Well, there’s an odd question. He’s invisible, most of the time. Except for the odd appearance to Moses and/or the leaders of Israel way back when.

I would have asked, “How do you imagine God?” or “How do you picture God?” but I was trying to get away from a visual-only picture. I want to ask about His character.

Do you see God as a kind of angry, vengeful deity – like the cartoon Vulcan/Zeus of the “Pastoral Symphony” segment of Fantasia, ready to throw down lightning bolts of doom at the slightest – or no particular – provocation? Just because He can do it?

Do you see Him as the sort of deity who would withhold information from you and then penalize you forever because you didn’t know or understand it? Would he require you to do things – or do them a certain way – without telling you about it? Would God obliterate you for offering strange or unauthorized fire without warning you against it first?

– By the way, I don’t think that’s the case with Nadab and Abihu (Leviticus 10). First of all, they weren’t to be the ones handling the incense; that was for their father Aaron (Exodus 30), and before him, Moses (Exodus 40) – and at the altar of incense inside the holy place, in front of the curtain hiding the most holy place. It would seem from v. 4 that Aaron’s disobedient sons died outside the tabernacle, in front of the sanctuary – and in full view of the people who had just seen the glory of the Lord.

Secondly, there were commands against using the holy incense for personal use, whenever you wanted to (Exodus 30:37). Later on, King Uzziah’s violation of these commands would be punished by leprosy (2 Chronicles 26:16-21).

Thirdly, fire had just come out from the presence of the Lord – I assume that refers to the Shekinah seated on the throne of the covenantal ark in the Most Holy Place of the temple … would you stand between it and the altar waving censers of holy incense that only your dad was permitted to use? [Some time later, Korah’s kinfolk would be obliterated for being presumptuous enough to wave their censers, along with several thousand of their followers. (Numbers 16).]

Fourth, they offered their fire “before the LORD, contrary to his command.” (Leviticus 10:1). No mystery there: no example forbidding it, no inference – necessary or otherwise – against it; but a command. Pretty clear. It is right there in the instructions God gave Moses four chapters previously to give to Aaron and his sons that they were not to let the fire of the altar go out, under any circumstances (6:12-13). Think about that for a moment. For what other reason would Nadab and Abihu have brought fire to the altar of sacrifice outside – strange, unauthorized … or not? Especially after God lit the fire Himself (in the last verse of the previous chapter, 9:24). Do you bring fire to light a fire where a fire’s already been lit?

Finally, there’s at least a hint that Nadab and Abihu’s judgment might have been altered by alcohol, about which God issues an instruction to Aaron while the image of the smouldering remains of those two sons is still fresh in his mind. That instruction would be incongruously cruel if it were not immediately relevant to the situation … an instruction about something that, like the sacrifice of babies to Him much later in the Old Testament (Jeremiah 7:31), might not have entered God’s mind because He thought His children would use better judgment. But it’s not like He hadn’t given them any instructions. So let’s just lay that “Nadab and Abihu” metaphor to rest when describing people who want to worship differently in violation of some possible unexpressed command of God, okay? Aaron’s boys should have known better. The rules were in place. It was too important to mess up, especially by partying the night before.) And if the teaching God intended to impart to all generations was “Don’t do anything I haven’t specifically told you to do – especially in gathered worship,” then the logical place for that to be explicitly stated would be verses 8-11. Instead, we read this:

Then the LORD said to Aaron, “You and your sons are not to drink wine or other fermented drink whenever you go into the Tent of Meeting, or you will die. This is a lasting ordinance for the generations to come. You must distinguish between the holy and the common, between the unclean and the clean, and you must teach the Israelites all the decrees the LORD has given them through Moses.” ~ Leviticus 10:8-11

It was evidently widely understood that God intended for the entire assembly – not just the priests – to fast from wine (Deuteronomy 29:2-6) while they wandered the entire forty years that God provided water from rocks and manna from heaven (Exodus 16:34-35).

To me, there’s a strong likelihood that a whole passel of specific commands of God have been nose-thumbed by the actions of Nadab and Abihu.

So can you really see God judging and eternally condemning people without letting them in on all the rules first? He is sovereign, of course; I’m not saying that He couldn’t do whatever He wanted to … if it were in His nature; His character.

If you still “see” Him exclusively that way, please consider this bit of insight: Psalm 103.

