I don’t ever remember living in a world that I did not know God exists.  As a child, my grandmother strategically handed me the bible when she learned of my excitement for reading.  I read to her during stormy days and watched her as she read from the same copy in quiet moments.

As I grew older, it was a natural progression to give my life to the Lord.  In the Baptist Church where I was raised, there must be a profession of your own personal faith.  This is acknowledged when you consent to the baptismal process, as I did at an early age.  I am analytical by nature.  Raised as an only child, I had a lot of time on my hands in which to think.  We were taught to never question our elders, so I secretly questioned the phrase which came after your profession which is you are now Saved.  I loved English and writing as I do today.  Words are very impactful to me.  I often rejected the terminology as I felt it trivial in regards to the act of surrendering ones self to God.

What the definition of the word “saved” was to me, made light of my understanding of the magnitude of a God relationship.  Anyone can be saved from anything and by anybody.  Is not a drowning individual saved by the person that pulls them from the water?  Is not the person whose friend intervenes with good advice saved from their own poor decisions?  And in either of those situations is the recipient of such acts of kindness “required” to love the individual that assisted them? No, they are not.

I always looked at being saved as the outer perimeter of life that Keanu Reeves was rescued from when he portrayed Neo in the Matrix franchise.  He didn’t initially love or respect the operative that rescued him.  He was inquisitive that there was something more than what the world was presenting and wanted to be rescued from the retribution that world eventually brought him.  Sound familiar?

It is our love for God that makes us seek being near Him.  Seek His being more than a get out of hell free card that we use at the end of life.  I feel the problems most Christians have with their faith is that they have trivialized the intimacy with God that is available to all who ask.  In times like these, it is not just important to acknowledge that we exist.  It is import to know why we exist.  Not just why the black race exists or the white race but why YOU, a specific combination of X and Y Chromosome from your parents was allowed to exist.  Conception does not happen during every act of intimacy so what specifically was God thinking the night, day, afternoon or evening conception between two specific individuals known as your parents was allowed to happen? Are we brave enough to ask the question and act on the answers it brings?

I don’t feel it will be enough to get to heaven and say I made it!, which salvation allows.  I think our arrival will be met with the question, What were you made for? In Exodus 33, Moses is in the mist of a monumental task freeing the Children of Israel.  His conversation with God is not about being happy that they made it out.  In verse 13, he says to God,….”if I have found grace in thy site, shew me now thy way, that I may KNOW thee…” That’s what comes from a love relationship.  We want to know that individual and we want them to help us to see ourselves.  As we know we do not use the full capacity of the brain God gave us, should we be comfortable with the notion of being saved? Or can our time be better spent asking God, in 2020, this question:  With so much death and destruction all around us, how do I open myself to become more than just the beneficiary of your son Jesus’ death?