Over the edge

We were perfectly designed, knitted together with fabulous stitches that bear the trademarks of a highly skilled craftsman. However, if we were left there, in that unfinished state, we wouldn’t be any better off than Pinocchio lying as a silent block of wood on Geppetto’s workbench.  Instead our Creator has given us something unique; the ability to make choices, the freewill to chose to love others and ultimately the One who made us!

Our predicament places us precariously out on the edge of a cliff, surrounded by deep canyons, where we can fall a great distance if we make the wrong choices. However, we wouldn’t be alive and conscious filled with our Maker’s breath, if we had been completely pre-programmed. We would be nothing more than mindless robotrons filled with miles of algorithms and pre-planned response.

In the story of Pinocchio, the puppet wanted more; he wanted to be a real boy. When he gets his wish, being able to walk in the world of real men, he quickly discovers how much trouble is waiting for him around every corner. In some interpretations, after escaping many dangerous pit falls, he returns to Geppetto and chooses to live the life he was designed for. However, in the original story, which was a tragedy published in 1881, Pinocchio actually gets hanged by his enemies the fox and the cat. It’s always the foxes and the cats of this world!

Just like Geppetto’s wooden puppet we too have been created to walk in a world of choices. We were designed by our Creator to live in peace, with freewill to choose to love others in our community. However, so many of us choose self destructive paths that lead ultimately to death and destruction.

 We were designed with a purpose and to live in a way that brings glory to our Maker. But because we have freewill we often chose the wrong path. Our Creator loves us and desires us to live in a way that we can thrive and bring glory to Him and His coming kingdom.

It’s bizarre how the choices we make have a way of catching up with us when we least expect it. When I was in high school I didn’t apply myself. English became my worst class which I often took the liberty to skip. I found out later in life that my English teacher would read my assignments to the class when I was absent. Not as examples of what to do but as scathing examples of what to avoid (hopefully my editor won’t read this part).

It was during one of those missed classes that I neglected to read a book on our reading list; D.J. Salinger’s “The catcher in the rye”. That book might have turned my life around sooner. Holden, the main character in the story, had an idea from a poem he had read of children who were running through a field of rye that were in constant danger of running off the edge of a nearby cliff. Holden, desiring to save them, wanted to stand at the precipice and catch the children from falling over the edge.

It’s always been our ability to make choices coupled with the enormous amount of freedom we have here in America that has sent a large part of our society over the edge. Is there a way to live life in order to avoid pitfalls that can hold us permanently shackled to our trouble? 

One option might be to stay in the craftsman’s workshop separated from the world and temptations that land us in trouble. Another option might be to allow our Creator to guide us through this world and safely into the next.  The last option is to run on our own carelessly through a field of rye.

As a parent I’m always amazed, really mystified, at how our Creator designed our children to be so unique; individuals with their own personal style, qualities and characteristics. Our children possess traits of ours yet grow up so different from us. Children running free at full speed through a field of rye always in arm’s reach of that cliff that will change their lives forever. As parents we desperately need to stand forever still in the rye, near the edge of the cliff waiting for a chance to catch them before they fall.

Our Creator too is standing in the rye, near the cliff waiting for us to fall. He patiently waits for us to call out to Him, to invite Him into our own lives to walk with us around, sometimes through, many dangers toils and snares. He desires that we make a freewill choice to return to His workshop where He can finally finish His masterpiece into what He originally designed us to be. 

Walls

Walls are everywhere. They separate apartment units, hold up roofs and even allow the winning run to score as homerun balls sail over them. Walls keep out loud freeway noise from disturbing others living in the houses that were built near them. They also keep people out of dangerous areas like airports, gun ranges and active volcanoes while keeping violent, dangerous criminals separated from the general public. 

Some physicists even believe that there is a wall at the outer edge of our universe. They hypothesize that our universe is but one gigantic bubble in a much larger expanse of space. However I can’t think about that right now as it hurts my brain to ponder vast distances before my morning cup of coffee. 

The Great Wall in China, one of the biggest walls on earth, can even be seen from an orbiting spaceship. The Berlin Wall, which now has been torn down, split the German nation in half trapped behind rigid differences in political ideologies. Even the most southern end of California has a partial wall that was erected, intending to manage illegal immigration from Mexico.

Walls are going up everywhere. There are even invisible walls that we can build around our relationships with others. In the course of time these walls can turn into fortresses that cut off our hearts and minds to family, friends as well as strangers.  Soon these invisible force fields become impenetrable barriers that keep others out and back at a distance.  These walls must come down.

In the Old Testament God outlined that men and women could only approach Him in a very specific way. From the very beginning of time, by covering Adam and Eve with animal skins, God demonstrated that without the shedding of blood there can be no forgiveness from our sin. Later, after the law was given to Moses, God commanded His people could only approach Him through sacrifices offered by the tabernacle priesthood.

In time God’s laws were corrupted and the temple became a place where people capitalized off of required sacrifices. Priests charged to inspect sacrifices, sold animals and required payment with Temple currency that was exchanged at a higher rate of interest.

