and it was all very good. Genesis 1:31a
I was thinking about this verse today. As some of you know I’m currently working through the book Wild At Heart, which takes a look at how God has a wild side and that is instilled in men in different ways.
The story of creation is something that is taught to us a young children, often by well-intentioned sunday-school teachers. What they miss is that God created parts of the world and many creatures to be wild and dangerous. We miss that in sunday school. Sunday-school, and church in general is supposed to be a ’safe’ place right? I think that we may have missed the goal there. We have replaced ’safe’ with tame.
Yes, God created those little pets that we have that are sweet, he created all those birds to sing his praises and remind us that He loves music. He created a garden for man to dwell in, but He created Adam out in the wild - in the wilderness. If you look at chapters one and two of Genesis - you’ll notice that Eve was not created until after God had placed Adam in the garden.
God created those nice things we think of. He also created the mountains, those animals that would consider you lunch with no extra thought, and the barren places of the earth that would swallow you. The world is wild. It’s dangerous. God created it. He said it was good. And it is. Let’s let God transform His church. Let him make something wild, something powerful… something good. There will be places within His Church that are going to be calm and ’safe’ or ‘tame;’ but let Him make the Church dangerous again.
Living Hope has done a good job at letting God do this. But can we be even more moldable? Can we let Him make His church even more dangerous? I know I’ve missed that. And I feel that maybe too many of us have.