My older sister (by eight years) thought it was funny when the two of us kids sat in the back of mom and dad’s car and it passed a “Stop Ahead” sign. She’d put out a hand on my forehead and push back gently. When I looked at her like she was crazy, she’d shrug, “Well, the sign said ‘Stop A Head.'”

Yesterday we took 13-year-old Matthew to Camp Tahkodah, up that long gray Highway 67 ribbon from North Little Rock to Bald Knob, and as I passed exit 22 for the umpteenth time, I again relived one of the most bizarre episodes of my life – from thirty years before.

I was in college at Harding, and having the advantage of a huge 1968 Olds Ninety-Eight on loan from my dad, I’d drive my roomies and our occasional dates down to Little Rock from Searcy on the odd weekend. One was a bit more odd than the rest.

The Friday night before the anticipated Saturday morning trip, I awakened suddenly in the middle of the night in a cold sweat. I had just dreamed, very vividly, that I was barrelling down a highway and suddenly became aware of a car coming straight at mine. In the dream, I jammed my foot down hard on the brakes. In my sleep, I jammed my foot down hard on the end of the bunk and woke myself up.

My three roomies stirred at the banging sound – there were four of us in all in the suite (which we had made into a four-bunk bedroom separated by bath from the four-desk study lounge) – but they didn’t awaken. I, however, didn’t go back to sleep for quite a while.

In the morning, I almost couldn’t remember the dream at all; I could only reliably recall having a really bad dream, maybe about cars.

So we gathered and breakfast, then piled into the Ninety-Eight and headed for Little Rock. The others were in pretty high spirits, and even though I was on my first date with a really cute lass with a gorgeous voice and short blond curls, my mood was kind of subdued.

We did the usual date things we were stuck with doing on the cheap back then: an inane movie and lunch at Casa Bonita (the earlier incarnation of the recently re-closed Casa Viva), squandered some time at some bookstores and some money at Farrell’s ice cream parlour of McCain Mall and headed back for home pretty early, way before dark.

It hadn’t been a banner date. I was not very communicative or attentive, let alone affectionate. I was just deeply troubled inside, and I didn’t know why. One of my roommates insulted my date at lunch, and I had the presence of mind to kick his shins pretty hard under the table a few times until he apologized, but the slim likelihood that she would never go out with me again (or that I would ever ask her again) didn’t have very much to do with my gloom.

For one thing, I was having one of those “deja vu” days, when you know good and well that everything happening to you could not possibly have already happened before, but you remember it anyway – just a second or two before it happens.

The others chatted and chided quietly, listening to the car radio while I silently drove them back hours before dorm curfew – having insisted like a cranky mother hen that everyone fasten their seat belts before we left – and we zoomed along at the legally-allowable speed of seventy miles per hour, until …

… Exit 22. It’s for the town of Ward. Going north on 67, you come around a little blind curve, with woods too close to the highway for you to see the exit or its sign coming clearly, and you happen upon a little rise in the highway right at the exit.

And, that day, we happened upon a car which had missed the exit and was backing up at full tilt up the rise to take it anyway – just as we crested the hill.

There wasn’t even a half-second to brake – and I didn’t try.

I swerved into the passing lane so fast that even a solid old horizontal Ninety-Eight had to beg me not to tip it over on its left wheels, so I swerved back into the right lane almost instantly, having left the idiot in the reversing car of doom far behind.

Then I put on the brakes. Fortunately – blessedly! – there had been no traffic in the passing lane. I certainly hadn’t had time to look.

I went to the shoulder under the overpass at Exit 22 and pulled off. My arms were locked straight ahead, hands gripping the steering wheel for dear life.

“That’s what I dreamed,” I whispered. “That’s what I dreamed last night and couldn’t remember today. That’s why I’ve been such a grouch all day today.” I looked over at my date, squeezed between me and the roomie who had insulted her. Her eyes were wide behind her wire-rims. “I’m sorry,” I said.

She just looked incredulous, and a little short of terrified. Pretty much like everyone else, as I looked around to check on the rest.

“It’s okay,” she managed.

So I put the old tank into gear, checked carefully behind, and eased back out onto 67.

I don’t remember anyone in the car saying anything else all the rest of the way back to Searcy.

When you’re twenty and you think your whole life is ahead of you, and it only takes two or three seconds to prove you could be incontrovertibly wrong about that, it takes some of the fun out of an evening together with your friends.

Of course, I wondered then as I wonder now: Did I get a warning in my sleep? A “stop a head” from God the night before? A heads-up that saved my life and the lives of my friends?

