What's Your Dominant Reality?

If you didn’t get a chance to hear it live this past weekend, by all means slide your mouse over to the Sermons column and listen to The Rev. Jim Hobby speak on the Great Commission. When you do, see if you can pick up one sentence he used, primarily as connecting material, that has caught itself in my brain-folds for this week of Lent III—speaking of the early chapters of Genesis, he said “Sin was the dominant reality.” There’s so much in those five words: sin wasn’t always the dominant reality, but had become so; God acted because in spite of His desires His people had “become something else” (see last Monday’s entry) and required a corrective; sin was the dominant but not the only reality; God’s best isn’t always winning.

When sin is the dominant reality, then—what? A recent book now moving up the Amazon charts declares in the title that it’s God’s Problem. Specifically, according to the author, since “the Bible fails to answer our most important question,” that makes it God’s problem. It’s worth considering whether a.) this actually is “our most important question” (what about "what's going to happen when I die?"), and b.) whether the Bible fails to answer it, but for many people who are suffering, sin is very definitely their dominant reality. This of course is NOT to accuse the suffering of simply receiving their just reward because of their sin(s); the victims of others’ sinfulness suffer just as much. But either way, as it’s of our making, it’s our problem, not God’s.

For most of us, sin wasn’t always the dominant reality. Who among us can’t remember a time, however distant, however brief, when things seemed to be going pretty well, when we knew that God was smiling on us personally? But then, _______ [you can fill in the blank for yourself or others, but for whatever reason, the outcome was the same] and we began to experience the consequences of stepping off the path. Most of us have a very clear memory of how God stepped in—very personal for each of us, yet utterly consistent in His desire and determination that we return.

As we come to realize the difference and the distance between our desires and His, we enter into that oscillation between doing what He wants and doing what we want. On the way, we realize that what we really want is to want what He wants, but success only comes in fits and starts. And so it goes, sometimes for a long, long time—in this way, our dominant reality shifts, sometimes unnoticeably, sometimes jarringly. Lent provides a wonderful opportunity to recognize the moment when the pendulum of our shifting reality changes direction, to narrow its swing, and in the process to realize our desire—our need—to want what He wants. God’s best for us isn’t always winning, but ultimately will always win out. If we can’t do this on our own, yet we aren’t helpless—we can look honestly at our dominant reality, we can decide what we want it to be, we can do our best to be more like Him, and we can rely and depend on the One who wants that more than we do. We can do it; He will help!

Lord, You help us to see the distance between us and You in so many ways. We thank You for this knowledge, though we don’t often feel particular grateful to have it. We know for sure that whatever first distracted us, we left the path because we decided to, so in this season of preparation we ask You to help us want what You want more than we want what we want. We ask for this because we know how much it needs to happen and we know we can’t do it without You—in fact, we can’t even want it without You. We bless you because we also know for sure that You thought of us long before there was anyone here to think of You, and that nothing we can do will cause You to give up on us, now or ever. You are God, we are Your children, and we are truly and eternally grateful. Amen.