God Becomes You
“God became flesh and dwelt in me”
The end of the third quarter means one thing: the fourth quarter is about to begin—I hope.
I am fully aware that it is also true that as I approach 60 years old, the last third of my life is coming to an end. This could be it—the end. We’ll see, but I am planning on it being the beginning of the fourth quarter.
I remember a novel by Wally Lamb titled, This Much I Know. I never read past the title, but the title was enough to intrigue me. What do I know? Not mentally, but by experience.
I companied with God when I was a boy. My Baptist parents and my Baptist church were thrilled when I decided to publicly profess that I wanted to be like Jesus. Looking back, that decision was quite audacious! I wanted to be like Jesus like I wanted to be like Hovie Lister, the great pianist for the Statesman Quartet or Hank Aaron, the slugger for the Atlanta Braves. While I was a complete failure trying to be like Hovie Lister and Hank Aaron, my failure to be like Jesus was not complete. It continued for some years until I read for myself in black and white why I was a failure. It was impossible to be like anyone else but me—David.
The Word became flesh! or God becomes me! My failure to become God was leading to my death! I was doing it backward. If trying to be like Jesus taught me one thing, it was that God becomes me! While trying to follow Jesus, I was really following Adam! Essentially, the garden story of Adam was God giving Adam a choice to become God by eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil or for God to become Adam by giving him all of God’s creation.
Jesus experienced the same thing in his garden story. After wrestling with his will to become God, he finally acquiesced for God to become him. He said, “Not my will, but Thine be done!”
I wrestle each day with God about who is God, and I hope I lose. I pray that God wins and God becomes me. This much I know: If this doesn’t happen in the fourth quarter, it will happen in the fifth quarter!