Liberating you from bad ideas about God
Jesus’ attitude toward the Temple was not “this institution needs reforming,” nor “the wrong people are running this place,” nor yet “piety can function elsewhere too.” His deepest belief regarding the Temple was eschatological: the time had come for God to judge the entire institution.
—N. T. Wright, The Challenge of Jesus, p. 64.
I wonder what Jesus would say about the church institution?
No, I’m not telling you to stop attending church.
You must do what you believe God wants you to do.
But if you stop attending church so that you can be the church, it may be the best thing that ever happens to you in your life with Jesus and your evangelistic endeavors.
When I stopped attending church, the number of spiritual conversations I had with people skyrocketed. Previously, when I was a pastor and a regular church attender, I rarely had spiritual conversations with people who were not already in a church.
But after I stopped attending church, and started trying to follow Jesus into the world, the number of conversations I had with people who don’t go to church became a nearly daily occurrence. Now, as I go about my day, run errands, and so on, I have been shocked at how Jesus just seems to insert himself into conversations.
Previously, I used to try to figure out how to “change the subject” from weather and politics to the Bible and Jesus. It was always awkward and unnatural. Now, I sometimes find myself talking about following Jesus outside of “the church” to someone, and I think to myself, “How in the world did we end up here?”
I don’t really know how to explain it.
Yes, I am praying for opportunities to talk with people, and our girls are real outspoken about Jesus, and my wife and I are always carrying around Christian books, so maybe those spark the conversations. But we have always done these things. What changed?
Only one thing. I stopped “going to church” so I could be the church. It’s not always an either-or, but it’s what we did.
When people find out I’m trying to follow Jesus but I don’t “attend church” they are intrigued. They often want to find out more, and the conversation turns to subjects of following Jesus, questions about God, and other spiritual matters.
I make it a point to say that I have not stopped attending church because I hate the church or am running from God. No, I am more involved now with church than ever before. I am trying to follow Jesus in ways that show love to others than ever before. The time and energy I used to devote to attending church I now seek to use in being the church among others.
This sort of conversation usually leads to another conversation, and another, until eventually, we have a relationship, and we hang out, eat lunch together, help each other with work around the yard or house, and so on.
So for me, stopping attending church seems to be a good “conversation starter” with lots of other people who do not go to church.
Have you had experiences like this, where God seems to work in and through your life once you have started “being the church” rather than just “attending church”?
(Note: In the past few years, I have met a few people who were “sent out” by their church as missionaries with this sort of task. They work secular jobs, and just meet regularly with people for discussions. They made it clear to their church that they will not be attending church and will not be trying to convince the people they meet with to attend church. The sending church agrees to this, and supports them in prayer… and sometimes financially. That is awesome!)
This is from a 2008 post by Perry Noble. I thought it was good then, and it’s still good today.
I had some “what if” thoughts the other day that I wanted to share…
Those are just some of the things I’ve been wondering.
I don’t think God cares too much which church model we use, house church, mega church, liturgical church, or free-for-all charismatic church.
God’s main concerns are justice, compassion, grace, mercy, generosity, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. If you are engaged in these things, then may God bless you in whatever church model you choose.
If you are not doing these things, God cannot be pleased, no matter how large and famous (or small and intimate) your church model is.
What do you think? Agree? Disagree? Let me know!
Some people think I have lost my faith. I think I am only now beginning to find it.
Parts of my story, my journey of faith, my walk with God (or whatever you want to call it) have been posted in various places online (on Jason Boyett’s blog, for example) and in a book I edited last year, but little of it has been posted here on this blog. Let me summarize some of the highlights.
I was raised in a pastor’s family. I had two loving parents, and nine siblings. I loved growing up, going to church, attending school, and spending time with friends and family. I sometimes wish I could go back and relive my childhood.
Upon graduating from high school, I went to college to become a Mechanical Engineer. After my freshman year, a good friend of mine died in a hiking accident, and as a result, I thought that I should reconsider my life goals. So I decided to become a pastor. I went away to Bible college, where I got my degree, and more importantly, met and married my beautiful wife, Wendy.
After graduation from Bible college, I decided to get an M.Div., but after only a year, decided that I would rather just enter into professional, full-time ministry. So Wendy and I went to Montana, where I became the Senior Pastor of a small, struggling church.
