Immanuel. God With Us.
Immanuel.
God with us.
I’d heard it a thousand times throughout my life. The impact was a bit like hearing yada, yada, yada. I had relegated its significance to Christmastime. And then a mentor shattered the tainted glass which had held my imagination captive for 38 years. He painted a picture of the with-God life (see previous posts) that the Father, Son, and Spirit created us to enjoy in their circle of love. And Immanuel began to take on new form, embodying with-ness.
God wants to be with us—not because He has to but because He chooses to. He doesn’t need us and He’s not so interested in using us—but desires communion and union with us.
Hello to another paradigm shift about God.
The god I believed in throughout my childhood existed with his wife, whom we called Heavenly Mother, on another planet, and was mostly concerned about my behavioral choices and whether or not I was keeping Mormonism’s moral law. If I was morally faithful, I was worthy of His acceptance and presence. If I fell short of the moral plumb line established for me, I was unworthy. My life was a dance in and out of the shadows, hopefully landing me in the light more often than in the shadows. As I ventured into my teen years, I found myself more often unworthy of his presence than not, and alone in my shame.
This theology of god formed me into a girl who’s highest good was keeping a moral law in order to obtain His presence and blessings, ending ultimately with eternal life in the Celestial Kingdom. I didn’t have a paradigm for a God who created me out of love, by love, for a life of love with Him and others.
The Fruit of Our Highest Good
Dennis and I spent an evening with friends who’ve come to believe that Mormonism isn’t true, but are still attending the church because it’s a difficult journey out of the church. They don’t want their kids to be ostracized in their community, and if they leave the church, this will likely happen. The losses of culture, relationships, and theology are countless on the path they are walking.
As we sat with them in the mystery and tension of their reality, they offered that at least by attending the church, their children are learning about morality and that that might be of more benefit than the damage being done to them by continuing to attend a church which they don’t believe is true.
I responded, “If your highest good is living under a moral law, then the church is providing that. But what if there’s a higher good, like living in relationship with an intimate, loving God who created us to live life with Him? You can get morality in many places, but the biblical Jesus is our access to this with-God life.”
I received a text message the next morning from my friend, “I’ve been thinking on what you said about there being a higher life outside of morality. You nailed that. I was up praying and meditating this morning and feel so good.” She’d been struggling to spend time with God. In catching a vision of a with-God life, she eagerly responded to Jesus’s invitation to be with Him that morning.
Immanuel. The one who transforms the supposed-to into a get-to.
the gift of hunger and thirst
Jesus shattered the religious zealots’ vision of God as a distant being merely interested in them keeping his moralistic law.
I wonder if He had an inner smile as He snapped off the head of grain and ate it on the Sabbath under the watchful eye of the Pharisees, breaking the Sabbath law in front of the ones so passionate about keeping the law. Under their one-up/one-down posturing, they were blinded to Jesus’ invitations to be with Him.
It was the hungry and thirsty who heard and responded to His invitations. He dined with them. He drank with them. He partied with them. He wept with them. He healed them. He served them. He invited them to serve Him. He was with them. He invited them to be with Him.
Immanuel. The with-God all year-round.
Are supposed-to’s replacing get-to’s in your life with God? What invitations is He extending to you to be with Him? Is there resistance to His invitations?