ON BEING “THERE” FOR GOD
One of the problematic symptoms of modern Christianity is how often we unthinkingly and uncritically absorb the clichés of the modern secular world into our faith, even when these clichés are at odds with what we believe.
The first of these is “being there for us.” How many school pupils I have taught speak of their parents as “being there for us” whenever they want or need those parents. It is used of God, too. “God is always there for us.” The mind-set of this, if you think about it for even a moment, is that we get on with our busy lives while God sits around waiting for us to call on him when we have need of his services, rather like a love-sick boy or girl sitting next to the telephone, waiting for their significant other to call. Gone is the idea of living a life of service to God; gone, the idea of his constant presence in our lives, making us holy, guiding, protecting. God is merely there to fill in the gaps we can’t fill in for ourselves.
It would be truer to say that we need to be “there” for God. We need him rather than the other way round. We need to be aware of him, to await his presence in our lives. As Elijah the prophet said, “O rest in the Lord; wait patiently for him, and he will give thee thy heart’s desire. Commit thyself unto him and trust in him.” Seen in this light, nothing could be less true than that God is “there for us” in the modern meaning. Only in the sense that he loves us and is ever-present in our lives is this true. But it must not obscure the essential fact that it is we who must constantly seek his presence in our hearts.
Another cliché that we often absorb uncritically is the desire that other should “accept me for who I am.” This suggests that I am a static person who does not grow or change, and especially someone who does develop, “become,” so to speak. “Take me or leave me as I am; I’m not going to change,” is the eventual outcome of this. The fact that we have potentiality that must develop, sins that must be forgiven, is pretty much excluded by this line. But we are in a process of becoming what God wants us to become, not remaining trapped in what we are now. To accept this secular idea is in effect to refuse to change, to grow into God’s plan for us.
Finally, we are taught to “believe in ourselves”. However we may qualify this, it always ends up making us the centre of our own little universes. “We believe in one God,” begins the Creed. And in God alone we believe; to believe in anything less is to worship a false God. We should certainly have confidence that the gifts God has given us are real, and that with his help, they can be developed into the fullness of their promise. This preserves the link between us and God. The modern clichés separate us from Him, and isolate us within our own little worlds. But this is not what God wants. That is why he sent the Lord Jesus into the world, that we might know Him and love Him, that we might be drawn into a deep relationship with God, who alone can unlock our full potential, who alone can make us become what we were created to become.
And so: let us be there for God. Let us accept that we need to become what He wants us to become. And let us believe in him, who has revealed himself to us through Jesus Christ, who died on the cross to take away our sins, and rose from the dead to give us life, with all our hearts and minds.
Fr. Phillip
