Dangerous
Mike Yaconelli authored a book about the dangerous God, a God who does unpredictable things in amazing ways. YHVH elicits awe and surprise. Our experience of Him cannot be adequately reflected in the tamed theologies we construct or the dogmas we espouse. Keith Killen offers this summary of Yaconelli’s work, pointed out just how far we have come from the God who descended on Sinai with shattering power.
So, what can we do to return to the wonder and amazement of God and re-establish our relationship and process of revelation? Yaconelli suggest several things:
- Embrace the important questions of life. It is the pursuit of the answers to these significant questions more than the answers themselves that is important. Therefore, parents and the church needs to help people in the pursuit rather than give them pat answers. It is in the pursuit that we experience God and receive revelation. “When our intellect fell short, our souls connected with the reality of God. There, in our unknowing, God showed up unexpectedly.” (Yaconelli. Kindle Location 383)
- Allow for wild abandonment. “Remember when you said yes to Jesus that first time? You didn’t know all the rules, but you knew Jesus. Sadly, the church immediately stepped in and told us we needed to know more than Jesus; we needed to know the rules of the Christian faith, otherwise we might end up in confusion and spiritual anarchy. The church is always worried we might make a mistake! Mistakes are the guaranteed consequence of wild abandon. Mistakes are signs of growth. That is why the Old and New Testament are full of people who made mistakes. The church should be the one place in our culture where mistakes are not only expected but welcomed.” (Yaconelli. Kindle Locations 483-486).
- Encourage daring playfulness. Maybe this is exactly what Jesus was referring to in Mark 10:14 when He said, “But when Jesus saw this, He was indignant and said to them, “Permit the children to come to Me; do not hinder them; for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.” (NASB)
- Inspire wide-eye listening. “By the time we are adults, we have decided that listening to God is less important than knowing about God. By the time we are grown, we have jobs and children; the noise of our lives has increased to such a level that we couldn’t possibly hear God because God rarely shouts-He whispers.” (Yaconelli. Kindle Locations 795-797) If we want to hear God we have to listen, and yet the one deficiency epidemic among adults is listening. We don’t listen. We won’t listen. We are willing to do almost anything to keep ourselves from listening. (Yaconelli. Kindle Locations 861-862)
- Pursue life with a passion. Jesus came to forgive us of our sin, yes, but His mission was also to introduce us to the passion of living. Most people believe that following Jesus is all about living right. Not true. Following Jesus is all about living fully. What is passion? Aliveness. Living with expectancy, anticipation, and enthusiasm. What is the opposite of passion? Dead living. Living a life that is borrrrring! (Yaconelli. Kindle Locations 943-949)
- Live in happy terror. “I don’t see much terror today among followers of Christ. In fact, when I say that, people look at me as if I’m crazy. Well, I want to know what happened to the bone-chilling, earth-shattering, gut-wrenching, knee-knocking, heart-stopping, life-altering fear that leaves us speechless, paralyzed, helpless, and glad. The terror I am speaking of is a mix of wonder, awe, fear, and worship, all happening at the same time. I am beginning to wonder if we modern followers of Christ are capable of being terrified of God. No fear of God. No fear of Jesus. No fear of the Holy Spirit. As a result, we have ended up with a feel good gospel that attracts thousands … but transforms no one.” (Yaconelli. Kindle Locations 1106-1110)
Yaconelli concludes:
“The grace of God is dangerous. It’s lavish, excessive, outrageous, and scandalous. God’s grace is ridiculously inclusive. Apparently God doesn’t care who He loves. He is not very careful about the people He calls His friends or the people He calls His church.” Exactly.” (Yaconelli. Kindle Locations 1267-1269)
I offer these suggestions from Mike (via Keith) in order to you as readers to grasp a clearer picture of the mission and purpose of Today’s Word. Today’s Word is committed to exploration, vulnerability and the questioning of all sacred cows until we have reached the point which Thomas Aquinas described in the words, “It is all straw.” Be brave, my friends, and embrace the quest, the uncomfortable feelings, the wandering, the joys, the rapture and most of all, the journey.
