Day 11

Test or Testament
Is your underwear showing?

Today’s 1st Prez E-100 devotional, written by Drew Hulse, was on Gideon [online at http://fpchawaii.posterous.com/first-prez-e100-day-28]. I love Drew’s observation: Gideon had grown up in a land of unfaithfulness.

He explains in full: Most of us tend to pick up the story of Gideon with him hiding in a winepress, threshing wheat, and hoping the Midianites don’t see him and take his crop. [Judges 6:1-7:25] We see Gideon as weak and afraid, and he might be. The question is, why? What put him in the winepress? Gideon had grown up in a land of unfaithfulness. God had delivered the Children of Israel out of Egypt, given them the land and a future, and had called them to worship Him as God alone. They proceeded to fall in love with the gods of the Amorites and to abandon the One True God who had given them life. God, whom Gideon had only heard about but never seen at work (due to the lack of faithfulness of his elders), was now the one calling Gideon to faithfulness.

We often question “nature versus nurture” in considering just how the heck we got to be the way we are. Nurtured by family and friends who had acted unfaithful towards God, Gideon grew up in an environment where no faith was demonstrated. The result was that Gideon himself was not so much unfaithful as faithless.

He had heard old stories, but seen no evidence of God. Everyone around him had abandoned God. So when the angel comes and tells Gideon that God is going to use him and act through him, Gideon puts God to the test.

People still put God to the test with, “If you really exist, God, give me a car, help me pass that test, find me a spouse, get me out of trouble, make my life easier.”

The problem with that, however, is the test. Those tests are not so much about proving The Man but getting The Stuff, and The Stuff will always get in the way of seeing The Man.

That being the case, instead of answering a test, God more often uses a testament. God won’t perform upon command, but he will point to evidence of his existence—our lives.

The longer that we live with God, the less he becomes the garment we put on—the clothes we wear when we decide, when it’s convenient, when we remember, when it’s expected or commanded.

The more familiar and comfortable we become with God, the less we see him as “dress clothes,” ill-fitting special occasion apparel that make us look good but which we can’t wait to get off when we get home.

The more at home we are with God, the more he feels like a favorite shirt, well-worn sweater, nubby socks, that we don’t want to change into and not take off.

God becomes the thing we feel naked without—our underwear. He becomes the first layer, close to the skin, that we put everything else over. And that’s what we want to show: God whom we wear under all.

That becomes or most powerful testament. Beyond what we preach or pray, do or say, our underwear is the truest evidence of God’s existence.

Are we read to show it, though?

Posted by email from 40 Day Fast (posterous)