Long before you and I were created, God decided we were going to be a 'we' thing and not a 'me' thing.
There are many reasons why that is important. It all starts with the idea that God had no interest in a solo act. Before you and I walked this earth, God the Trinity inhabited heaven. I have no idea how that came to be - the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit - three persons in one - all I know is there isn't a story in the bible about God going it alone. It has always been the three of them. From the very beginning, God has always wanted to be a we God, not a me God. God could have set the stage to say look what I made - but he instead chose to say "let US make...." Maybe that's because God always knew the thing they would demand most of us - the thing they created humans for - is love. Jesus said the two greatest commandments - the two that ALL others flow from - are love God and love each other. Maybe God anticipated that we'd hear those commandments and wonder, what do you know about love, God? And in response, there stands God. Jesus under one arm and the Holy Spirit under the other. Oh, I know about love he can answer. You know, after they created the first one of us, God said it wasn't good for us to be alone. The first thing God EVER claimed that was NOT good on this earth? Humans being alone. Well, clearly he meant it. Because long before he said it wasn't good for us to be alone, he made sure that he wasn't alone. That makes sense, right? Because if God's big deal in this whole creation project is love, that doesn't happen in being alone. The kind of love God longs for is not the kind of love that pours inward, it pours out. In fact, some days I imagine the three of them hanging out - God and his Son and the Holy Spirit. I imagine the love they have for one another. And I imagine one of them saying, we need to create human beings to experience this. This love we have pouring out of us, we need to pour this into someone else. I think that's why God said it's not good for humans to be alone. Because if there were no relationships, how could there ever be love? How could there be a love so strong that someone in that relationship would look at the other person and say, "we need to pour this love out on someone else"? From the very beginning, God could have said 'I' - but he said 'us'. From the very beginning, God abandoned pride for humility. We aren't and never were designed for being an 'I'. When I look at almost everything I would consider a problem in the world, it almost always traces back to people being unwilling to abandon pride for humility. It almost always traces back to a desire to say me and not we. Well, that doesn't work. From the very beginning God said it wouldn't. In fact, he was so sure about it that he made sure he was never a he - he was always a we... And so are we. We are a 'we' - it's just too often the 'me' in us makes us blind to the we that we were created to be.
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Robert "Keith" CartwrightI am a friend of God, a dad, a runner who never wins, but is always searching for beauty in the race. Archives
May 2024
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