As the child of a musician who was a closet accounting-whiz, I grew up sans name-brand stuff. No Lucky Charms, only “Pirate Marshmallow Treasures” at the Shults-house. No Nikes, Jen was wearing “Avia” to sports practice. While I have my hindsight to appreciate this value system, and certainly didn’t suffer for it at any point, the reality is that some items are better left to the Top Dogs. Among them are Cheerios (the knock-offs always taste like air, sprinkled with cardboard flavoring), Kotex (not going to go there … just trust me), and Alcon contact solution (apparently, the splurge for the name brand is the NON BURNING MY EYEBALL chemical). The “real thing”, as it turns out, is often worth those extra dollars. It has occurred to me recently that this has spiritual application. Am I opting to save a few emotions, moments, or a sense of control for knock-off spiritual fulfillment? And, is the real thing always worth my sacrifice?
Fear, for example. It serves a spiritual purpose, but only one; the only healthy fear is fear of the Lord. As we find in many circumstances, human communication limits our understanding of what this means. Do we shake in our boots at the thought of the Savior? Do we avoid eye contact? Do we change our phone number when He calls too many times with bad news?
Perhaps the best approach is the admission that we are simple creatures and must understand His concepts on simple levels. The fear of the Lord is one of respect and reverence, and I am reminded of my fear of heights. I can handle them to an extent, I acknowledge the vast beauty heights can display, but I get queasy at the thought of their power and potential. I could fall, I could lose everything, and it could be over with one wrong move.
A pilot, maybe a mountain climber, a skydiver, a man in a hot air balloon … now there are some folks who appreciate heights. They know the risks, they know others have been hurt (usually by their own negligence), but they have learned to respect the greatness of heights. There is a deep awareness of power, and a bold step towards working with that power to enhance their life experience.
Yes, I have failed to fear the Lord, and have settled for being scared of Him, being scared of what He can do in my life. I am curling up in a corner when He passes me by. Fear, fear would cause me to bow before Him in the Truth that only He can act mercifully in His plan to intertwine His greatness with my humanness. True fear of the Lord would suddenly release of my carnal fears. If He whom I fear is for me, who could be against me? Being scared is a cheap, worthless knock-off of the real thing.
Submission. Wow. Consider for a moment that I serve a Savior willing to humble Himself to a gruesome death, and that I cannot give Him me. I cannot give Him by cushy life, I cannot give Him my faults, I cannot give Him my selfish desires, and I certainly cannot hand over my silly belief that I am in control. Me. Me. Me. Me. Me.
My cheap submission, my coupon for control, has been negotiation, bargaining. Lord, how about I give you some of my heart? How about I treat others somewhat like you have commanded? Lord, I won’t sell it all and give it to your children, but how about I put a few dollars in the offering plate? Father, I know my honesty could help to guide others through similar decisions and mistakes, but how about I limit this to an allusion of what I have been through? Good enough? Good enough? GOOD ENOUGH?! I am before the Savior, the Messiah, the Creator, the CHOSEN ONE, God’s ONE AND ONLY SON, and I am offering “good enough”? Negotiation tastes like luke-warm water and God promises to spit out this cheap replacement for submission.
Love. If the world were a grocery store, you’d have every option on this aisle. “How much were you wanting to spend?”, I’d say if I were still in sales, “Can you tell me a little about how you’re wanting to use your love?” Easy commission. Easy money to be made, and we have a culture that knows it. But for the follower of Christ, the illusion is much more subtle than we often assume.
This isn’t a story about my confusion over sex as love. This isn’t a story about my confusion over praise as love. This isn’t even a story about my confusion over relationships as love. This is always a story about my confusion over believing that love has any definition outside of Jesus Christ Himself. God is love, and when we forget this, we do silly things.
We follow His commands with no passion, or maybe we cut out His commands, because all that matters is that He “loves” us (when our vision changes to understand that He IS love, then all of His commandments are suddenly an extension of this love, and are no longer simple constraints). We serve other people with actions, but fail to credit our Source. We struggle to show our spouses, our children, our friends, and our world love through the “right” motions and words and rituals. There is no “right” way to love someone. There is only the recognition that, without Christ, we are creatures incapable of such a feat.
There are so many ways to fill in the blanks for what have cheaply replaced Love with. Throw them out.
The list of my artificial spiritual life continues, and I’m sure yours does as well. To what extent do we scrutinize over all of this? I’m not sure; the reality is that we are presently constrained by a false world, a world that produces, in abundance, spiritual knock-offs. But, I am reminded of what I think every time I eat Lucky Charms, “Oh man … this is so much better than the generic brand!” Maybe we have to fall before the Savior and admit that though the humble offering of our miserly selves may never be able to pay off the cost of the Real Thing, sometimes all that matters is that we can taste the difference when given the opportunity.
