Two Things On My Mind Before Christmas

Please Note: Over the next few days I am changing this site. The address will stay the same, but I have to transfer to a new software, new server, new format, new look, new features, etc. But it’s the same old me.

While making these changes, I plan to re-post some of my favorite entries from former days. Please bear with me as I learn how to work this new system. This post comes from page 259 in my book A Dirty Old Man Goes Bad, I wrote it a few days befofe Christmas in 2005:

— Thanks, John

Two Things Occupying My Mind Recently

Well, it’s Friday already and I still haven’t finished Monday’s 2do2da list. I’ve stayed busy all week but have accomplished little.

Story of my life.

Two things have occupied my thoughts recently:

A few months ago I decided to stop clicking on internet pornography sites to look at girly pictures. So far, so good. But I’m being tempted to return to that practice.

What is it about the Christmas season that makes me want to lower my standards and look for license? Observing the incarnation of God into the world should make me grateful to Him, but instead I’m tempted to celebrate the season by cutting loose to look at girls in (or out of) red flimsies.

I’ve been told that mature Christian men out grow such adolescent fantasies, but you couldn’t prove that by me. Apparently I’m a 67-year-old man with the mental outlook of an 11-year-old boy.

I have not given in to the temptation yet, but knowing my own history with temptation – I have rarely been tempted to do anything that I eventually didn’t do it — .I’m not guaranteeing anything.

But at the moment, this bugs me.

At the other end of the spectrum, I have also been thinking about the essential nature of God. (Hey, my mind works that way).

At breakfast Monday, my friend Barbara mentioned something about God being “Wholly Other” and I’ve been thinking about that.

God is unique. That is, there is nothing else like Him. He is one, complete in Himself. He is not exactly like any other being in, or beyond, the universe.

He is Creator, all the rest of us are creatures of His making.

Men, roaches and archangels have more in common with each other than we have with Him. He is Creator; we are all created entities.

Yet, in creating us, He apparently stamped nature with some hints as to His own nature and character. The majesty of thunderclouds, the power of the tornado, the potential of an egg, the wings of a butterfly, the protective coloration of a caterpillar, the love shared by man and woman, the splendor of an angel, the thoughts of the human mind – all these dimly reflect some element of the One who created all.

He is above all and in Him we live and move and have our very being.

That’s scary.

For one thing it means He’s big.

Huge.

Immense.

I don’t picture the Incredible Hulk when I think of God, but that’s close.

In a way I think of when I go downtown and stand at the base of a skyscraper and tilt my head way back and look up; even though I’m standing on solid pavement, I feel as though I’m falling and I get dizzy.

God scares me because He is so big. He holds all the universe in His hand as though it were no bigger than a peanut.

He makes me feel fragile.

I don’t think my view is uncommon.

Remember for yourself one of those times when you felt close to God in your own experience. Regardless of the circumstances, I suspect that you felt some of the same things that I felt.

In my own 67 years, I can only remember a few times when I’ve felt particularly aware of God’s presence. These experiences were almost overwhelming and I feel uncomfortable, embarrassed, even remembering them much less speaking about them.

Oddly enough, only one of these occasions occurred in a church service. Once it happened when I was a kid in my bedroom, once when I was out camping in the woods, once when I saw a girl in a yellow dress, and once when I was dissecting a pig in a biology class.

Odd places to encounter God.

Whatever works for you.

My experiences probably have a few things in common with your own:

While I felt a fear of God, I also felt a strange attraction to Him. I was afraid but at the same time, there was an incredible sweetness. I wanted this awareness of Him to never end.

Was it that way for you too?

I became keenly aware of my own unworthiness, insignificance, uncleanness – not for particular things I’ve done, but just in the light of His holiness. I felt as though I were someplace I didn’t belong – but I was being welcomed anyhow.

Know what I mean?

Now I’m a guy with all sorts of questions, complaints and problems, but during those time I felt aware of being in God’s presence, all that stuff faded into insignificance. No questions were worth asking. No complaint worth voicing. No problem worth discussing. The only thing that mattered was God Himself; nothing else counts.

So here I was, a worm and no man, in the presence of the Almighty, yet I felt loved, accepted in the Beloved, welcomed. And this felt overwhelming, that the Mighty God cared about me. The King of the Universe really cares.

That’s a hard thing to get over, isn’t it?

Now, I’m thinking about the incarnation, that the Creator of the universe, King of Kings and Lord of Lords cares about us.

He sees that we’ve scrambled the eggs He gave us, and He reduced Himself to become a human baby to come into this world and unscramble the mess we’ve made and are helpless to unscramble ourselves.

Somehow I envision the Incredible Hulk in a straw manger.

Yes, in the incarnation, the Lord God emptied Himself of some of His prerogatives, focused His scary immensity into a tiny baby – nothing to be scared of – and came to seek and to save the lost.

So the angels told the shepherds, “Don’t be scared… it’s only a baby.”

Then … well, you know the rest of the story as well as I do.

But there is one other thing I recall about my own experiences of being aware of the wholly other God. I was aware that the scary, sweet bliss I felt would not last. I knew that I was only seeing a temporary glimpse for that moment, that the real, permanent awareness of God still lies far ahead.

Meanwhile there remain bills to pay, phone calls to make, oil to change, leaves to rake, people to love (or at least tolerate), Christmas presents to buy --Yes, in Him we live and move and have our very being – but we do that here and now.

So I need to spend this day catching up on Mondays list — and not clicking on porno sites.

Lord, please be merciful to John Cowart, a sinner.