I pastored there for three and half years. The church had numerous problems, and I was an inexperienced pastor and so made numerous mistakes. But for the most part, I enjoyed being a pastor, and wanted to do nothing else for the rest of my life. I loved the people I worked with, and loved the community we lived in. I was not the best husband, however, and was too consumed with ministry to help my wife out at home much, or take an active role in raising the two girls that my wife had delivered during this time.
At the end of three and half years, the church could no longer pay our salary. The church was very small (only about 35 people), and I had made some pastoral decisions which had angered the main financial backers of the church, and so they stopped tithing. When the money ran out, the governing board bowed to the demands of the big tither and asked me to resign, which I did.
I then became the pastor of a larger church in a nearby town. This was every pastor’s dream church. Oh sure, there were problems, but for the most part, the people were warm and loving. The services were well-attended. The elders were supportive. The families were active. I loved this church and everybody in it. But I also had a growing sense in the back of my mind that I needed to finish my Master’s degree. So with a heavy heart I resigned, and moved my family to Texas to get a Th.M.
In the process of moving to Texas, I landed my dream job. I got to work with an author and Bible scholar I highly respected, helping him publish his books, plan his speaking engagements, and coordinate various conferences around the country. I even got a few of my own articles published, and was invited to speak at a few conferences and churches as a result of my involvement with this ministry. I was working full time and attending school more than full time (I completed a four-year degree in three years), and so needless to say, my marriage suffered even more than it had before. Then, right before graduation, I wrote a blog post which ended up getting me fired from my job.
I sunk into depression. My faith shattered. Everything I had worked for and hoped for lay in pieces at my feet. I lost my dream job, and almost all of my Christian friends abandoned me. After applying for nearly 60 different jobs, the only job I could get was as a carpet cleaner. I also had pretty much destroyed my wife and my three daughters by ignoring them for most of my time as a pastor and all of my time as a seminary student. It seemed to me that by almost every standard, my life was a complete failure.
Eventually, I found a new job as a prison chaplain in New York. It was not something I ever imagined doing, but it was in my “field” of training, and paid better than cleaning carpets. While in New York, I started trying to rebuild. I sought to rebuild myself, my faith, my marriage, and my family. I changed a lot of my beliefs. My wife and I went to marriage counseling. I started looking for a new way to follow Jesus.
A year ago, we moved to Oregon. I still have the same job, but in a different location. I am still slowly trying to rebuild my life, my faith, and especially, my marriage and my family. There are many signs of progress, but sometimes, I am afraid that sooner or later, it will all come crashing down once again. One of the main things that keep me going however, is hope.
I sometimes regret that I gave up mechanical engineering for pastoral ministry. Though I truly enjoy studying and teaching Scripture, I sometimes feel frustrated that given my current career path, the only jobs I qualify for are in the field of professional ministry. But I am hopeful that God will use my detail-oriented and creative-thinking brain in the field of Bible study and theology to help others see that God may not be like what many of us have been taught, and that the Bible may not say what we have always thought.
I sometimes regret that I left that first church. There are many aspects to pastoral ministry that I desperately miss. I sometimes wish that rather than resign, I had simply taken a secular job in the community and remained on as pastor without taking a salary. This decision would have taken away all the power from the “money” in the church, and would have freed me up to lead the church in the direction we needed to go. But I am hopeful that maybe, somehow, God might lead me into some form of pastoral ministry again, in a way that does not require me to take a salary, and to serve alongside other people who want to follow Jesus into the world.
I sometimes regret that I left that second church to go to seminary. The people there were so loving and kind. I miss many of them desperately. But now that we have finally settled into an area in which we hope to stay for a while, I am hopeful that God will bring more people into our lives with whom we can build friendships, and learn to love. We have been in our current location for just one year, but we already see some of these sorts of friendship developing.
I sometimes regret posting that fateful blog post which got me fired from my dream job in Texas, and which caused a lot of heartache and confusion in the minds of people I worked with or who looked up to me. But I am hopeful, because the experience of leaving that job opened my eyes and mind to a whole new way of viewing people, thinking about theology, reading Scripture, interacting with others, and ultimately, living life. I believe I am now more loving, gracious, and forgiving than I ever was before. And quite a bit more humble. (That’s a joke!)