The couple in the back eventually married each other and had three kids. My insulting friend – long forgiven and still a crazy treasure of a pal – married and had three of his own. I haven’t the slightest clue how many might belong to my poor, sweet date on that very strange day.

In the intervening years – through a painful divorce, the loss of the ability to father children of my own, the deaths of cherished family members and dear friends and some career hopes and countless other tiny setbacks – I have sometimes also wondered: If He did give me a sneak preview of the end that might have been, have I made His effort worthwhile in my own life?

Now when I remember my adopted two kids splashing together in the surf on our recent trip, their mom looking adoringly on – or see Laura and Matthew awkwardly saying goodbye to each other as we leave him at Camp Tahkodah, unable to avoid or do better than a quick hug, I have my answer.

He’s made it worth my while.

In four days I celebrate birthday fifty-one. It’s been quite a ride with Him so far. I’m inexpressibly grateful for the blessings He’s sent to fill this old life of mine, and the years that He’s added to it.

And maybe most of all, for the signs along the road to remind me that way out ahead – or closer than I think – it all comes to an end.

If you were compiling a book of almost a hundred-and-fifty of your nation’s favorite hymns of praise to God, what would you write in the introductory paragraphs?

If you were writing a few paragraphs for a HeartWorship item that you hoped would inspire your brothers and sisters to anticipate worship, what would you compose? Turns out, the answer might be the same for both questions.

Aren’t we most inspired to praise God when we see His work around us, and in our own lives?

The writer of the first Psalm seems to think so, for that is the subject of the collection’s introduction: The one who walks, stands and sits among the righteous – who delights in God’s instruction – is rooted like a strong and fruitful tree near water. God’s work of beauty and growth takes place in this one, whom He watches over. Evil ones, like chaff, cannot stand; they blow away and God lets their way perish.

Blessed is the man
who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked
or stand in the way of sinners
or sit in the seat of mockers.

But his delight is in the law of the LORD,
and on his law he meditates day and night.

He is like a tree planted by streams of water,
which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither.
Whatever he does prospers.

Not so the wicked!
They are like chaff
that the wind blows away.

Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.

For the LORD watches over the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked will perish.

Look around you. See God’s work in the lives of those near you. Meditate on the ways He has worked in your life – perhaps through some of them. Perceive the redemptive relationships He blesses us with through His Son, Jesus.

You won’t be able to keep your heart and voice from praising Him.

I’ll be on vacation and incommunicado for the next week. Blessings!

Sometimes that’s how I feel as someone who tries to follow Christ.

Like a Mac that’s really not intrinsically different from a PC – circuits, power supplies, hard drives, rewritable drives, keyboard, mouse, monitor – I’m not particularly different from anyone else in the world.

In some ways, I’m gifted differently. I have a whole different operating system. There are some things that come easier. Others are more difficult.

Not all programming is meant for me. (Particularly TV programming, although I handle it well enough and better than some.) Some programming simply isn’t executable, even when I’m trying to emulate another operating system.

I’m in the minority. Oh, there are a lot of others that have similar abilities and claim to operate in the same way. Some of them come really close … but they don’t claim to wear the image of the bitten apple; they kinda pretend that they’ve never crashed nor had any imperfection/fallibility that a bitten apple would represent.

And while I’m not immune to a lot of the stuff that would wipe me out if it got to me, I feel better protected and try very hard to be stable, reliable, productive, helpful, easy to interface with.

Error reporting is optional, rather than mandatory, for me … but I try to be as error-free as possible.

There’s something about my design that makes me want to set the bar a little higher, when most else around simply accepts the status quo as good enough, and the creator wouldn’t listen to complaints or suggestions anyway.

I try to be as flexible – even hot-swappable – as I can be; as clear and crisp in my presentation as possible and as transparent in my operating system as open code.

Yet I do crash. Sometimes memory fails. Occasionally I fall prey to an attack from a worm or some other nastiness. And, just like any other, I have to re-boot. I have to run my diagnostics and make my repairs and launch my protection.

Not that different.

I’m even susceptible to the dreaded Blue Screen of Death. But even that is different.

In that extremity, words of kindly instruction flash across my visage and I have a really good shot at coming back to life …

… in the right Hands.

Unfortunately, I don’t always network well outside of my own brand, even though I should. Sometimes my communication is garbled, because I use proprietary terms or protocols. I’m better at it than I used to be.

