IN THE IMAGE OF GOD: WE SERVE

Situation
In a prayer request that I received recently, the person wrote about not being able to feel God’s presence and of feeling far from God.  I understand that.  Due to a time of physical trauma and no sleep for a few days, I went into a cycle of panic attacks for several days.  I did not feel God’s presence at that time; I only felt fear.  (I am not sure that under those brain-chemistry conditions, one can “feel” God’s presence.  Yet, Jesus did not abandon me.  There were people close me who have a chemical propensity to panic attacks.  They understood.  They cared for me, encouraged me, and basically carried me through those days.  Jesus was “in” those people.  Jesus was with me.

Response
I am reminded of a popular poem, “Footprints in the Sand”:¹

One night I dreamed I was walking along the beach with the Lord.
Many scenes from my life flashed across the sky.
In each scene I noticed footprints in the sand.
Sometimes there were two sets of footprints,
other times there were one set of footprints.

This bothered me because I noticed
that during the low periods of my life,
when I was suffering from
anguish, sorrow or defeat,
I could see only one set of footprints.

So I said to the Lord,
“You promised me Lord,
that if I followed you,
you would walk with me always.
But I have noticed that during
the most trying periods of my life
there have only been one
set of footprints in the sand.
Why, when I needed you most,
you have not been there for me?”

The Lord replied,
“The times when you have
seen only one set of footprints,
is when I carried you.”

Theological Application for Ministry
The obvious point of the poem above for the sufferer is that God may well be present in ways that we do not feel or recognize.  However, there is an important theological application for ministry to be made.  The theological point involves that fact that God made humanity in God’s image (Gen 1:26).  We were made to represent God in and to this world.  (See my post “Created in the Image of God: Forgotten Aspects,” February 1, 2024.)  That, too, is the mission of being participants in the Kingdom of God in this world, of being living-in-the-flesh members of the Body of Christ.  When people do not feel close to God, we are here for their sake.  When people have panic attacks, we are here for their sake.  When people are in need, we are here for their sake.  Jesus called his followers to be servants, slaves to others (Mark 10:41-45).

Lord Jesus, I pray for the person who feels far from you.  I do pray for the Presence of your Holy Spirit in that person’s life that they would feel you nearby.  I also pray that you will surround that person with people created in your image, people who are living in you image, people who will serve and comfort that person in your name.  Help me to be such a person.  Amen
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1)  I do not know whom to credit for the poem.  Authorship has been claimed by a few people, and the poem itself has earlier antecedents.

Dogs, Evolution, and the Body of Christ(1)

I watched an animal show with one of my grand-daughters recently.  It stated that dogs evolved from wolves.  That is an outdated genetic distinction.²  However, the point was that domesticated dogs proliferate our world while wolves do not.  The reason is not due to survival of the fittest, but due to survival through cooperative relationships that happened as dogs became domesticated.  Interestingly, cooperation is actually found on many levels of biological organization down to single-cell organisms that join together for greater survival.  It is one explanation given for the emergence of the specialization of cells in multi-cell organisms.  In evolutionary biology, a cooperator is someone who pays a cost for another individual to benefit.³  

This biological notion of cooperative relationships at a cost to the individual got me thinking about this principle is true for the Body of Christ along two lines.  As is well known, Paul uses the body metaphor quite seriously.

¹² Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ….¹⁵ Now if the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. ¹⁶ And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. ¹⁷ If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? ¹⁸ But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be….  God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, ²⁵ so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. ²⁶ If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.  (excerpts from 1 Cor. 12:12-26 NIV).

The first point, then, is that we are called to pay a cost not to think of ourselves first, but to “have equal concern for each other” (12:25).  Our gifts, talents, time and effort are not first for ourselves, but first for the purpose of serving the Body of Christ.  The Church does not thrive by capitalistic principles or by operating on a business model.  It runs by cooperatively submitting oneself and one’s abilities to service in the Body.  What would that look like for me?  What would that look like in my local church?  

My second thought was that the growth of the Body of Christ through evangelism also should operate by cooperative relationships that come at a cost to the individual.  Is not that what Jesus was indicating when Jesus called his disciples together and said:

⁴²  “You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. ⁴³ Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, ⁴⁴ and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. ⁴⁵ For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:42-45, NIV)

 When Christians become slaves to all people, they are creating cooperative relationships at a cost to themselves for the benefit of others.  That is when people are attracted to Jesus and the Body of Christ grows in number.  I wonder what that would look like for me?  I wonder what that would look like in my local church?

 Is it not interesting that the principle of cooperative relationship that promotes the thriving of life from the lowest biological level to the most complex, is also true spiritually?
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¹ In order to make a comment on evolution in a “devotion,” I will quality where I stand based on the history of the issue of science and the Bible.  When Darwin’s theory of evolution was presented, some of the best British Bible scholars and theologians, had no problem with it (e.g. B.B. Warfield, James Orr).  In their understanding of biblical inerrancy and reliability, which undergirded classical evangelicalism, the Bible was not to be read as a science text.  Some of them went on to write essays on returning to the fundamentals of the faith, essays that led to the start of Fundamentalism.  (So, too, the late Billy Graham said that if God used evolution as a mechanism in creation, it would not threaten the purposes of Scripture.)  Ironically, “creation science,” which seeks to read the Bible scientifically, was birthed in the 1920’s when Fundamentalists ignored their own founding essays and formed a strange alliance with Seventh Day Adventists who wanted to defend the visions and teaching of Ellen White on creation with “science.”  I agree with Warfield, Orr, Billy Graham, and a host of good Bible scholars that the Bible, specifically the introductory Genesis texts, should not be read as science.
² Dogs were once classified as Canis familiaris and wolves as Canis lupus, but now dogs are recognized as within the same species, Canis lupus familiaris.
³ Martin A. Nowak, “Five Rules for the Evolution of Cooperation,” Science, Vol. 314, Issue 5805 (Dec. 8, 2006): 1560-1563.  *https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3279745/