So much here! Thank you! I am going to be chewing all day!
“The grace of God is dangerous. It’s lavish, excessive, outrageous, and scandalous. God’s grace is ridiculously Inclusive. Apparently God doesn’t care who He loves. He is not very careful about the people He calls His friends or the people He calls His church”.
If I love Him, I will do what He DOES. If I insert MYSELF in the above paragraph, then, in the place that Yaconelli (thank you also, Mike and Keith) has described Him, I must be willing to have it describe me, too. I then have the correct picture of what it MEANS to obey Him, for as a sheep, to follow IS to obey. What I see is if I am careful to do the above with others, as He has with me, then I will be like Him.
I am still being impacted by what Ester and Theresa replied to me in yesterday’s blog, and Marci is standing at this place. Thank you, sisters! To study what it means to truly be willing and able to get down in someone else’s ditch with them, then, is to be willing to share their burden of shame, to identify with them. This is truly outrageous, dangerous, and scandalous! If my Saviour did not pick and choose among only those who would not get Him ‘dirty’, or ritually unclean with the shame of their condition, then I must be willing to go there, too. In that place, I must then be able to walk with them TOGETHER out of that place, and carry their load if they cannot. THIS is what I needed from my community of origin! But, what did I get? I was told I was just reacting ‘wrong’ and needed to get myself back to looking, acting and thinking ‘right’ so as to be accepted again. In other words, the ENTIRE burden of getting out of my ditch of devastation was entirely up to me and my little bootstraps! Now, I was just a child, mind you, suffering the shame that was my parent’s, not mine. Except that it WAS mine, because I was theirs. I didn’t even have a clue! If there had been someone, anyone, who had just gotten down with me and offered to carry my load with me, for me, and SHOWN ME HOW to get back out, I would have been so grateful. But as hard as I tried to pretend I was doing great and normal, so as to engender community acceptance, they continued to be alienated from me, for they did not know what to do with my shame.
Remembering that, my challenge is to identify with the lost, not the ‘saved’ when it comes to action. I must not be comfortable in that kingdom until all of ‘us’ get to go in together. I sincerely suspect that this may be a less-welcome application of the understanding that I am to conduct myself as a pilgrim and a wanderer, for as He has called all to repentance; as His emissary- His voice and ears and feet- I must go and get my future brothers and sisters by the hand and say “that’s the Way. Let’s go! Together!”.
Theresa, what you were saying about the Scapegoat is too powerful. I am still without words, but my heart was stricken.
Sign me up!!! Oh wait, I am…
Laurita, that paragraph which you quoted was my favorite too! Also, like you, most of what I read here, either Skip or others is not easily assimilated – takes time. God Bless all ya’ll
Amen brother! I view it in terms of photography. We should welcome life as a photographer. We take these pictures and sometimes we do not like what we see and thank God for cameras because if we do not like our picture, we can take another one. Thus, we have just made a mis-take, so we can take it again until we get it right. It took me about 50 years to realize where there are mis-takes there is growth. Another good reason for seeing what has gone on in the past as we row our favorite boat. So as my favorite line in a poem, “If I had my life to live over again, I would make more mistakes next time,” but you see I don’t.
I just want to cry as I have been so worried about making mis-takes. My husband wrote the above and here I live with him and could not see this. Thank you for your post Skip. I will do my best to live in Messiah with abandon. By the way, I read him the posts as he is not subscribed and he did not know about your love for photography.
Now I understand why my husband always asks little kids when they have made a mis-take and were hurt and finally stopped crying, “Well, are you going to do that again?”
Yep. Mental assent is one thing. Its fun, like chewing gum. Practice? That’s quite another!
“The grace of God is dangerous. It’s lavish, excessive, outrageous, and scandalous. God’s grace is ridiculously Inclusive. Apparently God doesn’t care who He loves. He is not very careful about the people He calls His friends or the people He calls His church”.