But I still have a long way to go.

I don’t mean to start a PC/Mac riot, but I do love my recently-upgraded 1999 Apple G3 Macintosh, Blue & White style PowerPC computing device. I like its lines, its medium-loud fan, its entourage of frosted clear/aqua clear plastic peripherals, and the fact that after seven years I can still upgrade it.

I still love the Aqua interface of OSX 10.2.8, though now that I have upgraded to a 1Ghz PowerLogix ZIF processor (bumping my G3’s speed up from 400Mhz), I just may invest in OSX 10.4.6 and go all silvery.

When I absolutely have to do Windows, I just fire up Virtual PC on my Mac and run a primitive – and stable – Windows 98.

By the way, I still have a 1996 Apple Macintosh model 6400AV with all the bells and whistles that will fit in it, including a TV tuner card and a 320Mhz G3 processor upgrade. I use it at work from time to time, because its graphics programs run smoothly and sometimes faster than on the work-issue PC.

I use a fine little 1.8Mhz Sony Vaio laptop running Windows XP Professional at work and it only freezes up or crashes three or four times a week. My upgraded Mac starts up about twice as fast. I’ve been running it a week on the upgraded processor and it hasn’t had a conniption fit yet. It used to crash on its old processor about every month or so. How annoying. I figured it was time to replace it, but I couldn’t.

So I just replaced the processor chip.

I love the funny TV spots that Apple should have had their ad agencies creating and placing 20 years ago; they are still accurate and on-target and Apple would have much more than a 7% market share of the personal computing world right now if they had been running all those years.

I really enjoy looking at the exorbitantly expensive and elegant new Macs at CompUSA. Some of the new dual-Intel processor models can even boot to either Mac OSX or Windows XP.

But why would anyone want to?

Dear Brothers (and a few Sisters, but mostly Brothers),

I have a confession to make.

In many ways, I want to be just like you.

I truly admire your passion and respect for the Word of God, and the knowledge of it that so many of you have. I am a little bit in awe of your courage to call ’em as you see ’em, spiritually speaking, drawing on that vast reservoir of scriptural familiarity.

In many of you, I’ve encountered a confidence in Christ to be able to call someone a false teacher – even when it’s someone you may not have met nor whose words you’ve heard or read first-hand. And, though I understand why doing that could pose a danger of contaminating the listener with their “false teaching” ….

I am having trouble with that kind of courage.

If I were compelled to display that kind of bravery, would it be fair for me to evaluate the teaching of others (I won’t use the word “judge” just yet) without having thoroughly examined it? Could I accuse someone of spreading falsehood on the word of someone else? Would I really be operating in the spirit of Paul, who admonishes me to “prove all things; hold fast that which is good” if I have only explored some things for myself and have taken someone else’s word for the rest? Even if that someone else is a sincerely dedicated student of the Word?

And if I referred to a work that lists false teachers and their teachings in question but the work is more than, say, fifteen years old – shouldn’t I double-check to make sure that the list is still accurate?

How would I know for sure that a teaching is false? Or if it’s just something that I disagree with? I should know them by their fruits, right? But what if they’ve led dozens – maybe hundreds or thousands – to belief in Christ, even if I don’t agree with them on every point of doctrine? Does that mean they are unequivocally false teachers?

Or would it mean that I could be wrong about something, too?

Would I be too narrow in trying to lock down the Bible as being no more and no less than the Law of God? Would I be too liberal in admitting that it is also a story of love and grace? Is it possible that the Bible is both, and many more things, beyond simply a pattern to which I must conform in every detail of my life – whether I understand what or how or why?

Because I can see in scripture all of the aspects of God that so many of you continue to point out in the works of yours that I’ve read: He is demanding. He is all-powerful. He is all-knowing. He is all-sufficient. He is, often, very specific. He does not always take kindly to infractions.

Yet I can also see aspects of God in His Word that I don’t as often hear from you, and do hear frequently from some of the folks you critique: He is kind. He is loving. He is forgiving. He sometimes permits brothers and sisters to disagree on certain matters without revealing judgment. He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. He let His Son die for me. For you. For all.

Is it possible that He is both just and merciful? Both righteous and gracious? That God is big enough to handle and be the tension between the two?

Is He always waiting on the edge of His throne to consign one of His children to the everlasting flames of hell because that child has taught others about Jesus but gotten something wrong in the teaching; has honestly and misunderstood it; or has just been transparent enough to admit, “I just don’t know. I don’t know exactly what God meant in this case. But I trust His grace and His mercy.”?

