"Tune-ups......................"

At two o’clock in the morning last night, the old man’s eyes opened and his brain began to wrestle with thoughts. Before Christ, I used to do that every so often worrying over bills or some situation currently in my life. Now it’s more like whatever’s been running through my mind to share with the men at the mission or just something recently read. Whether the source to blame this time was a visit to “Faith Meets World” or not is debatable, but perusing discussion there concerning God’s omniscience did take me into some deep mental water yesterday. “Open Theism”, a belief that the Almighty does not exercise meticulous control of the future, leaving it to possibilities (for Him to solve, I suppose) led to talk about “anthropomorphism”, the Creator possessing human behavior and characteristics. Exploring such chasms on occasion is not beyond my interests, but continually chasing what is unachievable to capture sometimes seems to turn the table around, the stalker now in bondage to his prey. Be that as it may, what would not let me find any return to slumber at the moment was an inner voice repeating over and over again “pick up your cross and follow me”. I would eventually arise two different times, making two separate trips to my living room for paper and pen to write down the following: “Just what do we nail to our OWN cross? Our humanity? Our will? How about our theology? Global Christianity has evolved, down through the centuries, into a multi-flavored body, a name under which the institution, without reality of the resurrection, has become a conglomeration of totem poles wherein deity is defined by us rather than the other way around. It seems, at least, that many of us worship only what we hold in our heads, chapter and verse utilized, but there being little or no life in it, no “belly flow of Divinity” rising up to take us back to the Bible again and again, to shape us as we go. In our midst, the Spirit yet deals with hearts hungry to know His inner connection, speaks to ears open to hear, and gives grace to our stumble down the path; but the question remains: How much of ourselves do we surrender to a daily crucifixion? If the “old man” requires continual need of being hoisted on a tree, aren’t we really talking about the present one as well? Aren’t we talking someone whose “stinkin thinkin” was that which brought him to Calvary in the first place?........