Christianity was originally built upon the foundation that Christ Jesus laid. Jesus came to teach us that God loves us and wants a relationship with us. In return we are to love others. Jesus simply stated that the greatest commandments are that we should love the Lord God with all our hearts, mind and strength and then to love others as ourselves.

Unfortunately, from the very beginning, even Christ’s disciples argued and disputed with each other about what He taught. Then, as time went on, men began to add and change God’s New Covenant in ways that alienated us from each other.  As generations passed rigid religious practices were built up into high walls of separation; denominations. These walls served only to divide the family of Christ into fragmented factions.  

I have witnessed these, in my own life, divisions and splits inside churches of the same denomination. Some have suggested the root cause of this corruption is a lack of teaching through the entire books of canonized scripture.  This coupled with man’s desire to rule over one another is at the heart of the present disunity in the church. There is only one church and Jesus is the head so let us put away childish arguments and tell others how much God loves them.

When Jesus turned over the tables in the courts of the Temple, chasing out the money changers, He was making a clear statement.  Jesus is now our High Priest and demonstrated that there is now only one mediator between God and man and that is the God-man Christ Jesus. Jesus said that He was the way, the truth and the life and that no man would come to the Father except through accepting-receiving His sacrifice for forgiveness.

In Paul’s letter to the church in Ephesus, he wrote about Jesus “For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation, having abolished in His flesh enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances,”. 

There were walls separating gentiles, women and Jews from entering certain areas of the Temple complex. Jesus came to tear down those walls of separation. But more importantly, when Jesus gave up His spirit on the cross, it’s recorded that the veil-curtain in the Temple’s Holy of Holies was torn from top to bottom. 

The final wall separating a Holy God from sinful people was now torn down. There was no need for a hierarchy of priests to intercede for us as we can now go directly to the Father through His Son Christ Jesus.   

The list

 The list grows longer every day. In fact the list is now so long that I need to write it down on something but I’ll have to put that on the list as well. I’m not sure when the list was born, maybe sometime in the late nineteen eighties, I think? But today the list has grown into a famished monster that keeps devouring my time bite by bite. 

 

 Now there are all sorts of lists: the Dean’s list, grocery list, Santa’s list, lists of questions as well as answers, lists of suggestions, bucket lists, suspect lists, reading lists and in fact so many lists that I’m having trouble listing them all. If you can think of it then you can list it.

You can find lists everywhere too. Originally, when they were first invented, lists were pressed into soft tablets of clay where they could be modified with additions and subtractions as needed. After paper and pencils were invented lists started popping up everywhere carelessly scribbled on pieces of scratch paper. Now lists are digitally rendered and stored electronically on your phone, tablet or computer. 

Even at fine restaurants, if you want a table, you will have to have your name added to the list. However, some lists are high and lofty and out of reach of the average person. The Dean’s list is one of those types of lists that my name has never appeared on although my son made it once. Santa has two lists; one for naughty boys and girls and another for good boys and girls. On Christmas morning if you wanted that red and white board with the steel wheels then you had better be on the “Good” list.

Disasters too have several lists which list missing persons, the dead as well as survivors. There are even some lists that have been etched into granite monuments in order to withstand the test of time. These sacred monuments list the names of massacred victims or fallen soldiers who died while fighting for freedom.  

Bakers need lists of ingredients, police need lists of suspects, bankers need lists of assets, baseball coaches need batting lists, astronauts need check lists and even the President of the United States needs lists… on second thought  maybe we better truncate and scratch him off the list. 

Lately, I’ve been wondering if lists are under rated and have been made to play second fiddle to snobby blogs, sharp opinions and editorials. Still, every married man has a list. However, these lists tend to be extremely long, never written down and committed to memory where they can be recalled at moment’s notice while in the presence of their wives. 

Even almighty God made a list once. He made a list of Ten Commandments that would help all mankind to live peacefully with each other in the safety of their communities. This list was inscribed by the finger of God, on tablets of stone, and given to Moses to take to the children of Israel. Unfortunately, upon his return, Moses broke them when He discovered the children of Israel had made a golden calf and were worshipping it. However, let us not be too hard on Moses as we too have all broken at least one of those listed commandments.

There is one list of names that is paramount to be listed on. It’s not a list where one is waiting for a table or honored for some achievement. This list was not written down using quill and ink on fragile paper or chiseled into a solid granite block. This list is not digitally rendered but exists outside of our own physical realm beyond the destructive reach of moth and rust.

This list is eternal. It is a heavenly list that records the names of people who, while are still in the land of the living, made their own freewill choice to trust in the Lamb of God.  They asked to receive this free gift of forgiveness from God. It’s through the power of His Son’s blood that saves us from long lists of evil, destructive things that we have done while here on earth.

You can’t be willed in, grandfathered in or bought into getting on this list. It’s really just a list of names who have been invited to a heavenly wedding, one that will have no wedding crashers.  Of all the lists ever created in this world, things to buy or things to get, this is a list that you will want to be on when your days on this world are complete.

The Lamb’s Book of Life is the list of all lists. It is sealed, limited, and exclusive and was not written with human hands but with the blood of God’s own Son, Christ Jesus.