God, Father Time and Righteous Bazookas

If this comes across as the disjointed stream of consciousness of an overly introspective college kid, it’s because it is. It at least started out that way.

Being a Bible major, I have my various thoughts and theories about Christianity that I would love to shoot all over the place with my figurative righteous bazooka, but I try to keep my more abrasive theories to myself so as to not offend or disturb the unity of the body and all that jazz. I, however, cannot keep this theory to myself and maintain my own sanity any longer.

For a while, I didn’t think that I believed God could do much of anything. I had concentrated my concept of the omnipotent, omniscient, omni-present Creator of the universe to nothing more than pulp-free scholarly classes and a 30-minute devo, which I slept through every day.

I should clarify what I am talking about regarding this scholarly approach to God. I am not attacking the pursuit of understanding Greek and informed criticism of the Bible. I do not mean to attack the way in which Harding teaches the Bible. I do not mean to give another worn out speech against my required attendance of chapel.

ryan hicks

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Every argument I have heard about these things is redundant, and I would not waste your time. I am speaking about an idea that had exploded on my mind and lodged its propaganda-laced shrapnel into my thoughts. This terrible idea is that God is nothing more than an impotent old man. I wouldn’t have ever said that in so many words, but my total unreliance on God spoke volumes. Because I took a passive approach to my relationship with God, I was starting to believe that he didn’t really do anything anymore. I read about a God who laid the foundations of the earth, who parted a sea and who made a donkey speak. But for some reason when it came to taking the everyday burdens and stresses in my life to God, I assumed that God does not work in these little details. I didn’t realize that I was limiting

I didn’t realize that I was limiting God’s power to something that I could quantify and understand. I am not sure what crack in my theology Satan slipped this lie through, but it had found its way in nonetheless.

God’s power to something that I could quantify and understand. I am not sure what crack in my theology Satan slipped this lie through, but it had found its way in nonetheless. My Bible classes only made things worse. My thoughts about God were starting to be pushed into the mundane by all of my class work. I’m not saying that Bible classes are a bad thing. I am saying that there is something awkward about them. They are a painfully academic study of something that exists on a supernatural plane. They are what they are, and because

Quirks Cited

Did I tell you about the time my father rolled my bedroom? While I was asleep in it? I guess I was about 8 or 9 years old. I woke up one morning to get ready for school and found myself surrounded by a sea of white. Strands of Charmin were dangling from the light fixtures, wrapped around the bedposts, taped to the walls and piled upon the floor. I could not get out of bed without breaking this two-ply cage my father had created. To this day I have no idea how I slept through his redecorating, and on top of that, he TP’d my sister’s room the same night. Beth and I thought it was hilarious. Mom made him bag up the toilet paper and use it.

I wish every child could have a father who has a streak of mischief. For two years in a row now, I have almost tricked my nephew into throwing away his Christmas present. Each year he’s asked for a video game that costs about $50. In 2009, I hid it in a falsebottomed box that contained a pair of socks on top. He opened the present, said, “Seriously?” and tossed the box aside. Last year I created a gift bag with a false side. His game was behind the hidden panel, and I put a heavy package of his favorite candy in the rest of the sack so that he wouldn’t notice the extra weight. Punked again.

Ingenious, you say? Well, I can’t really take the credit since I learned from the master of “not what it seems” gift giving, my dad. I can’t tell you how many times we’ve had to dig through the Glad trash bags on Christmas morning because Dad said, “You didn’t find all the money.”

This is the man who drives a block out of the way to park where there’s a puddle on the passenger’s side. This is the man who once made me freak out before a school awards show. As the owner of a printing company,

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I learned from the master of “not what it seems” gift giving, my dad. I can’t tell you how many times we’ve had to dig through the Glad trash bags on Christmas morning because Dad said, “You didn’t find all the money.” he often volunteered to print programs for our high school plays and other functions. Every year we had an academic award night, and he printed the materials for that as well. The program always listed all of the students who were receiving awards, so one year my father printed 10 extra copies that had my name in red. Then he handed me one as a “sample.” My face turned the same shade as the ink he had used, since I thought all the programs were that way.

I can’t even remember all the funny things he’s said over the years. As he has been battling Alzheimer’s, I’ve been amazed that his sense of humor has remained intact, even as other communication efforts have not. He’s constantly joshing me about the fact that I’m not as thin as I once was. Last year he was commenting on this when the phone rang. Without missing a beat, Dad said, “Can you waddle over and get that?”

I did not inspect my attitude toward these classes, my ideas about God were lumped into the same category as my ideas about grammar or history. So there I was, settled into my complacent way of thought, following a God that I didn’t believe did anything. I started thinking of alternatives to going into ministry. I think I landed on trucker/street performer. At this point I started to realize just how I had been stiff-arming God’s attempts to be involved in my life. I also began looking at how little prayer was involved in my life. Prayer has elevated my relationship with God to a level of trust that I never knew existed before. God will open up your world through prayer if you let him.

I’m not creative enough to come up with a story to synthesize my spiritual growth throughout that experience, but I’m sure it would take place on a beach and involve the appropriate amount of sand dollars and footprints in the sand.

He’s even funny when he doesn’t mean to be. Last month my sister-in-law took him for a long drive one afternoon. After he had been in the car for a while, he looked around and saw no one else there but the two of them. So he asked, “Does my wife know about us?” Even after a heart attack and devastating stroke two weeks ago, he had us laughing. One morning he woke up in the hospital and looked at me. I had been up most of the night, and he said, “Is that the way you’re gonna look from now on?”

The late comedian Red Skelton used to close his show by saying what a joy it was to try to make people laugh. He would say, “If perhaps some day you’re not feeling well, and you remember some silly little thing that I’ve said or done, and it brings a smile to your face and a chuckle to your heart, then my purpose as your clown has been fulfilled.”

Since I tell my students to document their sources, this is my Works Cited: If you’ve had a smile at any of my columns during the last five years, Dad deserves a lot of the credit. A whimsical sense of humor is one of his many gifts to his children, and I’m happy just to pass along some of the fun. Thank you to the Bison staff and to the Harding community for your kind thoughts for my dad. He faces difficult days ahead, but I’m sure he’ll meet them with a lot of prayer and a dose of wit.

j.m. adkison