What was God thinking?
He turned us loose with a nudge in the right direction and from there we have been free falling? He did provide a safety net, if you will, or better said in the modern technological vernacular, a GPS. It was never His idea that we would move on and out without reference to our Creator. From what we see of human nature, He had to have known how far afield we would get.
Just a peek at the Prophets and even Revelations verify this. Our God is a hands-off deity in one sense. He does not bully or push us. To guide us, however, is worse than trying to herd cats. We do not take well to pushing from behind. We only respond to inspiration from above. Eyes up, we move forward – even to the cloud by day and the fire by night. I was never more aware of this than on a recent trip overseas.
I sat in the Warsaw airport watching the very mixed group of travelers. For all intents and purposes I could have been in an airport anywhere in the world. I base this on having spent a fair amount of time in American airports and having just recently been at airports in both Prague and Paris. On this day I was looking at a family of four: Papa was entrenched in a newspaper. The tweener daughter was engrossed in her magazine entitled Witch. The mama kept trying to get her husband’s attention away from his paper, while their young son was tuned out to all around him and consumed by his electronic device. It seemed as if this family was occupying their own family bubble. The surrounding fellow travelers seemed oblivious to this group as they were equally entertained by their own pursuits.
This scenario does not have to even be in an airport. This is life as I see it. We are all in our little orbs sometimes gliding, sometimes halting and even bumping into one another, but we are oblivious to life outside our own circle.
Why does everything remind me of a movie? Looking at the popular movie WALL•E, we are transported into a futuristic society conjured up by the folks at PIXAR in which all the former earthlings are in their own little capsules, zipping about from consumption to consumption in a motorized fashion only interacting when occasionally bumping into others. In WALL•E’s world there are no longer any “relationships” and thus not even family units. It is sounding like this is about the here and now.
I had thought we Americans were worse about being so isolated as individuals, but I am no longer convinced. I have often pondered the question of how people can be so lacking in empathy for one another, especially for “others.” It’s a bit overwhelming to now realize this it appears to be a human condition. I could say the solution is for each of us to at least reach out, connect with those in our larger orbs – neighborhoods, work places - but this is easier said than done. There is perhaps an instinctive preservation of self that we must rise above. How do we stop beginning each sentence with “I”?
There is no reason to reach out to others if all we have is instinct. Is that not what distinguishes us from the animals? We have choice, it is true, but that is not enough to cause us to bridge the chasm between others and ourselves. We must have purpose, vision, and inspiration. We need to understand the basic connectedness of all human beings.
This can only come from first connecting with the one who created us who has infinite knowledge and embodies Wisdom. To connect with Him, however, it has to be on His terms. We can’t just drop in for a quick bite, a platitude or two. He wants us to not just share a meal, but a feast. It is shocking to think that we are so much about our own selves that we would pass up this opportunity.
When I surrender to His view, His plan, I am swept into His presence in such a way that I get glimpses of my world, His world, as He sees it. It was never His intention that we would withdraw from our fellows. His greatest call, after acknowledging who He is, is to love one another. For the most part we are all pretty unlovable, that is true. Even within my family I find myself bristling from time to time. If it is difficult to love our own blood, how can we ever hope to have love for strangers?
To say with God all things are possible is no mere cliché. It is our Guidance System. So, what was He thinking? He was thinking that we would use our intelligence to know that no one is in possession of what is needed to love one another. To get past “I,” we must get to Him. Or, more precisely, let Him get to us.
It is in our loving one another that we can begin to understand just how amazing it is that God loves us.