The Spiritual Life of Adventist Guys

God Meets Us WHERE WE ARE

This fall I should be preparing my home for winter preparations on my days off, but instead I have the urge to do something totally irrational and irresponsible. I want to go out and drive through miles of sloppy mud on bumpy forest roads and then walk through the cold, wet brush. I wanted to have someone drop me off at the bottom of a draw so I could trudge up it (as stealthily as a Nez Perce brave, of course) to the road at the top.

Where was this nutty notion coming from? It's what I did every autumn during my formative years. I must be crazy, because I didn't even really like doing it then.

In my family, I was the "dog" when hunting season came around. My older brothers were happy to drag me along on their hunting excursions. They would drop me off at the bottom of a draw and tell me to wait five minutes for them to drive to the top of the ravine. Then I would plod up through the woods, chasing any unsuspecting deer toward them.

I was, in fact, better than a dog. A dog couldn't read a watch to know when the five minutes were up and enter the draw at the exact moment when my brothers were in place on the other side. And a dog wouldn't intentionally drive the deer toward my waiting brothers with their 30-06 rifles and their high-power scopes. A dumb dog would just chase the deer all over creation. I was a smart dog!

Even after I grew up and quit being my brothers' hunting dog, every fall I tromped through the brush, rain or shine. I was never a very good hunter, but come October I felt drawn to become one with the mud and rain and vine maple jungles.

Then something changed all that. Or so I thought.

I became a Seventh-day Adventist Christian. A vegetarian Seventh-day Adventist Christian. A Seventh-day Adventist Christian who exchanged the word "Sabbath" for "Saturday" in my vocabulary. Opening day of hunting season, by the way, is always on a "Saturday." I became a totally-trusting-in-the-angels-of-God-so-I-don't-even-need-a-gun-for-protection-anymore Seventh-day Adventist Christian.
And so I came face-to-face with an unexpected identity crisis. I am a Seventh-day Adventist, a card-carrying member of God’s remnant church. I am one of the angels who proclaim the last three messages of warning to a dying world. But I'm also still just a guy from a little town in Oregon.

Can I be a Seventh-day Adventist and still be a regular guy? And if so, what does it mean to be a Seventh-day Adventist Christian guy?
One day I came across a couple of verses that really puzzled me. The first one is Jeremiah 7:23 -- "But I gave them this command: Obey me, and I will be your God and you will be my people." The second verse is like unto it. Jeremiah 11:4 -- "I said, 'Obey me and do everything I command you, and you will be my people, and I will be your God.'"

This created a problem for me because this process was backwards from everything I've known about God and His plan for our salvation. Romans 5:8 says, "But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." And 1 John 4:19 puts it this way, "We love because He first loved us."

What a theological quandary! The Bible says that God loved us before we ever did anything loving toward Him, and His love is what inspires us to love Him back. But these verses in Jeremiah seem to say that God wants us to obey Him first. What do I do with these verses?
As I pondered this seeming contradiction, it struck me that Jeremiah 7:23 and 11:4 are verses for guys. There are two sides to these verses - DO and then BE. OBEY His commands, then BE His man.

Spirituality for guys often involves DOING something first, then the BEING comes as a result. In other words, we tend to become what we do.
I never really considered my dad a spiritual guy. He was a son of a preacher, but I never saw him attend church. I never saw him pray. It appeared to me that he had no spirituality whatsoever.

This bothered me. I want to see all of my loved ones in heaven. Dad, however, had passed away eight years before my conversion. I hesitated to consider his eternal condition. I found it best not to think about Dad's fate and leave it in God's hands.

Through the years, however, I’ve learned things about my dad that I never knew when he was alive. I knew he was an honest man. I knew that he worked hard and provided for all of our needs, even if he couldn’t afford all of our wants. I never saw him drink a drop of alcohol, and I never heard him utter a curse word. What I wasn't aware of were the things he did for others when we weren't around. He did these things quietly, never advertising his good deeds. People told me about his secret life after he died.

When a co-worker died, Dad took a load of firewood to the widow and helped with some gardening and yard work. When my cousin went through a divorce and became a single mother to two little children, my dad helped her get situated in a new home and helped take the load off so she could focus on her kids.

I have to say that my dad lived an upright life, and he found his connection to Christ in doing what Jesus would have done.

Jesus told a "guy" parable that I think fits my dad in Matthew 21:28-31: "There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first and said, 'Son, go and work today in the vineyard.'

"'I will not,' he answered, but later changed his mind and went.

"Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered, 'I will sir,' but he did not go.

"Which of the two did what his father wanted?"

The point of the parable is this: Talk is cheap. It doesn't matter if you say you are a Christian or if you talk like a Christian or put on a good Christian face around the other saints at church. The real test is, do you really do what the Father wants?

I have come to the conclusion that it doesn't matter how I think my dad should have lived to gain salvation. What matters is: Did he do what the Father wants? And I can leave the answer to that question in the Father's hands.

We guys often feel closer to God when we are doing things that serve Him and help others.

I thank God that He meets us where we are, with our guy notions and all. I can be a Christian AND go four-wheeling. I can be a Christian AND build a hot rod. I can be a Christian AND shoot deer with my 500mm Nikon mounted on a gunstock.

I thank God that He knows me for who I am, and He crafts a spiritual life that is tailor-made for my unique personality and preferences.

Chuck Burkeen
Oregon Conference Associate Ministerial Director
Charles.Burkeen@oc.npuc.org
(503) 652-2225, ext.214