I always regret the way I treated my wife for all those years as a pastor and as a seminary student and during my years of depression. She deserved so much better. And yet I am more hopeful now for our marriage than I have been in a long time. She has forgiven me, and shown love to me, and we are laughing together and living together with joy in ways that we have never before experienced.
Sometimes Wendy and I ask ourselves if it was all worth it. In so many ways, we see Jesus, we read the Bible, and we understand God so differently than before. We think it was worth it.
I often joke that the “me” of fifteen years ago would consider the “me” of today a heretic. But the “me” of today does not consider the “me” of fifteen years ago a heretic; just somebody who had to learn some difficult lessons the hard way. Though my life is full of regrets (and there will probably be many more to come), I never would have learned the things I know now if I had not experienced what I did. This too leads me to hope.
I hope that the future “me” can remember that when I make mistakes, God can resurrect hope and joy from the ashes. After all, without death, there is no resurrection. So when parts of my life die, whether by design or by poor choices, I must remember that even in the dark despair of the moment, God is at work to bright forth light, love, joy, and hope.
This post was written as part of the November Synchroblog, in which different bloggers write about their journey of faith. Here is a list of other contributors:
Jesus said that we would always have the poor with us (Matt 26:11).
As a result, we find it easy to conclude that the problem of the poor is too big for us to solve, so we drop a few dollars in the Salvation Army kettle at Christmas and write a check for missions and give it to our local church.
We almost become blind to the poor where we live.
When the recent census revealed that there are over ten thousand homeless people in San Diego, everyone I know thought those numbers must be incorrect. “Occasionally I see a homeless person at an intersection begging for money but surely there can’t be more than a few hundred homeless people in the entire city!”
One church group of which we were a part decided that the homeless were on the streets because of “bad decisions” they had made. The group felt that helping them would only encourage them to stay homeless. The solution they proposed was that “Homeless people should get off their butts and get jobs!”
Their perspective might have changed if they had gotten their butts out of the pews and gone down to get to know some of the homeless in the streets.
Last Saturday our small group ventured to downtown San Diego to an area where several hundred homeless people live on the sidewalk, in the shadow of the ballpark.
As we walked in the shadow of this great structure, I was reminded of Jesus being born in Bethlehem, literally in the shadow of the Herodian, one of Herod’s palaces and a symbol of the wealth and might of the Roman Empire.
Friday had brought a soaking rain. On Saturday the homeless were trying to dry their clothes, blankets and sleeping bags. As several told us, “We’re trying to get dry before it rains tomorrow.” We shared chips and some other prepackaged food we had taken with us and talked to them. Some had been living on the streets for months or years. One man said he had lost his job, had run out of money, and had just joined the ranks of the homeless that day.
We went home thankful for our warm bed and dry clothes.
About lunch time on Sunday the second storm arrived. The rain continued until the middle of the night. The heavy rain woke me up several times that night, and I prayed for the people sitting in the rain on the sidewalk downtown, some without even a garbage bag to cover their heads.
As the rain fell, the temperature dipped into the upper forties and low fifties. As many homeless have explained to us, even though the temperature might be above freezing, being soaked to the skin on a chilly night can lower body temperature and is especially dangerous for those with health problems. If a person remains cold and wet on the streets, hypothermia can set in and the homeless person may die.
As I prayed for the homeless while it rained, I began to wonder if I had done enough.
We had taken food to the homeless, but I was lying in a warm dry bed and they were sitting on a cold, wet sidewalk getting soaked. We had given them dry clothes, but those clothes were now soaking wet while I had a whole closet full of warm and dry clothes a few feet away.
The problem of the homeless seemed too big for me or our small group to solve.
Was there something more we could do, or should we just give up?
As I lay there, I realized the truth of what Jesus said about the poor.
It is true that the poor will always be with us (Matt 26:11), but this is not an excuse to not help the poor, but an opportunity! Since the poor will always be with us, every person in every generation has the opportunity to be blessed through helping the poor.
