unobvious god
I used to think, if there is a God, he would have to be automatically known to all and the way to him should be written on everybody’s hearts- no instruction manual needed.
From what i’ve gathered in Christian church, the way to God requires that you say a specific name and you say a three step prayer as laid out in the Bible- or something like that.
I think God originally was the obvious choice. His law is written on our hearts. Right and wrong seem to be the only thing we really know. That would have gotten us to God, but then we decided to do our own thing and got ourselves lost and so God had to figure out plan B to get us there, which isn’t so obvious.
Imagine a highway that leads us over the beautiful landscape straight to God, and it’s like fifty feet in the air. What easier way would there be to get to God! But then we decided we wanted to take our eyes off of God and climb down off the highway. Now suddenly we are lost in the bushes and bogs and only now do we realize the highway is just too high and slippery to climb back up!
So now we do need a guide. and we need a very specific guide. We can’t follow the dude named Larry that wants to take us to his carnival off to the north, or the sage that says, this mountain top is the goal of life. We need to know the guide sent from God. And we need to follow his specific instructions- go east at the farmhouse, go 30 miles north around the mountain to avoid the mountain monsters.
It makes sense now, why the way to God is so specific, but you know, it still doesn’t seem like it should be my fault if I have just never met the right guide in this world of impersonators. Is it possible that those who are doing their best to go in the direction their good heart is calling them ARE following Jesus? They might glimpse Jesus as a faint silhouette on the crest of the mountain before them, and all they know is that something is pulling them in that direction and that guy up there seems to know where he’s going.
“I am the way the truth and the life no one comes to the father except by me. ”
I think a lot of us are following Him. There is a very specific him, and a very specific destination. But I wonder if perhaps some us just don’t know the name of the man whose footprints we are walking in.