If I felt compelled by the Spirit to never dare stray from the old paths; to become a watchman on the tower for the misdeeds and misteachings of others – if I actually caught someone in incontrovertible error – would it be the infallibility of the Spirit Himself that I would borrow to do so?

Would I be right in calling that person down in public shame before all of his/her brothers and sisters, snatching my beloved fellowship away from him/her, at my very first mention of his/her fallacious teaching?

Or would it be more conforming to Christ’s nature of me to go to him/her privately … and if that didn’t work, to take one or two of my brothers or sisters with me again to indicate that I’m not alone in seeing the teaching as false … and if all else failed, after exhausting every possible alternative to persuade that loved child of God to desist from teaching error, THEN to shake the dust off my feet and the puzzlement from my head and the tears from my eyes?

Wouldn’t it be more efficacious to at least begin the way Aquila and Priscilla did with Apollos – privately, in the hospitality of home, teaching a more complete truth so as not to expose and ridicule and humiliate and ruin the powerful witness of a teacher of God’s will?

You know, even as I write this, I just know in my heart that it would mean more if I wrote it out by hand and addressed it personally to each of you by name, rather than classing you all under the label “correctors” when I am convinced that each of you has unique qualities and qualifications given as gifts by God that I can’t possibly recognize adequately and lovingly in this way.

For you see, that label fits me as well as anyone else.

Oh, I do understand that you feel compelled to right the wrongs of others, for there are some who are grievously in error; that there were those whom Paul would call down by name in his epistles – but is there any evidence that he and/or the churches ever circumvented the first steps as Jesus described them in Matthew 18 and went straight to public chastisement? And weren’t Paul’s judgments urgently needed to protect the very core truths of the gospel … the humanity AND divinity of Christ; God’s acceptance of Gentiles AND Jews; the priority of teaching the gospel above any lesser and selfish desires to be seen and known and recognized and rewarded?

Because isn’t that exactly what the false teachers of the New Testament were mostly called down for – thinking themselves and their interpretations more important and more binding than the simple truth about Jesus – from the scribes, Pharisees and Saducees to the Judaizing teachers to the Gnostics to the Antichrists themselves?

And when a false teacher is truly and inarguably teaching doctrine that threatens the very unity of the church, should I still call him/her a sibling; a brother or sister in Christ – when that person has stubbornly and willfully lied, misrepresented his/her own teaching as that of Christ? Should I not completely dissociate myself from that person, so that my influence as a teacher will not be called into question? Shouldn’t I refuse to call such a person a brother or sister? Shouldn’t I stop praying for something as absurd as their repentence or their salvation? Shouldn’t I concentrate my efforts on those who will listen and accept good news, rather than squandering it over and over and over again on those who will not heed?

I know these are hard questions, but I felt that if there were people who loved the Book as much as you do, those people could help me find answers.

But in the end, I wonder if it wouldn’t just be easier to leave all the judging up to God. He is so much better qualified for it than I am. Maybe all He really wants of us is to judge for ourselves, and not for others … to judge actions and words, rather than people … to love each other deeply, even when we disagree … to address false teaching directly, rather than false teachers indirectly.

Well, all I can really ask of you is to consider these questions prayerfully with me. I know I’ve written some of them with an obvious bias, but I thought maybe they would provoke a reaction from some of you – just as things that some of you write are obviously designed to provoke a reaction from someone like me.

Maybe the dialog would do us all some good. Maybe we’d be less tempted to see each other as mere bylines on articles on Web sites or church bulletins or other printed publications. Perhaps we’d begin seeing each other and ourselves just as we are; just as God Himself sees us – pitiable sinning creatures, forever lost were it not for His love and grace toward us, expressed so powerfully in the blood of Christ.

We might even be more likely to display the kind of courage He seeks in us, the kind that is willing to say “I was wrong.”

I hope that you will pray fervently for my forgiveness if I have erred in writing this brief and inadequate epistle. I hope that you will pray that I will open my mind and my heart to every aspect of God’s good nature. I hope that you will understand that it is my love for you that prompts my prayers for the same blessing on you, so that because of, rather than in spite of, our differences and gifts the whole body of Christ will be built up together, complete and well-armed and unified, so that we can address each other with full hearts as ….

Your brother in Christ,

Keith