More than that, since Jesus Himself said that if we give a cup of cold water to one of the least of these in His name, it is as if we are giving the cup of cold water to Jesus Himself (Matt 10:42), the opportunity to feed and clothe the poor is an opportunity to hang out with Jesus!
With this in mind, it would be unfair for only one generation or one group of people to have this opportunity! Therefore, it is a blessing that the poor will always be with us, because now all of us can go meet with Jesus on the streets.
So if you have ever wanted to meet Jesus, now is your chance! Go out and love the homeless.
And YOU can help.
Fill out the form below to receive several emails about how to love and serve the poor and homeless.
(Note: If you are a member of RedeemingGod.com, login and then revisit this page to update your membership.)
Thank you for reading this blog and for interacting as you do in the comments. It is often through the comments that I find some of your blogs, and over the past week or two have found some blogs I want to mention. Go check them out!
First, Dr. James McGrath writes a great blog at Exploring our Matrix. His posts are always insightful and challenging. Occasionally, he even throws in some hilarious images. Like this one:
Second, Michael Kampff is offering a free eBook on how men can be better fathers to their children. I signed up and am reading the book now! Thanks, Michael!
If Michael’s book is any indication, it looks like he will have a great blog as well. So head on over to his site, sign up to receive notifications about his blog, and get the free eBook on being a father as a bonus!
In this book, Michael identifies several fears that fathers face, and then addresses these fears with some concrete steps of action that men can take. Best of all, you are not asking for HUGE steps, or many steps, but one little step of faith. It is something men can accomplish.
Third, Dale Tuggy wrote an interesting post interacting with one of my posts. The post is about God and the Nature(s) of Jesus Christ, and he engages in some good logical argument about what Jesus knew about Himself. He argues this:
I would say, in evaluation of this argument:
How would you respond? Head on over there and interact with his proposal.
Fourth, and finally, I was honored to be listed in Jared Moore’s List of Top 250 Christian Blogs. Thanks, Jared! I agree with him that if you have a blog, you might want to think about installing the Alexa extension to your browser. I find the Alexa extension extremely helpful as I surf the internet. It helps me figure out of the blog I am reading is considered an “authority” in their subject or not.
Alexa extensions are available for Chrome, Firefox, and Internet Explorer.
Kregel sent me a copy of What the Old Testament Authors Really Cared About: A Survey of Jesus’ Bible, edited by Jason DeRouchie.
By the title, I expected a Christologically-centered survey of the Old Testament, which, frankly, would be a welcome addition to the typical Old Testament survey fare.
Most Old Testament surveys operate under the assumption that what follows later in the Bible (i.e., the New Testament), should not be read back into the Old Testament. So when scholars write about the Old Testament, they primarily seek to understand only what the original human authors and original human audience understood when the text was written.
I do not deny that such studies should be of primary importance for understanding the biblical text. But what such approaches fail to recognize, is that the human authors and audience were not the primary author or audience. Since the Bible is an inspired book, God is the primary author of Scripture, and since He has a view toward the redemption of all humanity from the predicament we find ourselves in, God’s primary intended audience is all people throughout time.
So anyway, I was hopeful that What the Old Testament Authors Really Cared About would fill the void that is missing in Old Testament studies, and show us what God meant when He inspired the authors to write the various books of the Old Testament, and how these books point to and were fulfilled by Jesus Christ. Ultimately, I was hoping that this book would show us how Jesus Himself read and understood the only Bible He had, namely, the Jewish Scriptures.
The book started off great. The opening chapter by Jason DeRouchie showed how the organization of our modern English Bibles is not the same organization that Jesus would have known, and this opening chapter also showed that the constant and recurring themes of the Old Testament authors are also the constant and recurring themes in the life and ministry of Jesus. Themes such as exile and redemption, the inauguration of the Kingdom of God, and how Christ is the climax of the various covenants were all discussed in this opening chapter. So far, so good.
But then something happened. I am not sure what. The rest of the volume contained summaries of each book of the Bible by various scholars and professors. They presented the main idea of each book, gave a synopsis of the outline and thoughtflow in the book, and discussed some of the major themes. But one thing that seemed missing from nearly every chapter was the one thing that I thought I was reading: the chapters were missing explanations of how these Old Testament books pointed to Jesus or were understood by Him.
