Bjcorbin's Blog

I’m sure there are some people who consider me to be somewhat of a cracked pot, and this little piece may solidify that impression; but what can you really do about that?  In the second half of my life I’ve come to see God in just about everything and so it’s not really surprising that I obtained this insight while ordering food at Taco Bell.  Now, some might want to argue whether God actually speaks to people at fast food establishments, but as for me and my house, we say that He does.

I’m old enough to remember when a “taco” automatically meant a hard shelled, corn tortilla.  Back then there were no options, and that was OK because they tasted great.  The one problem was that when you bit into the shell it often crumbled and made a mess.  Then some savvy marketer came up with idea of the soft shell taco (served on a soft flour tortilla).  My initial impulse was to nominate that person for the Noble Prize, but after tasting this revised design, I wasn’t as impressed as I thought I’d be.  To my taste buds, there is a big difference between a crunchy corn tortilla (which tastes like a big corn chip) and a flour tortilla (which evokes soggy paper).  None the less, my desire to avoid the mess kept me eating the soggy paper version for years.

One day, as I pondered my order, I had to admit to myself that I really wanted the corn tortilla, but again I considered the mess.  Right at that moment I felt like the Lord said something akin to, “The Kingdom of God is like a taco”.  I understand that sounds sacrilegious, but that’s what I heard.  He went on to show me that sometimes to get what you really want, you’ve got to be willing to put up with some mess; and if you’re not willing to do that, you’ll likely have to settle for some poor substitute.

So how does this apply to our lives besides ordering food at Taco Bell?  Well, I actually think that it ties in pretty strongly.  In our western culture we like things to be comfortable, convenient and quick; and this way of thinking dramatically affects every aspect of our being, including our walk of faith.  This mentality tends to keep us pretty close to the surface of most things, as getting too deep tends to slow us down and potentially complicates things. 

We tend to like our religion to be unobtrusive and somewhat predictable, as this is comfortable and keeps us freed up for our other pursuits (e.g. family, career, hobbies…).  It’s good to go to the “House of Lord” every week, to see our friends, to hear an uplifting message, to possibly serve someone (e.g. as an Usher, or a Sunday school Teacher…) and maybe even to throw a little money in the collection plate.  It makes us feel good about ourselves and to know that our children are being taught good things; but is this really what the Lord intended for His people?  When I read the word of God, this doesn’t even slightly resemble the role that Christ seemed to ordain for the church.

God’s word is filled with His principles for living, but man has a tendency to boil those principles down into a system of rules and regulations.  Often in this process the heart of the principle gets boiled right out of it.  Jesus corrected the Pharisees on this when they challenged the fact that He was healing on the Sabbath.  He told them that the Sabbath was created for man and not the other way around. 

In the same way systematic theology seeks to create an accurate picture of God based on what we understand, even though the word tells us that He is beyond what we can understand.  It tells us that we know in part, that we see through a glass dimly, to lean not on our own understanding and that He is able to do exceedingly, abundantly more than we could imagine.   Yet we still endeavor to draw conclusions about who He is based on earthly systems of thought. 

Our systems of thought and rules are often meant to bring us comfort that we have fulfilled the requirements of heaven and that our eternity is secure.  They are neat, predictable and easily measured.  That’s the way we like it.  The problem is that they’re really just a poor substitute for the high calling of God.

God has not called us to be staid administrators of His righteousness, but to speak life to a dying world.  He has not called us to some academic study of ancient texts and artifacts, but to a robust and dynamic relationship with a “Living” God.  He has not left us to our own resources, but has put at our disposal the resources of heaven.  When Jesus ascended into heaven, God did not become the great “I Was”, He is still the great “I Am”. 

He was serious when He said to love your neighbor as yourself.  He was serious when He said that husbands should love their wives like Christ loved the church.  He was serious when He said that friendship with the world is enmity with God.  He was serious when He said, greater things than this you will do because I go to my Father.  We’ve developed all sorts of doctrines to excuse ourselves from those callings, but the Word hasn’t changed. 

Sure, it’s messy and unpredictable, but isn’t that what faith is, believing in things we haven’t seen and that we don’t necessarily understand; isn’t it going places that we’ve never been and reaching beyond our level of comfort.  Too much of the church today reminds me of the disciples before Pentecost, arguing about who is the greatest amongst them, confused about the things that Jesus said were going to happen, and hiding from the world around them. 

God knew that they would wind up there, so He told them to wait until He sent them power from on high.  To the naked eye the day of Pentecost must have seemed a mess; people thought the Apostles were drunk; there was all that speaking in different languages; everything that was happening defied human explanation, and yet, thousands came to the Lord that day. 

It seems to me that if God is calling us to live by His Holy Spirit and that what is pleasing to the Spirit is not pleasing to the flesh, than we’re likely to find many of the things He calls us to unattractive in the natural (i.e. messy & uncomfortable).  If we really want to see the scripture lived out, we’re going to have to allow our flesh to be crucified and to press on.  If we insist on everything being sanitized and aesthetically pleasing, we will likely have to settle for a shallow life of religious routine. 

The great heroes of the faith were people who seemed unafraid of what people might think, who threw off the shackles of conventional wisdom and took God at His word.  The Bible says that without faith it is impossible to please God.  I’ve spent too much of my life bound to what others might think, trying to use my intellect to come up with answers that are beyond my understanding and standing by as the kingdom of darkness swallowed up the things I care about. 

I cannot settle for the substitute; I want to see His Kingdom come and His will be done on earth as it is in heaven.  Anyone who has witnessed (or experienced) a birth knows that discomfort and blood are an integral part of the process.  If we want to see new life in us, our marriages, our families, our communities, our nation, it will take both.  Indeed, the Kingdom of God is like a taco.