When you buy something big, you often look at how it has performed…..in the past. You go to Consumer Reports and find the list of the 10 worst used cars…….and you avoid them. This is just good common sense.

Christianity gets a lot of bad press. But, somehow, secular humanism gets a pass. Today, I want to explore the track record of secular humanism.

The facts:

The oceans are filling up with plastic.

We have poisoned the air with CO2 and other greenhouse gasses to the point that in 100 years or so most of the earth will be uninhabitable.

We kill 3000 children every day in the US alone.

Our teachers tell our sons that they may actually be women.

Men can now “identify” as women and dominate women’s sports.

Men undress in women’s locker rooms.

In many states half of our children don’t meet standards for basic skills…..reading, math, and science. But, they are well versed on “sexual fluidity”.

Every few days, we have another mass shooting.

Our cities are no longer safe.

We have hundreds of thousands of homeless living on our streets.

Our city streets are littered with syringes and human feces.

Wrecking our cities and our capitol are considered expressions of free speech.

Murder, nudity and sexual intercourse are standard tropes on prime time TV…….every night.

One in four Americans take mood altering prescription drugs.

About half of the states have legalized recreational Marijuana.

Three out of four 20 year olds have had premarital sex.

Recreational sex is the norm.

95% of teenagers lie to their parents.

Shoplifting of hundreds of dollars of merchandise is no longer a crime in many jurisdictions.

Can you honestly say……based on the track record……..that secular humanism is working?…………that secular humanism is a better way to run our culture than “love God…love man”?

Would you actually buy this……if it was a used car?

God built a garden, put us in it, and told us what to do and what not to do. We immediately chose secular humanism and it has been downhill ever since.

The heart of secular humanism is that we are in charge, not God. The only valid argument in favor of secular humanism……..is that it allows us to do whatever we want. And that……..is the siren song that has led us to the mess that we are in today.

We can either turn back to God…….or continue down the path to our destruction.

There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.

Solomon, Proverbs 14:12, ESV

If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.

Paul, 2 Chronicles 7:14, ESV

Once, one of my sons got mad at me. He yelled “You’re not my father!” And it hurt……..that was the whole point.

I walked away. And I sat and stewed. What he said was unfair…….and intentionally hurtful. I began planning my response. He was too old to ground. I considered some financial consequences. I considered just shutting him out…….showing him the price for his behavior.

Then it occurred to me. Regardless of what he said…….I am his father…….always have been…….always will be. That relationship is something that no-one can take away from me…….not even my son. Today, that relationship may be a bit one sided. Today, it may be strained….even painful. But…….on my end……nothing has changed. I am still his father. My job is the same as it has always been.

So, I began to consider……… what does fatherhood mean?

As his father, I still love him and want him to grow, thrive, and be happy. I want to steer him to a good place……and I will give him guidelines, advice, on how to get there……….even if it involves short-term pain. I will tell him…..teach him……..the truth.

Love trumps everything else. Love God……love man……love your son.

Is my father………..my God…..really any different?

He created us. He wants us to lead happy, fulfilling, productive lives in this broken world. He tells us how to go about it. And then he wants us to continue living…..with him…….in a world that is not broken……forever.

But

We get mad. We try to take charge. We choose our own destiny and make up a set of rules to get there.

We ignore God.

We defy God..

We re-invent God…….in our own image.

We hate God.

In effect……we yell at God…….”you’re not my father!”

And with the infinite patience of a good father……he just takes it. He waits and hopes for us to outgrow it.

Because, in spite of our actions…….in spite of our tantrum………he is still God.

He is still our father.

As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love.

Jesus, John 15:3, ESV

I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you.

God, Jeremiah, 31:3, ESV

I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. When he commits iniquity, I will discipline him with the rod of men, with the stripes of the sons of men, but my steadfast love will not depart from him

God, 2 Samuel 17:13, ESV.

This post is a followup to a recent post that dealt with God’s desire for relationship.

There is a young woman whom I care for deeply. I’m certain that she cares for me as well. For years we would sit and talk…..about what was going on in her life…..and mine. It was nice. But, for the last year or so, when she is around, she spends all of her time on her phone……playing games……surfing the web…….texting friends. About half of the time, when I say something to her, I get no reply. When she does reply, it is often a monosyllable grunt…….or to ask that I buy her something………or to ask that I do something for her. She has a deep abiding relationship……..with her phone. With me……..not so much.