For the most part, the rest of the book seemed like every other Old Testament Survey I have ever read.
Maybe DeRouchie as the editor for the book did not adequately explain to the contributing authors what exactly the purpose of this book was. Maybe he figured that having read the opening chapter, we the readers could fill in the blanks for the rest of the book. Maybe the failure was completely on my part to connect the dots between the opening chapter and the chapters that followed. I don’t really know.
So I suppose that when it comes to Old Testament surveys, this one is just as good as any other. It just doesn’t seem to fit the bill of what the cover and the first chapter led me to believe I was reading.
Having said that, however, there is one main reason I cannot recommend this particular Old Testament survey. My complaint will actually be a reason which many people will find this to be one of the best surveys available. My complaint is this: Most of the chapters (including the first one) seemed to focus not so much on pushing the reader toward Jesus Christ, but toward John Calvin.
Sure, Calvin was never mentioned by name (that I recall), but Calvinistic themes were evident throughout the book. Themes such as God’s supremacy and sovereignty, the depravity of man, God’s wrath toward sinners, the redemption of the elect through God’s irresistible grace, and the idea that God’s holiness required a judicial, substitutionary atonement in the form of retributive judgment.
I, for one, am not convinced that this is indeed the way Jesus understood His Bible. I don’t think Jesus was a Calvinist (or at least, held the theology that Calvin and his followers later taught).
If you’re a Calvinist, of course, then you will think this Old Testament survey is great (which helps explain all the Calvinistic endorsement in the front). But if you’re not a Calvinist, then you will frustrated by this survey, as it seems that according to the authors, no matter what happens in the Old Testament, it is done “for the praise of God’s glory.”
In the end, it appears that “What the Old Testament Authors Really Cared About” is Calvinsim. Since I am not a Calvinist (nor an Arminian!), I will stick with some of the other Old Testament surveys on my shelf.
I don’t often recommend products or services on this blog, but I recently learned of a sale that is going on which is too good to not recommend. It is the pre-Black Friday Sale at StudioPress for their Pro-Plus All Theme Package. It might seem a bit expensive at $299, but this is over $1000 off the full price of this package. Of course, you can most often get this package for $399, so this pre-black Friday sale is for an additional $100 of that already-low price.
When you purchase this pro package, you not only get the Genesis 2.0 framework (the industry-leading WordPress framework), but you also get all 50+ WordPress Themes that they make, plus every theme that they create in the future, plus great tech support, access to their forums, free lifetime upgrades, and a whole host of other features. I have written previously about why I use Genesis 2.0 on this blog.
I wrote last week that I wish more bloggers were honest about some of their blogging habits, and I want to be fully open about my own practices. So by way of full disclosure, I am using affiliate links in this blog post for the StudioPress Theme Package. However, I never use affiliate links for products or services that I do not use myself or that I do not highly recommend.
In fact, the affiliate program at StudioPress is one small reason I recommend them. Though $299 might seem expensive, you can make this back simply by referring three customers to StudioPress.
But that is not the real reason I use StudioPress. I don’t actually run this blog to make money. I run this blog to write about Scripture and theology, and to interact with other people around the world who have similar ideas about knowing God, following Jesus, and loving others. But here’s the thing… StudioPress is helping me do that as well!
Here is how:
I credit the new Genesis 2.0 framework by StudioPress with helping me get a lot of the search engine traffic that I receive. Due to their use of Schema.org markup, my search engine results appear more often and with better details than many other search results on Google and Bing, and so as a result, I get more clicks than other bloggers who write on similar topics. The Genesis Framework drastically helped decrease my site loading time as well. I wrote about this here previously. All of this creates a better experience for you, the reader, and better results on the search engines, which in turn leads to more readers.
Anyway, I am not saying you have to buy this WordPress Professional theme package from StudioPress to be a successful blogger. You don’t.
But if you are looking for a set of professional WordPress themes which:
then the Genesis 2.0 Framework by StudioPress is what you are looking for.
There are, of course, cheaper ways to get started with Genesis 2.0. You don’t have to buy the entire Pro Plus All-Theme Package. You can buy individual themes for less. But if you have been eyeing the Pro Plus All-Theme package, then now is the time to buy, since it is on a great sale.
