We all need God; but not the commercialised God; not the TV
evangelist God; not the false prophets of God; and, not so much the ‘tweeted’
God. The truth is:
“We don’t like the feeling of being left
alone.”
Where God makes himself known
within each and every person, when they are boiled down to their indivisible
parts, when all their anger against God is subdued, and they may speak plainly
without need of self-protection, is in the existential basis of life.
When all distractions have decayed
away, then the need of God is known.
When we are allowed to focus on
our humanity, beneath the veneer and common intrigues of human life deeper than
politics and established religion, there is a hunger throbbing in the heart.
This is the need of God. And no other way is there but faith to live this road.
When we run without God, denying
our innate hunger for direction, meaning and purpose, we inevitably begin to
swing like a pendulum between two sardonic and sadistic poles: pride and sensuality.
Choose Your Flavour of Sin – ‘Up’ or
‘Down’
We all waver in sin between both
pride and sensuality.
Pride, or more aptly spiritual pride in this class, is a predilection of the
ascender; the person who is legalistic and judgmental
by nature, and there is a little of that bubbling beneath every Christian,
Muslim, and Buddhist. Then there is sensuality; the tendency of the descender. This person cannot stand religion and does not know God
because they are blinded to their living need. The ascender has put them off.
And into the gods of sensuality they go, denying the substance or identity of
their existence.
Self-deification and pantheism are
the great problems of this age—of all ages. In all ages we have struggles with
either pride or sensuality or both.
A Better Calling – Follow Jesus of the
Gospels
People can only be assigned
positions over us if we allow that to take place, or if God does it (John
19:11). Likewise, why would we seek to gain an advantage over another in any
way, unless by pride or sensuality?
True humanity, though, is not an
up-or-down affair; it is truly egalitarian.
There is no emphasis on the
ascender or descender. Pride and sensuality, as the foci captivating people,
become more irrelevant before the transcendent light of God cast into people’s
lives. Where God lives, falsity dies.
What takes the place of pride and
sensuality? It is freedom that takes its place; the freedom to worship in
Spirit and truth. Then, we may know ourselves as we truly are.
***
There is a great need of God—the
one and only, true and living God—amongst all people. Though religion can be
more distractive than attractive in our day, there is, and always will be, a
great need of direction, meaning, purpose, and hope in people’s lives. Only God
can fill that otherwise eternal void.
© 2012 S. J. Wickham.
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