Tuesday, August 07, 2007

So Good it Must Be True

"Too good to be true". We live by it, make decisions by it, validate cynical behavior by it and generally keep ourselves on the "straight and narrow" by it. I recently heard a speaker take this on by saying, "We always hear that something is 'too good to be true'. I'm learning to say, 'It's so good it must be true". That statement flew right into my heart and splashed right into a stream of revelation in which I am enjoying a lovely summer swim.

First of all, READ THE FOLLOWING CAREFULLY! All caps means I am typing at the top of my lungs. When we say of money schemes, "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is", I believe that is generally good advice. There is no Nigerian prince looking to send you a million dollars as soon as you wire him the $3000 transfer fee and all your bank account numbers. Multi-level marketing turns your friends into objects of reaching your sales goals. Stuffing envelopes at home will give you more paper cuts than dollars. Zero down real estate investments will make you a landlord who gets middle of the night phone calls to come jiggle the toilet handle because the toilet has been running for hours and the water is starting to drip through the floor and your tenents downstairs are complaining (and that's on a good day). Got it?

Where we need some fresh spiritual air is in regard to the possibility of Absolute Goodness being accepted and lived as it is poured into our thirsty souls from a Prodigal Father God Whose Goodness makes the best human goodness look evil by comparison. Some definitions here would be helpful. The word prodigal means, "wasteful". The next time you read the parable of the prodigal son, turn it around and think about the prodigal father in that story. He is so wasteful that when he sees his son returning from, "a long way off" he runs at him, leaps upon him, kisses him again and again and that's before the boy utters one word of apology. In another place Jesus said that we earthly fathers, though evil, know how to give good gifts to our children, but how much more does our Heavenly Father give GOOD gifts. Our best good is evil by comparison. How Good is that? Too good to be true?

The human soul yearns and aches for Good. We are drawn to the stories of heroism and survival in the middle of the I35W bridge collapse because something in us is scanning the bad reality desparetely seeking for the Good. We love gazing at a new born baby because she is hope incarnate. A dog dials 911, a man wakes up from a decade of being comatose, a lost letter from a World War II veteran arrives on child's birthday, a cloud formation seems to say, "X marks the spot" are tiny examples of "so good it must be true". But what would it look like if we pulled the veil off our eyes and began to explore and seek a massive deluge of God's Prodigal Goodness?

What would we begin to look like if we were exposed to a greater light of all His Good than we have ever dared imagine? How would we intrinsically change? What subterranean shifts would take place in our impoverished souls? What images of God would be blasted out of our thoughts? Where have we been projecting our dysfunctional behavior into the character of God? And, most importantly, how far would God go with a Baptism of Goodness and Glory if now, under a better covenant than Moses enjoyed, we prayed what Moses prayed in Exodus 33:18? Let me say it in ALL CAPS; IF WE ARE GOING TO OVERCOME TODAY'S EVIL WITH GOOD, WE NEED A BAPTISM IN ABSOLUTE GOODNESS AND GLORY IN AN UNPARALLELED MANNER. WE HAVE NOT BECAUSE WE ASK NOT. Now, dream.....

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