What Will It Take?

"This only have I found: God created mankind upright, but they have gone in search of many schemes" (Ecclesiastes 7:29).

In the beginning, God.

The Scripture and the story of humanity begins that way. In the beginning, God was. God was always there, without beginning and without ending, according to the creeds. How that is or can be, I can't explain or imagine. But then, God is God and I'm not. So I don't have to understand. (I'm sure God is relieved about that, too!)

In the beginning, God. And this God is a creative God. It's in his nature to create, so create he did. A universe. A world. Animals. Light. Dark. Sea. Land. And still something was missing. Like an artist who is looking for that one thing that will make the painting complete, there was something not quite right about creation. And that's when God made men and women. Human beings. The only thing in all creation said to be made "in God's image."

When I was a kid, that phrase meant to me that God looked like us—or, rather, we looked like God. Arms, legs, lips, hair, nose. God was a big human being. I've come to realize it doesn't mean that at all. The "image of God" (imago dei) has more to do with the moral fiber and character God put within us. God made us with choice, freedom, a conscience and a sense of what is right and wrong. And, like a good parent, he gave us boundaries. The whole world at our disposal—only one tree we were not to touch.

If you're a parent, you know how the story goes. The one tree we weren't supposed to touch is the only one we wanted to touch. So we did.

God created humanity upright, in his image. But we went in search of many schemes. We went our own way.

And look where it has gotten us. If the events of the weekend, the bombings in Paris and Beirut and the chaos and confusion around the world, aren't evidence enough of where our own schemes have taken us, I don't know what will convince us. God created us to go one way. We've gone another way.

In the fulness of time, at just the right time, God the Father sent God the Son to show us back to the way. For three years, Jesus taught and healed and pointed and finally showed us what it really looks like when he gave his life on a cross. It's an upside-down kingdom. The way to life is through death to ourselves. The way to hope is through hopelessness. The way to peace is often through struggle. The worst thing is never the last thing.

What will it take for Christians to become serious enough about our faith and unafraid of the names we might be called for us to rise up and share the hope we have found? If we know the way, why do we not point toward it? Sixty-one percent of us, LifeWay Research estimates, haven't told anyone about Jesus in the last six months, and forty-eight percent of us have NEVER even invited anyone to church.

What will it take?

God created us in his image, and yet we have chosen to go our own way. What will it take for us to get serious about getting back on God's way?