Mercenary Faith

C.S. Lewis says, "Heaven offers nothing that the mercenary soul can desire." I say the same is true with God here on earth. If you go after God with the sole purpose of gaining his blessing, my guess is he won't just give you what you want. Or maybe he will, but one thing is sure: if you're not seeking God, he's not just going to impose himself on you.

I usually go after God seeking to resolve some issue I have or for help processing some information or generally just to feel better. He doesn't always buy off on that. In fact I don't know if he ever does. I think he wants me to seek him rather than just all the perks. After all, the greatest blessing is probably God's presence with us, a.k.a. Jesus. It's just that sometimes we'd rather have God's blessing than God.

Resolution

I keep watching these depressing movies - you know the kind where people die and there's no revenge and no justice for the killers. We live in this age where things don't seem to resolve (maybe they never did) - like Donald Miller talks about in Blue Like Jazz. He talks about it in a good way though - God doesn't resolve, he's not easy to wrap your head around. He's creative and he's dynamic - you can't pin him down easily with logic or explanation.

We live in a world that doesn't resolve either. Things happen - good and bad - that make no sense. People say everything happens for a reason. I don't know about that. At least I'll never understand why certain things happen around these parts.

So what's the goal of this life then? To trust a God who doesn't resolve, who's active and creative even though he doesn't always let you know what is going on or clue you in to the inner workings of the universe? (It's probably a good thing he doesn't - you'd probably explode.) Maybe the goal is to learn to trust each other too - to walk together through darkness - to not need to get to a place of final understanding, but to be comfortable with the process. See, once you get to a point where you understand everything, you don't need anybody anymore.