Posts Tagged: curiosity
“WHAT IS REALLY STRANGE”
DTEB, “WHAT IS REALLY STRANGE”
Some of us at the meeting this morning decided to walk from the church to the restaurant where we have our after-meeting. There had been a lot of rain, and as we were walking through a shopping center parking lot, we saw a strange sight.
“Look!” one of the guys exclaimed. He was pointing at something in a very shallow puddle of water. It was small, but was moving too fast for any of us to tell what it was. I thought it might be a very small snake. One of the other guys thought it was a tadpole. (He was probably right.)
We stared at it for what seemed a long time, until somebody said, “That is really strange.”
However, one of the men in the group said, “No! What is strange is four guys standing in a parking lot staring at a water puddle.”
The spell was broken, we laughed, and moved on.
Strange things abound in our world. The really strange thing is when humans notice those strange things.
There was a man tending a flock of sheep in a fairly barren area. Apparently, he was starved for entertainment, so he noticed things. But things rarely got weird. One day, they got very weird indeed.
He noticed a bush on fire. No big deal. He had seen that before. But he stared a little longer and furrowed his brow. Something was strange here: The bush was on fire, but it wasn’t burning up! He decided to go over for a closer look.
4 “When the LORD saw Moses coming to take a closer look, God called to him from the middle of the bush, ‘Moses! Moses!’ ‘Here I am!’ Moses replied.
5 ‘Do not come any closer,’ the LORD warned. ‘Take off your sandals, for you are standing on holy ground.’ (Exodus 3:4-5, New Living Translation)
Apparently, the LORD speaking to Moses was closely related to the fact that Moses turned aside to see the bush. It wasn’t the burning bush itself that led to the call of Moses to lead the children of Israel out of Egypt. It was Moses’ curiosity. It would seem that God likes people to be curious, at least, under certain conditions.
Now, obviously, curiosity isn’t always a good thing. It can, in fact, be fatal. But the mere fact that something can be wrong does not mean that it is always a bad thing. (Sex and lots of other things come to mind at this point.) In fact the worst bad things are usually very good things, that have been terribly twisted.
Moses likely regretted his curiosity a thousand times. Getting the children of Israel out of slavery was not a cake walk. And once God had, through Moses, gotten the people out of Egypt, there was the matter of getting them into the Promised Land. The fact of the matter is that the people he had helped bring out of Egypt nearly drove the poor man (and God) crazy. (Read Exodus through Deuteronomy for further details.)
Nevertheless, the truth is this: Whether the Israelites knew it or not, whether Moses liked it or not, it was Moses’ curiosity that ended up being transformative.
I don’t know if our curiosity this morning about some life form in a parking lot puddle will ever be as transformational as Moses’ curiosity before a burning bush in the desert. However, I suspect that the ministry of curious noticing was good for us. And perhaps the really strange thing is that we don’t notice more strange things.
Let’s notice a few strange things today and every day. Who knows? It might be the beginning of freedom for ourselves and others. It might lead to a life-transforming encounter with God.
MOSES, GOD, AND THE BURNING BUSH: CURIOSITY, REVERENCE, AND SURRENDERING TO OBEDIENCE
It might seem as if the words in the title of this post have nothing to do with one another. However, there is a story that has all of these components: the story of Moses and the burning bush. The story is found in Exodus 3-4 in the Bible.
Moses had been adopted in the court of Pharaoh, King of Egypt. (You might say that he had a “court-appointed” guardian, but you would only make such a bad pun if you have my particular brand of humor. For your sake, as well as for the sake of those around you, I hope that you don’t!)
Moses eventually got on the bad side of the king because Moses killed one of the king’s low-level officials. Kings don’t like it when someone murders one of their officials. Moses ran for his life.
Eventually, he got into the d.p.p. (desert protection program), which was a bit like the witness protection program. He assumed the identity of a shepherd in the Sinai Desert.
It was while he was taking care of the sheep that belonged to his father-in-law that Moses encountered a strange phenomenon: a bush that burned, but did not burn up. (See Exodus 3-4 for further details.)
Apparently, there wasn’t a lot of excitement in the desert. No t v, no Facebook or Twitter—in fact, no internet access at all! So, Moses decided that a burning bush that didn’t burn up was worth a look-see.
Moses didn’t hear the voice of God until he yielded to his curiosity. The biblical story is very clear about that. “When the LORD saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush . . .” (Exodus 3:4). Apparently, one of the conditions for hearing the voice of God is curiosity.
But as soon as the LORD God saw that Moses was curious, God decided to take him to another level: reverence. “Don’t come any closer! Take off your sandals. The ground you are standing on is holy ground.”
Curiosity without reverence swiftly becomes irreverence. The difference between holy curiosity and garden-variety nosiness is the fear of the LORD. I’m afraid that I am often more curious than reverent. In fact, I would hazard a guess that this is true of our entire culture. Curiosity can lead to deep insight and profound growth. It can even lead to a life-changing life’s calling. Such a life-calling can transform our own lives and can, as with Moses, lead to the transformation of others. Many a transforming liberator has begun his difficult and unwilling journey by being curious, but the journey is continued and energized by reverence.
But then, comes the really hard part: obedience. Moses struggled with that one—a lot! In the face of God’s sending Moses back to Egypt, Moses tried to wiggle out of God’s call. Moses presented one excuse after another, until finally even the All-Patient One lost his patience with Moses.
But, in the end, Moses obeyed. And while postponed obedience is disobedience, when we finally do obey, it is still obedience. It’s not pretty, but it is obedience.
Curiosity, reverence, and obedience: They may not be the Holy Trinity, but they are important.
Laughter Clubs
Have you ever heard of “laughter clubs?” I hadn’t until this morning.
It began with curiosity, as most wonderful things do. “‘This is amazing,’ Moses said to himself. ‘Why isn’t that bush burning up? I must go see it.’” The woman-who-was-no-longer-at-the-well said to her neighbors, “Come and see a man who told me everything I ever did! Could he possibly be the Messiah?”
I was curious as to what feelings or emotions really are. This curiosity was not academic. I’ve been struggling with all kinds of emotions here of late, especially feelings of depression.
Plus, last night at work, I had a bad spell physically. For the first two hours, I was feeling fine. We weren’t all that busy, but I had several customers. But then, I suddenly got very short of breath and flushed, dizzy, and sick at my stomach. I clocked out early, and drove home the back way so as not to encounter a lot of traffic. I drove very slowly, and did not sideswipe anyone, though I’m sure I weaved a bit, and no doubt irritated a lot of drivers behind me. (I pulled off whenever I could, in order to let them go around me. Fortunately, it was too dark for me to detect any rude gestures.)
Feeling depressed is a serious matter. Feeling bad physically isn’t exactly pleasant either. A cocktail of the two is especially toxic. I still felt bad this morning. I say again that my curiosity was not academic. It was intensely practical.
I ended up at the following web site: http://www.laughteronlineuniversity.com/feelings-vs-emotions/, accessed 12-16-2016. Since the author of this site mentioned that fact that he had been interviewed on NPR, I then went there to read their summary of the interview with him. (If you would like to do the same, go to: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6641178, accessed 12-16-2016.)
This is how I found out about laughter clubs—clubs where people get together to do laughing exercises. Just thinking about this, I got to laughing so hard that I was afraid that I would awaken my wife. The very idea! Laughing clubs! Really?!?
And, as inexplicably as it came, the depression was gone.
Anybody want to join my club? There are no dues. The only requirement is to be willing to laugh. You don’t even have to mean it.
DOWN TO EARTH BELIEVER
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