Go Find It

The Old Testament presents a very long view of covenant community. It goes beyond human dreams of civilizations and empires, or even global dominance. It stands on transcendent reality; it doesn’t depend on humans at all. Rather, it is an offering of what humans can have if they conform. It’s all about pulling back the layers of reason’s deception to expose the root of what’s actually real.

But it’s not without a sense of calling and hope. It’s not as if there’s nothing we can do, but we need a clear vision of what our part is. We need a clear vision of what God has put in our hands, and what He has not put in our hands. We can build a legacy of seeking the path, but the path is not for us to build. We can store up the wisdom and experience of having crossed various false boundaries, but we cannot use the boundaries themselves to define the wisdom. The boundaries are man-made and subject to drift and sudden changes. It’s the principle of false boundaries that we keep on hand to explain what future generations will face in seeking genuine faith and trust in the Lord.

Chew on that for a moment.

For at least the past decade I’ve been praying about passing the baton. I’m not in a hurry to retire from writing about my faith experience, but I’ve long known that I am not the key figure for presenting this brand of faith to the world. I am equipped to propose a break from the past, but I won’t live long enough to help the next generation identify the barriers they will face.

This is not a question of what God can do, but of what it seems He is doing. My job has been more about tearing down the false shrines. I’m not the man God has called to rebuild His Temple. In this I am more along the lines of David subduing the enemies, waiting for some symbolic heir to start the building program later. I just hope it turns out better than the way Solomon handled some things.

On the other hand, I’m praying I live long enough to see some of this get started. This isn’t the same thing as the Boomer obsession with mortal longevity (and control); I’m pretty sure I’ll live a lot longer than I want. I’m trying to understand what God will allow me to do with the time remaining. If I’m going to be around awhile, I would hate to miss the divine opportunities that come with that. Still, the future of covenant faith truly most sprout in the souls of people coming along behind me. I don’t want to stymie their task by storing up the wrong materials.

So, I seek to remain conscious of this while I keep writing about faith. If the only real legacy of my service is a body of testimony, then it has to be accessible and inspiring. It’s more than the record of tearing down the bulwarks built against God’s truth. There has been some good stuff done before I came along, but just too little of it. And that little bit is often buried under the rubble of massive lies, so it’s pretty hard to find. I end up writing a lot because I can’t find enough to hold up as a solid foundational library on which to stand.

Don’t look at me as some kind of leader. I’m just an enabler. My vision may bear little resemblance to what finally comes to life when our kind of faith starts to take hold of a wider audience. I honestly hope my name drops into the sea of human forgetfulness. I get all the reward I can use just playing the role of one who discovers the forgotten gate and opens it. God made me the kind of guy to forge into the brambles and look for a way out of bad religion. I am a loner; I don’t need the accolades of followers.

What I really want to see is the Lord’s sheep leaving the closed and overgrazed pasture. Show me the hoof-prints; that will be the ultimate reward. Someone else can play shepherd. But in the interests of that long view, I’m praying that there will indeed be some shepherds, because I’m not one of them. My job is to carry the ax for taking down the false hedge that God didn’t plant.

I’ve blazed a trail. Go out and find the treasure of shalom that God has laid on the other side.