Saturday, August 15, 2009

True North

North is just one of many points on the compass. Many of us have never given much consideration to the words, much less the concept of where north really is. I've always wanted to be able to understand what was around where I lived, so I started looking at maps as a very young boy. Even though I knew intuitively where north was, and knew its relationship to the other three major compass points, it took me several more years to realize the significance of True North.

The only north I knew about for most of my youth was magnetic north. I know now that it’s several hundred miles south of the north pole which is actually true north. Not only is it not in the same location as true north, but its location is continuously changing based on what is happening in the earth’s core. The significance of all that means is that it is impossible to accurately navigate with a magnetic compass unless you continually update where true north is with respect to your current compass reading. That was a really big deal before the days of GPS receivers. GPS is pretty good, but has its own problems at very high latitudes.

We have a very similar problem as we try to set our moral compass. There can be a lot of really bad reference points, and depending on where we are in life, the equivalent of true north may be very hard to find. For many years I had that very problem. I tried to set my moral compass with rules established by religion. The problem with that was that the rules changed so much from religion to religion. Not only does each one have a lot of rules, but between religions they may differ greatly, and in many cases are actually in conflict.

I was born into the Catholic religion, attended a non-denominational church for some time, then attended a Methodist church for a while. Not only did the rules change from religion to religion, it became painfully obvious that some contained half-truths or downright lies. I felt that the only thing all religions had in common was a heartfelt desire to control people. The rules seemed to change as necessary to accommodate changing leadership and membership. For me, they could not pass the snicker test. I was searching for true north and they kept presenting different versions of magnetic north.

The god I kept seeing was superficial, sometimes spiteful and often revengeful. Even that god seemed an afterthought compared to the rules. Religion just left a deep void within me. When I was around thirty years old just gave it all up. I found more peace on a walk in the woods, or a night at the eyepiece of a telescope.

Life was pretty good to me for the next twenty five years. Then one day while I was away on a business contract, my wife told me she had found a new church that she thought I’d really like and asked if I'd go with her next time I was home. "Sure," I answered.

A couple weeks later, we attended church in a movie theater. Something clicked. On the way out I told my wife that “these people get it”. They seemed to know the difference between God and religion. I didn't say it at the time, but I am now convinced that I had found the True North I had been searching for.

I have since figured out that for many people, religion is a verb. It is a set of man made rules meant to shape God into someone who will recognize and accept us. Wow! How backwards. The God of the universe wouldn’t recognize us unless we followed a bunch of man made rules? Preposterous! No wonder I never understood what religion was up to.

I now know that in order to enter into a covenant relationship with God, we must accept the fact that He loved us even before our inception; we were created for Him to love and for us to return that love. That’s a lot different than: Don’t eat meat on Friday, don’t dance with anyone, don’t take an alcoholic drink and whatever you do, don’t go bowling. Don’t, Don’t, Don’t. The man made list just goes on and on.

Don’t get me wrong. God gives us rules too. But if you examine them, they are similar to the rules we give our children. Our goal is to keep them safe, not control them for the sake of control. I believe God’s rules are much the same.

But He didn’t stop there. He sent Jesus into the world to teach us who God is. And after around three years of teaching us, Jesus went to the cross to relieve us of our sin problem so we would be pure enough for God to gather us to His infinite loving grace.

I finally understand that a relationship with God is so much more important than any religion could ever be. I know now that my irreconcilable differences with religion came within a hair’s breadth of costing me my salvation.

3 comments:

  1. Wow, that is beautiful ... it brings tears to my eyes as I read it. Thanks for the imagery. I don't think I will ever look at the "N" symbol without remembering God's goodness.

    Love you.

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  2. Great writing! So glad you finally found the True North. Our pastor actually did a series of sermons on the True North earlier this year.

    Love ya.

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  3. I love the way you put this in very practical terms. There are many people that are looking North unaware, as you were, that True North is what, WHO, they need. I'm thinking of those who believe there are many ways to God or think of life on a balance scale that if their good deeds outweigh their bad deeds in the end that they will "make it" to Heaven. Praise God that He is only a prayer away from those who are truly seeking Him, if they will only humble themselves and ask!

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