I find this to be frustrating. But, more than that, it hurts. What is going on between us could be…….once was…….very valuable, very enjoyable, very satisfying. Today it is just mechanical…….superficial. We just go through the motions of relationship. We just follow the forms……check the boxes. It’s certainly easy…….but not very satisfying.

Does any of this sound familiar?

I often find that things in my life that bother me…….also teach me.

And so it occurred to me that the relationship I have been describing is like the relationship that many of us have with God.

We follow the forms…..check the boxes. We rarely speak to God……and when we do, it is just to ask him for something…….or ask him to do something. We are far more interested in our stuff than in God. We put all of our effort into relationship with the people and things in our physical world. God knocks on the door…….and we are so glued to our “devices” that we don’t even notice. About all God gets is a few monosyllable grunts.

And that is just our end of the problem.

What about God?

If I am made in God’s physical image, I suspect that I may also share some of his emotional traits. I suspect that the things that frustrate and hurt me, probably also frustrate and hurt God as well.

So, the next time you get frustrated or hurt when your teenager ignores you because they are absorbed by something on their phone, consider this.

Maybe God is just as frustrated……and hurt……when you ignore him because you are focused on your work, or your stuff, or your finances, or your yard, or your car, or your plumbing. Maybe God is just as frustrated and hurt when all he hears from you………is “gimme!”

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!

Jesus, Mathew 23:37, ESV

And the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.

Moses, Genesis 6:6,ESV

Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live?

Paul, Hebrews 12:9, ESV

The central idea of Christianity is that Jesus died and then rose from the dead and that this act pays the penalty for all of our wrongs.

From a logical point of view this has always seemed like a bit of a stretch. The idea that one man, two centuries ago, could do something that saves me from myself today seems……well…….impossible. Not to mention the fact that the resurrection itself is impossible. But, impossible may very well be the entire point. We are constrained…….God is not. When a non-constrained God drops into a constrained world…….impossible things happen. The Christian accepts this duality. The secular humanist does not. The Christian believes that nothing is impossible for God. The secular humanist believes that God is impossible.

What follows is my opinion……..an op/ed piece. You’ve been warned.

Because the resurrection is hard to deal with from my side of the curtain……..I want to explore it from the other side of the curtain…….from God’s side. This is dangerous turf…….because I am going to try to understand the resurrection from God’s point of view. My prayer today is that I get it right.

The basics:

God is love
God is truth
God is justice
God is mercy

I begin at the beginning…….why did God create in the first place? God built an amazing, self-sustaining ecosystem. He put man in charge and gave him intelligence and free will. If God’s first character trait is love and love requires relationship……..I believe that God created all of this so that he could have relationship…….with man. True relationship requires free will on both sides. I can program my laptop to talk to me and to tell me that I’m smart and handsome. But, that is not a relationship…….it is just me using a surrogate to talk to myself. Relationship requires independence. Relationship requires the other guy to reach out to you……not because they have to…….but because they want to. Relationship is a gift…….perhaps the most valuable gift in creation.

I believe that God created all of this……..in hopes of receiving the gift of relationship from you……and me. Relationship could very well be the one thing that satisfies God’s greatest desire.

God created……..then he set us free.

And we messed it all up. Instead of offering God the relationship that he had planned for…….we pursued our appetites……..and ignored him……or worse……denied him.

God responded out of his love and his mercy. Instead of destroying it all and starting over, God created the resurrection. The purpose of the resurrection is create a path for us to give the gift of relationship to God in spite of our ongoing failure to live up to his expectations……..to approach God…….with confidence……without hypocrisy.

The resurrection is not a gimmick that God uses to sneak his mercy past his justice.. Rather, it is a tool that allows us to set aside our brokenness and legitimately approach God. It is not something that God needs……..it is something that we need.

So……..what is our correct response……to the resurrection?

Our correct response to the resurrection is to give to God the thing that he was after in the first place.

Relationship.

“I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live”

Jesus, John 11:25, ESV

All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation;

Paul, 2 Corinthians 5:18, ESV

Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.

Paul, Hebrews 10:19-22, ESV