All things as they move toward God are beautiful, and they are ugly as they move away from Him. ~ A.W. Tozer
Few of us long to be holy, to be an ever-burning bush in desert places.
Special, yes, noticed, yes—we feel the pressure to be remarkable and amazing, but amazing is elusive.
And the competition is fierce. When every child on the team gets a trophy it doesn’t create confidence, but a deep-rooted angst. If I am one of a kind, why am I treated like one of many? If I’m special, why should I have to suffer this indignity or discomfort?
The unintended consequence of the self-esteem movement is a petulant population, chronically offended.
- We feel like failures when our abilities are average.
- We grind our teeth when others cut in line.
- We despair when ignored, overlooked, or unappreciated.
In moments of clarity, we suspect we are not special, which makes us, in the language of religion, “profane.” To be “holy” is not possible—we are common, ordinary, and every-day. Only the oblivious—the holier-than-thou, the self-righteous, the kind of people best avoided—would claim to be saints.
The Bible presents a different view, with the repeated command, “Be holy because I am holy.”
Be holy because I am.
Holy Moses
Moses was a privileged child, a slave adopted into palatial splendor. But forty years spent in the wild, huddled with dull-witted sheep, cured Moses of all self-importance. One day a burning bush detoured him from his duties, and the voice of God resounded with the promise, not “you’re extraordinary,” but “take off your shoes, you’re in the presence of someone who is.”
Later, the sea miraculously parted, Egyptian power thwarted, Moses led his people in a hymn to God, “Who is like you, O LORD, among the gods? Who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in splendor, doing wonders?” (Exodus 15:11)
At the foot of a mountain, the former slaves washed their clothes, bracing themselves for a fire-earthquake-lightening-thunder encounter with holiness. They changed their diet and daily habits, reordered their relationships and reoriented their priorities, built a tabernacle and a new kind of nation all because they had been embraced by, you could say, infected by, a holiness not of their own.
There is no one on earth or in heaven like God. He is “holy.” But we learn from the Bible the unexpected truth:
- A holy God is not repulsed by our failure; he invites us to be healed.
- A holy God does not reject, he delivers us from our darkness.
- A holy God is not indifferent, but he desires only our best.
According to Lev. 19:18, the holiness God demands of us is, in its essence, love. And love will make us holy where it matters. In Luke 6:36, Jesus changes the adjective. “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.”
Holy, merciful, love is what others will find in us when we hold tight to our holy God. We will flame, a brightly burning detour, for lonely desert wanderers.
Do you know you are special because God is?
In our series, An Alphabet Adagio, we are savoring the story of the Bible, our story, alphabetically. You can subscribe to e-mail above so you won’t miss a letter. Next: I is for Idols.
