripping your every bone. Everything will feel surreal and you will be left on the precipice in the darkness with but one simple decision to make.

Was that the voice of God?

That is it.

Nothing will lessen the straight, numb terror of that moment.

            Who do you say God is, today?

Is he alive…or just a statue?

Because if he is alive, then the Kingdom of God has come upon you.

So come and die.

‘You must follow me’ he says
As if it was just breathing
Strainless does he look and I know that he does see me
My heart aghast and petrified
Watching the wave’s roar
Beyond the foamy salt crashing over and over with merciless indifference.
For I know what I must do
And the tempest assures me nothing is more impossible…
 
But my soul fathoms greater mysteries than my head
And I cannot turn away from his horribly wonderful eyes,
‘You must follow me…’
‘I shall surely smash upon the rocks!’
‘Perhaps, but you must follow me.’
‘I will sink! I will sink!’
‘Maybe, but you must follow me…and I’m walking this way.’
 
Why will my soul not curse you!?
Why do your words engender such scourgeless bonds
The colors of love and grace?
I feel utterly at home in your terrible eyes!
Quite miraculously,
I feel at home in this indifferent storm;
For I know its ferocity is subject to your command.
 
‘Come follow me…’ he whispers
My teeth draw blood from the flesh of my mouth
 
Why do I love you so…
And I step,
I step out over the wooden bow, where my stomach just emptied itself.
My foot tingles in the blustery horizon,
An eternal horizon; red lines of hope, purple streaks called obedience
I pray they catch me,
For I do love him so.