Jack Pelham

As I discussed briefly in my last post, I think that God wants wholehearted devotion from us. But an equally-important question is what do we want from God?

I think that most of us can certainly related to wanting to feel better—physically, perhaps, but certainly emotionally. So much of what we can observe in the churches today is aimed at helping people feel better emotionally. People want their sadness relieved, and their anxiety. They want the common suffering of uncertainty replaced with a feeling of confidence. They want to feel inspired and intrigued. They want the boredom to be replaced with amazement. They want to feel like they belong. They want their guilt to go away. They want to stop feeling lonely and to start feeling loved and taken care of.

Whether one thinks it is strong enough or not, there is among the churches a substantial interest in converting new souls to the Christian faith/religion/way-of-life. But just how much of the soul are we to convert? Are we to convert them in minimal ways only, such as to believing merely that God exists, and yet taking nothing else in the scriptures to heart? Or are we to convert them simply to adding the go-to-church habit into their weekly routine, with no other changes in their lives than that? These would be minimal changes, of course, and far from a “total makeover”, as we might call it.

These may be some of the low expectations that are common to the churches, but what does God expect from the convert?

If you’re trying to improve yourself
Because you want to be a good person,
You’ll definitely learn humility along the way.

If you’re doing it to impress anyone—
Yourself included—
You probably won’t.

You promised to change,
But you didn’t.

Not really.

And over time
It has become painfully obvious,
As I have dared to see the truth,
That you never really wanted
The change itself, for its own value;
You only wanted to talk me
Into sticking around.

I might like to discuss Bible doctrine
With the guy who brings it up,
But more often than not,
He’s got it engineered into a fortress
That protects some faction or other,
And it turns out that it’s the faction
That’s his real treasure,
And not the truth of the matter.

You can rail against the notion
That any human should deserve
Anything good—
And indeed, many in their religion
Do just that.
It is quite the fashion, actually!

But I should like to point out
Two observations for your apt consideration.

The casual society eats its popcorn
While its champions
Slug it out on the field.

And hardly a one in the crowd
Gives serious thought
To doing anything—
Anything, mind you—
So deliberate themselves.

There is God
And there is the man’s view of God.

And guess which one he worships
If they are not one and the same.

A man can stand here
For quite some time
And still not see
What all is going on.

The obvious is not enough
To make his mind switch on
And take notice.

That, it seems,
Is something he must do
For himself.

Or not.

You were told, of course,
But you were not listening.

But perhaps some other day
When all the planets
Happen to be aligned just so,
It’s a message you might just receive,
And be the better for it.

And I will hope for that.