A Working Credo – for Living Day by Day

September 4, 2015 Roland Kuhl 0 Comments

As I reflect on what a theology is for everyday people who are living everyday lives, I believe that the kind of faith statements that shape our living need to be ones that walk alongside with us – in the midst of all the stuff that comes our way during our days. Faith statements that are locked away in books on library shelves are not all that useful for what we encounter in our living daily.  They need to help us live in the presence of who God is and what God is up to in the world.

So, over the next few weeks, I want to begin crafting a credo – credo is Latin for “I believe.”  I hope to root these “I believe” statements in the day to day routines of our lives – engaging our lives with what God is doing in us, in the lives of others, and all around us in the world. In this sense, these “I believe” statements or thoughts are meant to be lived, to have the dust and grit of life on them, lived out as we sit in traffic on the way to work or on the way home from work, doing our shopping, trying to relax, helping our kids, getting along with our spouses, – in short, guiding us in the daily decisions we make as we try to navigate this thing we call life, so that in some way we may live into life’s abundance as we discover God with us in the midst of it.

What follows here and in the coming weeks are my beginning ruminations of a “Working Credo” – thoughts that are not necessarily all worked out, neat and tidy, but thoughts that are in process of being constructed, shaped, questioned as I engage life, as I engage people, as I encounter God.  Also, what I share will not be in any particular order – the ordering can come later.

So then, what is the first thing “I believe?”

I believe everyone whom I meet is someone God has brought into my life.

Saying this is to say something about God. I believe that God actively participates in every human being, in every human life. Most of us are unaware of the depths of God’s activity in our lives, but nonetheless, God is at work in each of us. The reason I believe this is because I have come to experience God in this way – not as a Being who remains aloof from us, but as One who is deeply engaged in every aspect of our living and who we are.

Why is God so active in us? Because God has been part of our lives from the very beginning. God loves us, desires the best for us – even in the midst of our deepest struggles and pain. God never leaves us alone – even when we are sure we have been abandoned by God.

I do not believe in a God who is aloof from creation, who set things in motion and then went on vacation – letting everything run its course.  God, God’s nature, is always to be in relationship – with humanity, with creation. God is best understood not by grasping concepts about God, but by being in a relationship with him (I think this is the clue to understanding what it means for humans to be created in God’s image).

Therefore, acts that we call miracles and define as a supernatural inbreaking into the natural order of things, are not something I have come to experience as actions of God – because God is already integrally engaged with creation, not distant from it. God is present and God is active in creation and in human living – every day, so miracles, rather than being outside acts breaking in, they are instead, moments of seeing God, moments of seeing God’s acts becoming visible to us, revealed in the midst of our ordinary days – to show us that God is all around us, that God is with us, active in our lives.

And so because God is active all around us and active in every human life, every one whom I meet I receive as someone whom God has brought into my life. Every human being carries with them a particular way God is at work in them in order to benefit others – we are all wired to share ourselves in some way with others in order to benefit one another – to bring about wholeness, to foster peace in the world. Everyone one is a gift God has brought into my life. Now they are not gifts for me to exploit for my own ends, rather everyone as a sign of being a vessel in which God is active reveals to me that my life is a gift of God as well. In this way, people do not merely have gifts and talents, but rather, people in themselves are gifts – one to another.  We begin to see people in very different ways when we begin to see them as giftings of God for each one of us living into the fullness of life. Each person has something to offer that reveals to us the active presence of God in the world.

And God acts in us in the midst of how broken we are as human beings.  We are clay jars (as 2 Corinthians 4:7 reveals).  When we are open to God, we reveal God’s activity in our lives; when we are closed to God, though God is active in us – nudging us to greater openness, what God is doing in us is more hidden.  This openness is all possible through Jesus Christ, who restored our being in relationship with God, and to experience the fullness of living (I will say more about how God’s activity in us, in the world all are centered in Christ Jesus in another posting).

So because we see some aspect of God’s activity of re-creating human life, of re-creating creation somehow embedded in every human life – we need to take the time to perceive, to have the eyes to see, what is deeply hidden in every human life, what outworking of God is taking place in them and through them.

Is this true of every human being? Is every human being a gift? Is every person someone God is bringing into our lives? As stated, the reality is that we live in a broken world, which is also filled with broken people, some who seek to do us harm – are these persons ones God has also brought into our lives?

Jesus made clear (cf. John 10:10) that indeed some people act as “thieves,” seeking to steal, kill and destroy. His coming, his life and ministry, was in contrast to such destructive purposes – because he came to bring life, abundant life – and he still comes in this way.

So, I do not have a simple clear response to this question – only a messy one – because in reality spirituality is messy indeed.

Yes, we live in a broken world, in which every human life is also broken – and some express their brokenness in ways which do harm to others – participate in ways that reject the healing and transforming activity of God in their lives. And though they do harm, they are also people whom God loves and desires to be made whole. In their encountering us – we may only see what is heinous, actions that are to be loathed. And though, they bring suffering, perhaps even death to the ones we love – can such an encounter be an act of God?

I don’t know. But I do know that God is with us, active in us, even when we are being harmed – we are not alone, though we may feel very alone (that’s a paradox that needs to be unpacked – again for a different posting). But, even in my darkest times, I have come to experience God, because God is relational, God is always reaching out.

We are touched by others when we and others are most open to God, and we can touch others, even ones who do harm, when we are open to reveal the presence of God even in our own brokenness. What makes life messy is that even in the midst of disaster, the presence of God’s love and God holding onto us cannot be extinguished (cf. Romans 8: 31-39), even when we are acted upon those who seek to steal, kill, and destroy. God is with us – and so God must struggle with us as we are not left alone.  Could it be that God is revealed through us in not being abandoned by God?

Jesus shared a parable about the living word of God being sown into human lives (cf. Matthew 13, Mark 4). Some falls on hard pathways, stubborn hearts and lives, where it is incapable of producing fruit, some is choked by the cares of the world, some takes root but doesn’t last because the hardships of life trample on it – but those lives which are open to receive the life and presence of God – they flourish, produce fruit – even in the midst of difficult and life-stealing times.

Though we do not pray to encounter hardship, and when we do that we might overcome it, but in the midst of difficult times, we can be the ones, being held together by God, who reveal that God is present and active in the world – especially in human lives.  That’s because with God, all lives matter.

Therefore, I believe that God is active in every human life – more visible in some than others.  And so, everyone we meet is someone in which either mutual gift-giving takes place, or they share life with us when we are in a dark place, or we share life with them when they are in a dark and broken place.

May we live as ones growing in awareness of God’s activity and presence in us and all those around us.

I know, there is much more to reflect upon as we think about evil in the world – but I think a beginning point in addressing evil is realizing that God is in the world, active in it, active in us and not hiding away from us in another galaxy.

So, I begin with this belief, this working credo:

I believe everyone whom I meet is someone God has brought into my life.