Zero Gravitas

~Reprinted and Updated from My Shibboleth Blog (June 2012)

I don’t believe in gravity.  Yeah, yeah…I know there is evidence of it all around us.  For instance, all my stuff somehow stays anchored to the floor and doesn’t float around the house like a NASA space mission.  Leaves fall from the tree and everything that goes up eventually comes down.  Nevertheless, I simply don’t believe in it.  It’s too “confining”.  Besides, I’ve always believed I can fly.  In fact, after I finish writing this blog I’m going to climb up on the roof of my house and jump off.  How many want to wager a bet that I won’t splat on the ground?  Ok…just kidding or JK as my kids would text.  The gravity analogy was just a mental exercise.  My point?  Just because you don’t believe in something does not mean the consequences will be any different for you.

Here’s a couple of other things to consider.  We need gravity.  We wouldn’t be able to exist without gravity.  Gravity is the glue the holds the entire world together.  Without it, everything would go flying into outer space as the Earth rotates.  We all would be able to literally “fly”.  However, let me assure you, we would not enjoy the trip. 

I think God gets a bad rap sometimes.  We read the prophetic judgments of the Old Testament and equate it with someone throwing a massive celestial “hissy fit”.  Sometimes I’d really rather skip those sections and go straight to the love and forgiveness part.  However, they are there for a reason. 

Before I had kids, I don’t think I understood the concept of “God the Father” very well.  Soon after becoming a parent this became very real to me.  Sometimes you have to be harsh to get your point across.  My son is a master of persuasion. I sincerely pray he uses this skill to advance good causes later on in life.  For now, he wields it on his parents when he wants to do something we would normally not allow.  It’s gotten to the point where I over-exaggerate my answers so we don’t have to go the entire nine rounds of verbal jousting anymore.  The conversation looks something like this:

Mommmmmm….Why can’t I go (fill in the blank with any number of dangerous, unwise choices).  

My answer:  “Because you will get hit by a truck”. 

Of course, I don’t WANT this to happen.  It would be a parent’s worst nightmare.  God, our Father, is basically saying the same thing.  When He says “Repent—or else”, it is not a vicious threat.  It is an allegorical shorthand that we must sit up and take notice of.  His unchangeable moral laws are a necessary component of living in an earthly realm where there MUST be definite principles.  If we eschew these laws our society will eventually implode.  This is a historical fact.  We need to give these moral laws more gravitas…more weight.

As a nation we need to wake up and renew a commitment to our Judeo-Christian foundation…Or else the United States is about to get hit by the proverbial truck.

No, seriously.

_________________________________________________

~Posted by permission of Pastor Jeffrey N. Daly

Pastor Jeffrey N. Daly is the author of Repentance—God’s Strategy to Bless a Nation and Zeal to Repent!—A Key to Personal and National Restoration 

–Both are available for FREE at The National Day of Repentance website: www.dayofrepentance.org

or by emailing him at

jdalylaw@aol.com