Hanging Out With God

When we read the life and teachings of Jesus, we read of God in the flesh who was always available. When his self-appointed security detail, also known as his disciples (as far as we know they weren't wearing designer sunglasses), wanted to prevent little children from bothering him, Jesus stepped in and granted the children access.

Jesus had time. He was not too busy. He was not some big-shot executive who was late for another meeting, whose groupies were waiting to usher him into his limo. In Jesus, God came near, but then, sadly, religion stepped in and attempted to restrict access.

For the past few decades teenagers have been using a phrase that colorfully describes how Jesus made himself available – Jesus was "hanging out". This term usually drives parents of teenagers crazy because it is so unstructured and ill-defined. When teens want to spend time with their friends they simply tell their parents that they will be hanging out. But this term is not specific enough for most parents. And parents have every right and need to know more about what teens will be doing than the all-purpose hanging out.

But I believe hanging out is a great term to describe part of what it means to connect with God in a personal and intimate relationship. As a child of God you can and you should hang out with God. Your time with him is not limited. You don't need a list of things to talk about. You don't need to wait to talk to him until you get inside the four walls of a church. You don't need to pray special prayers. You don't need to use religious lingo and insider church talk when you hang out with God. I picture God asking us, "Please, stop trying to impress me with your funny religious language. I didn't dream that stuff up – somebody else did. This is not King Jame's time, this is the 21^st century."

It wasn't long after the Cross of Christ, and his victorious resurrection that man-made religion started to put its own unique twist on God's availability. In effect, religion started to teach that we could have an appointment with God, but we would have to call his secretary, which, conveniently enough, was a job institutionalized religion appropriated to itself. Not long after the earth-shaking events of the birth, life, death and resurrection of our Lord, which flung open the doors of God's heaven, religion appointed itself as a gate-keeper.

The response that we get from religion leads us to believe that God must act something like a banker does. When you really need money, there's no way the bank will talk with you. When you don't need a loan, your mailbox is flooded with offers for all kinds of loans. Religion offers us a Santa Claus god who will give us what we want if we are good. But if we've run up some debts and if we have a bad spiritual credit rating, then religion assures us there is no way that Santa Claus will be stopping at our house.

Religion has given us the idea that God used to like us and he used to have time for us when we were being "saved". God had time for us when we were tearful and remorseful and walking down the aisle and repenting and making a commitment. That was our courtship and eventual marriage, if you like.

After we are saved, religion gives us the impression that our honeymoon is over. No more dating. No more holding the car door open. No more flowers.

Religion whispers in our ear: "What exactly have you done for God lately? You better get your act together or you won't be seeing much of God!"

Let's get back to hanging out. Hanging out is a relational term. God called Abraham his friend. Jesus said that he wouldn't call us his servants, but his friends (John 15:13-15). Friends are friends because we don't feel awkward around them, we don't feel as if we are always being judged, and we don't feel we must be perpetually attempting to impress them. All that stuff is for people you don't know. In fact, it's impossible to impress God with anything we can produce or perform. We can hang out with him.

Christian action follows Christian being. We live in union with Christ, his Spirit united with our human spirit, only because of God's love, and only by his grace. We are enabled to behave like Christ because he first lives his life IN us. Jesus does not take up residence in our spirit as a reward for our virtuous and moral deeds, but because he loves us and desires to live his life in us. And as we keep in remembrance that he is there joined to us, our actions change on a day to day basis. And though we sometimes slip up and, in effect, act like he is not there, Jesus is quick to remind us of what is true: he will never leave us or forsake us.

The key to the Christian life is just hanging out with Jesus as much as possible, making him part of our everyday lives.

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So Much Invested for Such a Short Time

In 1983 a British mathematician, Brandon Carter, introduced what he called the “anthropic principle inequality” to the scientific world. Carter took note of the fact that several billion years is the minimum time required for the universe to expand and develop sufficiently to allow for the existence of the human race or a similarly advance species. Yet, according to his calculations, the maximum time window in which the cosmos can possibly sustain such a species amounts to less than a few million years. In other words, it took a very long time to prepare the universe to sustain humans for a relatively short time.

Physicists John Barrow and Frank Tipler demonstrated in 1986 that the inequality is far more extreme than Carter figured. They estimated that global human civilization – something more than just a few low-population people groups existing in one or two regions using Stone Age type tools – could last no more than 41,000 years. According to their calculations, this limit would apply to any physical intelligent species with a sophisticated global civilization living anywhere in the universe.

Barrow and Tipler noted that the laws of physics, the characteristics of the universe, and the properties of life would all contribute to this brevity of duration for advanced life. Other factors include the Earth’s rotation rate, fossil fuel supplies, solar stability, solar luminosity, plate tectonics and more. Additional limitations apply to affluent high-tech civilizations. These include declining birthrates, increasing genetic disorders, environmental catastrophes, sociopolitical upheaval, and more.

Furthermore, the preparation of the universe involves so many intricate details intertwined with such exquisite fine-tuning and timing that only one reasonable conclusion emerges: the Creator of such an environment must possess unfathomable power, genius, resources, and above all else, purpose. That high purpose most apparently involves humans.

Given that it costs the material resources of the entire universe and the investment of 13.73 billion years of time to support humanity and its civilization for only a few tens of thousands of years, the human species indeed must have immense worth and purpose.

In the movie “Contact”, based on Carl Sagan’s novel, lead actress Jodie Foster and others repeatedly proclaim that the universe is a terrible waste if humans are alone in it. That may be true if humans are limited to this universe. But are we? The universe is far from a waste if the Creator endowed humans with a destiny that extends beyond the universe itself.

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