The sale ends Monday, November 18.
If you have any other questions about the Genesis 2.0 Framework and StudioPress, let me know in the comments below and I will do what I can to answer them.
Remember Susan Boyle? She went pretty far in the Britain’s Got Talent show back in 2009. But I recently was thinking about her and what heaven will be like, and realized there is something she teaches us about life, dreams, eternity, and heaven.
Watch this video before reading the rest of the post.
Here is an article for more information about Susan Boyle:
Susan Boyle’s story is a parable of our age. She is a singer of enormous talent, who cared for her widowed mother until she died two years ago. Susan’s is a combination of ability and virtue that deserves congratulation.
So how come she was treated as a laughing stock when she walked on stage for the opening heat of Britain’s Got Talent 2009 on Saturday night?
The moment the reality show’s audience and judging panel saw the small, shy, middle-aged woman, they started to smirk. When she said she wanted a professional singing career to equal that of Elaine Paige, the camera showed audience members rolling their eyes in disbelief. They scoffed when she told Simon Cowell, one of the judges, how she’d reached her forties without managing to develop a singing career because she hadn’t had the opportunity. Another judge, Piers Morgan, later wrote on his blog that, just before she launched into I Dreamed a Dream, the 3000-strong audience in Glasgow was laughing and the three judges were suppressing chuckles.
It was rude and cruel and arrogant. Susan Boyle from Blackburn, West Lothian, was presumed to be a buffoon. But why?
Britain’s Got Talent isn’t a beauty pageant. It isn’t a youth opportunity scheme. It is surely about discovering untapped and unrecognised raw talent from all sections of society.
And Susan Boyle has talent to burn. Such is the beauty of her voice that she had barely sung the opening bars when the applause started. She rounded off to a standing ovation and – in her naivety – began walking off the stage and had to be recalled.
Susan, now a bankable discovery, was then roundly patronised by such mega-talents as Amanda Holden and the aforementioned Morgan, who told her: “Everyone laughed at you but no-one is laughing now. I’m reeling with shock.” Holden added: “It’s the biggest wake-up call ever.”
Again, why?
The answer is that only the pretty are expected to achieve. Not only do you have to be physically appealing to deserve fame; it seems you now have to be good-looking to merit everyday common respect. If, like Susan (and like millions more), you are plump, middle-aged and too poor or too unworldly to follow fashion or have a good hairdresser, you are a non-person.
I dread to think of how Susan would have left the stage if her voice had been less than exceptional. She would have been humiliated in front of 11 million viewers. It’s the equivalent of being put in the stocks in front of the nation instead of the village. It used to be a punishment handed out to criminals. Now it is the fate of anyone without obvious sexual allure who dares seek opportunity.
This small, brave soul took her courage in her hands to pitch at her one hope of having her singing talent recognised, and was greeted with a communal sneer. Courage could so easily have failed her.
Yet why shouldn’t she sound wonderful? Not every great singer looks like Katherine Jenkins. Edith Piaf would never have been chosen to strut a catwalk. Nor would Nina Simone, nor Ella Fitzgerald. As for Pavarotti But then ridicule is nothing new in Susan Boyle’s life. She is a veteran of abuse. She was starved of oxygen at birth and has learning difficulties as a result. At school she was slow and had frizzy hair. She was bullied, mostly verbally. She told one newspaper that her classmates’ jibes left behind the kind of scars that don’t heal.
She didn’t have boyfriends, is a stranger to romance and has never been kissed. “Shame,” she said. Singing was her life-raft.
She lived with her parents in a four-bedroom council house and, when her father died a decade ago, she cared for her mother and sang in the church choir.
Then, when a special occasion comes along, they might reach, as Susan did, for the frock they bought for a nephew’s wedding. They might, as she did, compound the felony of choosing a colour at odds with her skin tone and an unflattering shape with home-chopped hair, bushy eyebrows and a face without a hint of make-up. But it is often evidence of a life lived selflessly; of a person so focused on the needs of another that they have lost sight of themselves. Is that a cause for derision or a reason for congratulation? Would her time have been better spent slimming and exercising, plucking and waxing, bleaching and botoxing? Would that have made her voice any sweeter?
