In only 8 days . . .

. . . I ate an entire 28 ounce jar of Peter Pan reduced fat creamy peanut butter (no crunchy was available). During that same time period I also lost three and half pounds! My initial conclusion is that by eating a jar of peanut butter every week I can lose weight. I will test that hypothesis this week by eating a second jar. If I can show the same weight loss results, I plan to publish a diet book called The Peanut Butter Diet of course. If it works for me, it has to work for everyone. At least everyone will think it will.

Of course, these are all faulty assumptions. They are the kind of examples used to teach statistical concepts like correlations or expose snake oil medicine posing as real research. It's not much different in the church. Throughout human history, we have given in to the tendency to codify, to the exclusion of everything else, how God is to be experienced, how we are to dress, how God is to be worshipped, what type of music can be used, which elements are to be used in a worship service and in what order. In the name of some unofficial authority, we have even codified what happens in the private lives of people in terms of their relationship with God - you must pray this many times a day, read this much Scripture, etc. Many of these are a result of something that worked for an individual or maybe even a small group of individuals that we assumed to work for everyone.

Thinking like this requires that God be static. It is true that God is unchanging - he will always be all powerful, all knowing, all loving, perfectly good and just, full of grace and mercy, etc. But God is not static. God is dynamic. He is always doing a new thing. Instead of sending another Moses to liberate His people from Babylonian exile, he used the kings of Babylon themselves to not only set them free, but finance the rebuilding of Jerusalem. Jesus reminded us that new wine is not put into old wineskins.

God is creative and creativity results in new things. God gave us creative power. When two dynamic beings enter into a relationship, that relationship will naturally be dynamic. The trick for us is to remember that God is the head of the relationship so he will have final authority over any newness we try to bring to the relationship.

I want my faith journey to be dynamic. I want to be ready to experience the new things that God may have in store for me. I don't want to be afraid to step away from something old and familiar in order to do so. And I want the grace and wisdom to recognize when it works for me but not necessarily everyone else.