“Oh my God.”
To make it easier to understand, imagine if every single time you get frustrated, you use your father’s or mother’s name as a cuss, yelling it. It shows the little self-control you have, that I have. Imagine that every single time you are annoyed, you use your parents’ names. Imagine this name is used without meaning or with ill intent in songs, books, movies, etc. Imagine if every time there is a conversation about your parents, people talk about them as if they weren’t really the people you know them to be. Finally, imagine if it was a norm, that all the places you will be, for your entire life, people talk and use this name uselessly, they slander it, they use it in anger and frustration, but this name is much greater than you parents’ names, greater than any worldly idol a human could ever have, this is the character, authority, and identity which is God, much greater than any parent. In fact, the term “oh my God” is now typically either frowned upon by Christians because of the wide and vain use, or used popularly as slang; but the use of “oh my God” as slang grew immensely throughout the 20th century, and even more with the rise in texting at the beginning of the 21st century. The phrase “oh my God” while obvious and familiar to some, was really more of a way to plea to God, or to begin a prayer, not being in vain, but rather holding a great deal of meaning behind the authority and creator we know as God, hence we should use it that way; similar to how we can see a prayer written by David, “O my God” appears within the first two verses of this prayer in Psalm 25, “To You, O Lord, I lift up my soul. [2] O my God, I trust in You“. Therefore, the problem is not the words themselves, but the way that they are being used.
Me, Us, We
“saying, ‘Father, if it is Your will, take this cup away from Me; nevertheless not My will, but Yours, be done.'” Luke 22:42
In our day-to-day lives, it’s not a rare occurrence for us to think we have become too busy to fit God into our schedule, and if not forgotten, we try to throw him into the backseat and try to take the car where WE want it to go; rather than trusting that his plan would be greater than ours. If we are to rightfully accept the truth that God is the omnipotent creator of the Earth in which we stand and breathe today, then it appears to be rational to also acknowledge that an entity with so much omniscient power beyond our comprehension would also have a plan for our lives that is more elaborate than what we might have planned for our own lives. God’s will be done, not ours. It is incredibly foolish for us to have the idea that we wouldn’t/won’t have enough time to spend with the creator of all things, INCLUDING TIME. If we place our faith in the all-powerful creator, which is God, how would it make sense to leave him out of the schedule he gave us in the first place?
Subjectivity and Truth
“you do you”, “find your inner peace”, “stay true to yourself”, “trust your gut”, “walk your own path”,, or as Shakespeare said, “to thine own self be true”. Those quotes are only some of the very few that express a category of ideology, which would be the false kind. We are not called to place our faith in ourselves or in anything else but the one true, sovereign, triune God; God is not just for Christians, he’s not only for the people who’s lives seem easy, God is not a “feel-good” medicine, God is not a concept or an idea, he is not anything but the reason we are alive, the reason we breathe, eat, drink, love, and are able to have salvation through Christ. God is not exhaustively observable to us, so who are we to make any assumptions about him? Without God, we are like potters with no clay; we are as good as a garden with no sun nor water, like a mechanic with no tools. We must glorify God, not because we are saved by glorifying him, not because he needs us in any capacity. We must stop being blinded and following our own paths, paths that lead to nothing good, paths that lead to damnation. We must stop using God to glorify ourselves, but use our able minds and bodies to glorify God.
Then what?
How should we be living our lives and glorifying God in a practical sense? We can be religious, we can go to church, we can do what we think to be good works, but at the core of all these things that are still important, there is something at the root of it all that we tend to throw to the side. We must know and continuously learn who God is, his authority, power, and character as revealed through scripture; and through this, then these things will come, we must know why we do them at all. We must know who WE are and what our character is, what role do we play? We must learn what sin is and how it affects us in our relationship with God and in glorifying him. And we must lastly learn what is at the root of our salvation, what defines someone who is saved? Scripture doesn’t leave this as some mystery for us to take wild guesses towards. If God is not a side character, not merely an honorable mention, then we are not left to assume what these truths are. In fact, the Apostle Paul writes that all scripture is profitable for training in righteousness so that we may be “thoroughly equipped for every good work” [2 Timothy 3:16–17], in this excerpt of 2 Timothy 3, Paul states how glorifying God isn’t easy, but we are to grow continuously wise, we do not achieve wisdom in something or someone which is inexhaustible. So to the fellow Christian, or maybe someone who is considering placing their faith in God, I tell you this: you are never too busy to spend time with God; rest in him, and rather than “squeezing” him into that schedule, be in the word, observe how scripture may instruct you to change your prayer life, your work-life balance, etc. And ultimately, view your schedule through his eyes, be a follower who returns to scripture. Be a lamb who feeds deeply on the word rather than merely grazing or snacking on it. Prayer ought to be our first response, not only our last cry for help. If we have time to eat breakfast, then we have time to nourish our souls in scripture and fervent prayer.
Glorify God
So we know that God is not futile, he is not vain, but only our false ideas and assumptions of him are, so we must do as is written in John 15:4-5, “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. [5] ‘I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing”. We cannot bear any good fruit outside of God; we must rest in him, we must glorify him, we must give up the delusion that we are capable of generating goodness or truth. So do we glorify him because it will benefit him? No. We ultimately glorify God because we should bow down to him and submit to his supreme authority, his role as THE creator, the holy trinity, which is the eternal dynamic in which he works. All glory be to God.
So we know God is not futile; rather, our pretenses of him are. We must obey Christ and root ourselves in him, ““Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in Me” [John 15:4-5]. Without tying ourselves to God and acknowledging him as the source of all blessed things, we can do nothing. So we should rest in him, glorify him. We MUST give up the delusion that we are capable of generating any goodness or truth on our own. So then why do we glorify him? It isn’t because it benefits him in any way, we glorify him because he is worthy as himself, as the supreme author and creator of ALL things, he is the sovereign triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we glorify him for his authority over us. And this way, God is no longer an honorable mention; he is not the small print that we forget to read. We recognize him as the author, the director of the entire story that he is.
All glory be to God.