A friend and well known preacher for decades often expressed in his later years his utter awe and wonder of the abandon and extravagance of the love of “his” God toward himself his brethren Israel. And how that extravagance served to incite such a jealousy and rage among the nations that it could do nothing but provoke them to murderous persecution of us.
Laurita you have inspired me. I love the idea of inserting me into these phrases (see below). Awesome although how will life change? Did I commit to too much to fast? Here comes caution?????
With my fellow brothers and sisters I am in pursuit of experiencing my Heavenly Father with wild abandonment and daring playfulness, encouraging others to do the same with wide-eye listening pursuing life with a passion living fully as our Messiah with passion, being alive with expectancy, anticipation and enthusiasm living in happy terror of the wonder, awe, fear, and worship of YHVH. I love people as YHVH does, lavishly, excessively, outrageously and scandalously as YHVH’s grace is ridiculously inclusive. And when I make mis-takes I now realize that it is not the end, but a beginning and a knowing to simply do things different next time.
Thank you to all of you who write on this post. I think I am coming alive and joining you at a new level.
Laurita, I had the same reaction when I was introduced to the concept. I am humbled that anything I present is useful to you. I think I relate to that little girl in the trees or behind the couch. By the way, chewing gum stimulates acids that are needed to digest food. When you aren’t digesting food, it probably isn’t helpful in the long run to stimulate acids that don’t have a function. You might want to give up the chewing gum. That fun is costly.
Messy Spirituality or Dangerous Wonder? I’m assuming you are referring to the second title, correct?
Amen!
Hallelujah eh?
I get so excited reading that. It really takes the pressure off me when I’m not responsible for ultimate outcomes.
For some time I have been dreaming about buying a church. I was thinking about developing an apartment to live in and make the rest available somehow in service to the community. If I’m not careful, I could get overwhelmed with all the unanswered questions and end up doing nothing. What boundaries are appropriate in determining who can come into fellowship? Everyone that doesn’t drink blood and fraternize with temple prostitutes? That should leave it wide open, eh?
Gotta run to work. Have a good day1 everybody. 🙂
Warren,
We are doing a similar thing here in Colorado; we have some store front and are calling it a “House of Prayer” but it’s a place where we can gather; pray; learn; we have some young people doing artistically creative prayer stations to create art in the process of engaging our Father. We want to lead people thru our lifestyles and our engagement in the people in the community. Our hope is that we can grow in prayer and we can point others to the Father, His Son, and the Spirit of Truth without the silliness and without the traditions of men that hinder our relationship with Abba. Our hope is to release a new generation of believers who know their God without the franchise noise of goofy doctrine. Love God; obey His word; Love people. Be real, be kind; ask good questions and learn from each other. that’s the business plan.
We are excited what Yeshua might do on main street here.
Hi David 🙂
Thank you for sharing what you’re doing where you are. I would appreciate keeping in touch and discussing it some more if you’re open I that.
🙂
Great stuff Skip. You need to add a like button and a share on Facebook button, too.
Awesome….all it! One more thing for me to say in my brachas (blessings to G-d) for.
I love truth the most. The type of truth that is sexy to me is full of boldness and love.
Thank you again G-d for spiritual hearts that beat after your rhythm.
“It is all straw.” And truly a ‘vanity of vanities’, vapour, breath, unless we realise that the conclusion of all matter is ‘to live in fear/awe of YHWH, our Redeemer, The Creator and Master over all, as The Judge of all will bring all things/every work/word, and every secret deed to judgment.
We need to work on matters that will withstand the consuming fire of YHWH’s presence.
“The grace of God is dangerous”, when it’s abused and presumed recklessly, though it is ‘grace that has brought us thus far’, and we do so desperately cling to it. HalleluYAH for His grace to see us through on this adventurous journey.
Each day brings forth new challenges to triumph and bring us to our knees before Him in humility.