To Dream In League With God!
There are two primary modes of being, confrontation and expectation. With confrontation one is responsive, while, with expectation, one is responsible. Confrontation demands an immediate response that addresses a clear and present context, whilst, expectation elicits responsibility implicit in a future context.
As humans, we are not indifferent to the future, we nurture within us a deep-seated sense that we are called upon by virtue of being to bestow a gift on our future selves if we choose to act responsibly now in the present. Conversely, to act irresponsibly in the present may betray our future selves or worse, future generations.
If we are to be responsible human beings we are compelled to write our own story. A story robust enough to not only respond to what confronts us in the present but primarily with what we rightly expect from the future. If one does not dedicate oneself to this self- authoring program, one may unwittingly end up in someone else’s story or worse yet, have no story to tell whatsoever. A person is not only what one is today but what one will be over a life span, hence the responsible person is writing a life story that takes into consideration all of one’s future selves and one does this because one considers oneself of inestimable value, for there is no such thing as an ordinary man or woman, in the eyes of the individual each self is a uniques disclosure of what it means to be human. Within each human being exists a boundless inner life of potential, the limits of which are unknown. Each human has the capacity to go from sinner to saint if inspired by the heavenly rather than motivated by the earthly. Along with being blessed with a singular life comes an explicit indebtedness that should motivate one to make a valuable contribution to the world.
Man is not alone! God in heaven may be man’s everlasting friend on earth. The partnership of God and man is a covenant of cosmic proportions where man dears to dream in league with God of a better world where peace and security will be the order of the day. “It shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of the LORD shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and it shall be lifted up above the hills, and peoples shall flow to it, and many nations shall come, and say: “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.” For out of Zion shall go forth the law and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. He shall judge between many peoples, and shall decide disputes for strong nations far away; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore; Everyone will sit under their own vine and under their own fig tree, and no one will make them afraid, for the LORD Almighty has spoken.” Micah 4:1-4
The biblical narrative is essentially an invitation To Dream in League With God. “He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the
LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” Micah 6:8 Throughout the canon, there is an implicit call to all
humans, a divine invitation to collaborate with the creator in the making of our future world. You must walk in all the ways that the LORD your God has commanded you, so that you may live and prosper and prolong your days in the land that you will possess.” “Deuteronomy 5:33 Ours is primarily a spiritual endeavour, with physical consequences.
The ultimate question of existence that cries out for an answer is “how we ought to be and how we ought not to be". The solution to this problem can only be envisaged through the lens of the transcendent, the spiritual, (or in scriptural terms the heavenly). Without a spiritual lens to examine the world, man is forced to rely on humanistic, mechanistic and deterministic points of optics (or in scriptural terms the earthly). These humanistic world views have placed us squarely on the brink of global extinction, where the urgent concern for mankind is now “to be or not to be”. It has been said that ‘moral disintegration begets physical annihilation’. Historically true in Hitler’s Germany where Nazi rhetoric became the catalyst for the extermination of the Jews, a tragic example of what happens to mankind when we inform our actions and politics solely with the secular, (earthly).
We are essentially commanded beings, a wise rabbi once said “to be is to obey”! “When all has been heard, the conclusion of the matter is this: Fear God and keep His commandments, because this is the whole duty of man.”Ecclesiastes 12;13 A child when born into the world seeks the commanding voice of a parent so as to know what to do and what not to do, without a parent's care, a child suffers neglect, an abuse that inevitably leads a child to despair in adolescence and beyond. Our heavenly father does not neglect us, we should not be anxious as to the future, for God has given us “His word of truth” John 17:17 “because the spirit is the truth.” 1 John 5:6 His holy spirit is the truth contained in every utterance that comes down from above like bread from heaven. See Matthew 4:4 and James 3:17.
God is love, the embodiment of absolute good and as our Father, He has called Christians out from (greek ek-glesia, congregation, literally a called out assembly) the world and set us apart for an honourable purpose ( greek hagios, holy, literally set apart for a special purpose). This providential invitation is a call to action for all genuine Christians to manifest the ethos of the heavenly kingdom in the here and now, so when the kingdom of heaven does come to earth the evil and suffering of earth will go to hell.“Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Matthew 6:9,10 “making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.” Ephesians 1:9,10 “Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire.” Revelation 20:14
Especially young folk, adolescents or young adults, you have the added blessing of youthful vigour and zeal. Accept wholeheartedly God’s invitation to envision a vision of a better world, a just world where peace prevails and where suffering is a thing of the past. It is within your grasp to live a fruitful and fully integrated life built on the revivifying of Judaeo-Christian traditions and engender new life into hackneyed religious services and fellowships. Go out into the world and transform the world with truthful speech backed up with good works. Your coworker is the supreme being of the universe, you have no better ally to accompany you on this marvellous journey called life!
