I heard someone say: “I’m not in the habit of over spiritualizing things but…”

It really got me to thinking. Why do I have so much trouble when people “over spiritualize” something? Why do I feel so awkward when I find myself doing it? I think I have an idea.

The thing with EMPHASIZING SOMETHING!!! is that it deemphasizes the things around it. Some people are like that. They deemphasize the people around them. John 3:30 talks about John the Baptist pointing out that he needs to emphasize Jesus and deemphasize himself. I think of that as a command for all of us. In John 12:28 Jesus proclaims “Father, glorify your name!” … Emphasis is an important part of the Christian life. What are you emphasizing? If we emphasize ourselves we are in serious danger.

John 8:54: Jesus replied, “If I glorify myself, my glory means nothing. My FATHER, whom you claim as your God, is the one who glorifies me.

Just like an advertising campaign BUY THIS NOW!!! emphasis is meant to coerce. If it is designed to deceive the important part will be somewhere in the fine print. The quiet, gentle, still voice. The message that is between the lines. That’s where the Holy Spirit is. No gongs, no cymbals. Sadly, it is often the only place we can find truth as well.

So why do so many of us become uncomfortable when something is “over spiritualized”? I think for me, it’s because God is not one who intervenes here and there while leaving everything else to chance. He participates constantly because He is constant. Therefore no thing is more spiritual than any other thing. It deemphasizes all of the other spectacular things to focus on just this or that. In fact it distracts and even deceives. Remember the sin of Ananias and Sapphira, they were trying to overemphasize their contribution by outright lying. How much more tempting is such a thing when we don’t actually have to lie? Quantitatively it isn’t much different. Their sin minus one lie. So was it the lie that they dropped dead for or was it emphasizing themselves?

So an amazing thing happened this morning! The sun came up, and light shined in my window. That light travelled approximately 92,750,680.02 miles (plus about 3 feet) to hit my eyeball after bouncing off my bedroom wall. Then a 2 week old baby cried. I thought, wow GOD!!! is awesome!

Elijah has a fun little phrase he likes to say because it brings a smile to daddy’s face. Now you’ll need to “hear” this with a bit of a musical high, low, a little higher intonation. Ready? … “We are Here!”.

Horton Hears a Who, but who believes Horton? No one! Now, whether or not anyone believes Horton really had little bearing on his mission… until… that lunatic kangaroo. So Jane (the lunatic kangaroo) decides it’s not enough to just disagree with Horton, she decides to attack. This snowballs to the point that a mob is actually going to drop the entire world of Whoville into a pot of boiling oil! Why? … She’s a lunatic, that’s why.

Jesus asks us to live a life that is very difficult for a lot of people to accept. Just like Whoville our mission is virtually inconceivable. Some folks have the privilege of being surrounded with agreement on their mission, others, in the face of doubtful onlookers somehow flourish. Our own doubts are always the most difficult to overcome. Once that battle is won there isn’t much the likes of Jane (the lunatic kangaroo) can do to stop you. She will only make it hurt.

So now you believe. You know God has set you to something and you begin trudging up Mount Nool. A giant vulture (Vlad) is trying to snatch away your mission, but he is just the muscle for the lunatic kangaroo. She is the real enemy and it’s possible that even she isn’t sure why she is so determined to bring you failure. You have to know why. Yes, even she is not the real enemy.