Susan Boyle’s mother encouraged her to sing. She wanted her to enter Britain’s Got Talent. But the shy Susan hasn’t been able to sing at all since her mother’s death two years ago. She wasn’t sure how her voice would emerge after so long a silence. Happily, it survived its rest.
She is a gift to Simon Cowell and reality television. Her story is the stuff of Hans Christian Andersen: the woman plucked from obscurity, the buried talent uncovered, the transformation waiting to be wrought.
It is wonderful for her, too, that her stunning voice is now recognised. A bright future beckons. Her dream is becoming reality.
Susan is a reminder that it’s time we all looked a little deeper. She has lived an obscure but important life. She has been a companionable and caring daughter. It’s people like her who are the unseen glue in society; the ones who day in and day out put themselves last. They make this country civilised and they deserve acknowledgement and respect.
Susan has been forgiven her looks and been given respect because of her talent. She should always have received it because of the calibre of her character.
The song she sings comes from Les Miserables, which may be one of the most hauntingly beautiful songs ever. Every time I watch the movie, I weep at the part of the movie where Fantine sings for her broken dreams.
Here are the lyrics:
There was a time when men were kind,
And their voices were soft,
And their words inviting.
There was a time when love was blind,
And the world was a song,
And the song was exciting.
There was a time when it all went wrong…I dreamed a dream in time gone by,
When hope was high and life, worth living.
I dreamed that love would never die,
I dreamed that God would be forgiving.
Then I was young and unafraid,
And dreams were made and used and wasted.
There was no ransom to be paid,
No song unsung, no wine, untasted.But the tigers come at night,
With their voices soft as thunder,
As they tear your hope apart,
And they turn your dream to shame.He slept a summer by my side,
He filled my days with endless wonder…
He took my childhood in his stride,
But he was gone when autumn came!And still I dream he’ll come to me,
That we will live the years together,
But there are dreams that cannot be,
And there are storms we cannot weather!I had a dream my life would be
So different from this hell I’m living,
So different now from what it seemed…
Now life has killed the dream I dreamed…
Now why am I writing about all this here? What has so caught my attention about Susan Boyle and Fantine? Why does this song make me tear up?
Because this song, and Susan’s story, is the song of us all. Every person on earth has broken dreams, shattered hopes, lost loves. We all have a “Rosebud” (See the movie Citizen Kane). If you are like me, you often wish that life had a “do over” option. There are times and places in life you wish you could return to, but never can. There are grievous mistakes you made in life which you wish you could go back and undo. There are some memories you wish you could relive, and others you wish you could avoid.
And for many, I think that as life goes on, our list of things we wish we could have done, could have said, could have been, could have seen, gets longer and longer. This is why some people embark on their Bucket List.
But I sometimes think that in heaven, in our eternal life which begins after we leave this one, one of the things we will do for eternity is getting to do, go, be, and become all those things that we never got to experience in life. In the book, Safely Home, Li Quan wants to write and teach, but because he is a Christian living in Communist China, he spends most of his life running and hiding and fearing for his life. I don’t want to ruin the end of the book, but let me just say that at the end, his hopes and dreams are more than fulfilled.
Fantine sings this:
I had a dream my life would be
So different from this hell I’m living.
If you have unfulfilled dreams, shattered hopes, damaged relationships, know this: in the New Heavens and New Earth, part of the process of “wiping away every tear” will be, in my opinion, allowing Jesus to help you fulfill those dreams, achieve those hopes, and restore those relationships.
Heaven is not about sitting on clouds playing harps. It will be like this life, but without the pain, regret, and fear. Life will be what it was always meant to be.
You will learn to sing like Susan Boyle, or dance like a prima ballerina, if that is what you want.
You will train to climb that mountain, or write that book, if it sounds enjoyable.
You will laugh uproariously with that loved one.
You will sit and read and discuss theology with Moses, Paul, and Jesus, if that sounds like fun.
You will ride horses on the beach and be able to read their thoughts while doing so. You will lay down with a lion and let his purring lull you to sleep.
Creation was made to be our playground; not our hell. And in the new heaven and new earth, it will become our playground again. Heaven will be like Susan Boyle, with each of us finally getting to do what we were made for.
