Is God your neighbor?

It is the desire to call things ours—the desire of company which is not of our kind—company such as, if small enough, you would put in your pocket and carry about with you. We call the holding in the hand, or the house, or the pocket, or the power, having: but things so held cannot really be had; having is but an illusion in regard to things. It is only what we can be with that we really possess—that is, what is of our kind, from God to the lowest animal partaking of humanity.” George MacDonald

Sometimes, maybe most times, having occurs to me to be an effort to make our way back to Eden, or make our own Eden. Avivah Zornberg illuminates the definition of desire as beginning in the experience of “not to have.” And not having begets all sorts of children and behaviors. Of course, no one really has anything but themselves, yet, we have created all kinds of systems to create the illusion of having.

Somehow having, in mankind’s way of thinking, proves something, whether it be intellectual, spiritual, or material. Proving has many bedfellows. Whether it exerts itself through media, private conversation, personality dominance, nation-building, politics, war, religion, or sports, proving has become a primary mode of expression.

Of all the arenas where proving exerts itself, it seems to me using the Bible to prove, or even to prove the Bible, misses the point entirely. I would like to offer an alternative.

Any Christian set on a path of questioning, searching, and seeking what God wishes them to know, to be, to do will ultimately come upon the tension between the temptation to prove against the message and the meaning that God is speaking to them. Ben Witherington says, “A text without a context is just a pretext for whatever you want it to mean.” Well, this practice is well-meaning, omnipresent in Christian culture, and I think exhibits a sort of “tip of the iceberg” approach to faith. God’s word cannot be sold so short.

The Biblical text is so much richer than the relational familiarity we have with it. There have been so many times I have reread a passage where the words reveal something new to me, something found, something God wanted me to know and understand. I will share that these insights have been God’s way of meeting me where life is gripping me at the moment, and in hindsight, the way in which He prepared me for future trials. And if I am prepared, this makes me a better neighbor, a better servant to His will, to love neighbor as self. Isn’t this a better way to journey the Christian life, to find rather than to prove?

No two lives ever experience life’s difficulties in the same way. God comes to us as He prepares us. So, here is something to turn your thinking around: Is God your neighbor?

As we behold Him, we become like Him. J.D. Walt