Cut God Up into Little Pieces (The Danger of a Slice and Dice Approach to Faith)

Cut God up into little pieces.

That’s what I think I must do, in order to cope with what I think the Christian life is supposed to be about.

I don’t really try to cut God into pieces but I do dissect His word and choose some parts to examine, while pushing others off to the side.

Do you do that? Do you sometimes pick and choose from God’s commands; excelling on some aspects of the faith while ignoring others?

Or perhaps you strive to be good at all aspects of the Christian life and live with a constant sense of discouragement because your daily performance falls short.

I manage to do both. (Yes, I’m that talented at getting it wrong.)

Four days into 40 Ways to Get Closer to God. Day two, MacGregor mentions that our culture refers to people as “consumers” and that that label affects our mentality about life. The idea sticks in my thinking as I attempt three days of assignments.

Apparently, I’ve embraced the label, for that is precisely what I do. I try to consume God as if I spotted Him on a late night infomercial. Like a product I’ve ordered over the CWW (cosmic wide web), I decide how I want Him delivered.

He’s so vast, that I’ve requested delivery of His Holy Spirit in installments. Always, like a consumer, wanting to control the process. And I treat His Holy Word like an ala carte menu, devouring some passages, passing on others.

Slicing and dicing the author of my faith.

This becomes clear to me when the first three assignments involve disciplines I avoid.

They aren’t new ideas. They’ve appeared on my radar before, but after previous attempts to incorporate them into my spiritual life and finding them a) hard work, and b) not something I do well, I somehow decided they’re activities I can thrive without.

But are they?

Do spiritual disciplines only “work” if I’m good at them?

Or is there power in the practice of them even if I would grade the results of my efforts with a C?

Suddenly, I see I’ve been thinking that God only expects me to do things if I’m good at them or have a hope of being good at them. But really there are no clauses in scripture that certain commands are negotiable if any one follower thinks he or she might not excel in that area.

Somehow, I began to believe that not being good at something gave me a pass on certain spiritual disciplines, so I put all my focus on the ones I am good at or think I can be good at and file the rest under “extra credit.”

These assignments made me rethink that.

What if God wants us to try everything He asks of us KNOWING we won’t be good at some of it? What if being “good” at it, isn’t’ even really the point?

My husband believes I’m “better” at doing the dishes than he is. Whenever he puts dishes away, it takes me a while to find things that are not back in their place. But, that’s okay. I’m not critical because I appreciate why he did the dishes in the first place – because he loves me.

That love part. That’s the key.

If my husband did the dishes in order to check off that he had “done the dishes for his wife” on some “good husband” list, well, that would bother me and I might become critical.

Initially, I approached this God challenge as if getting closer to God is something I can add to my list of achievements. Each task was something I could check off in order to move closer to MY GOAL. As if my goal, rather than to become closer to God, was to become “an accomplished Christian.”

There’s another word for an accomplished, disciplined Christian without love – Pharisee.

It suddenly struck me (okay, it might have been another Gibbs slap from God) that maybe I should stop worrying about how good I am at these assignments!

What if I stopped seeing them as pitons on the wall of faith and, instead, focused on them as acts of love. Not skills to acquire and practice but simple, clumsy expressions of my devotion for Jesus Christ?

I sense a shift in the force . . .

And as soon as I wrote this post, I peeked ahead at tomorrow’s 40 Days Closer to God assignment. NOT coincidentally, I’m sure, the word LOVE figures predominantly . . . I think I’m on to something.

Strange that by attempting to learn a couple of new spiritual disciplines, the Lord has led me to some very freeing thoughts. I don’t have to be good at them in order for them to bring me closer to God.

Wow.

Seriously, wow!

(In the Psalms, the word Selah can be translated as “Wow, pause and think about that one, dude.” So, it’s perfectly spiritual for me to end with wow.

How’s the challenge going for you?