"Enoch walked faithfully with God; then he was no more, because God took him away." -- Genesis 5:24

         "The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth."

         Scot McKnight has written a new book on the subject of conversion. I have not read it, but I ordered one. So this is a good time for me to talk about it, to ensure that what he actually says does not get in the way of my preconceived ideas and opinions. The one-paragraph summary of it that I read indicates that one chapter deals with people who have had a conversion experience and become believers in Christ, and then over time leave the faith. Apparently he says that the research indicates that this leaving the Christian faith happens when what one comes to know about the world or comes to experience in life becomes distant from the message of the Bible and one's personal faith. So when the distance between faith and one's personal experience and knowledge becomes too great, some people leave the faith.

         I am glad he is writing on this subject. I have been concerned about it for some years now, really since college. A lot of my own generation that grew up in the faith did not continue in it, and that pattern has held and even increased as the years have gone by.

         What is it that causes a pattern of distance from God to take place in people's lives? I think there are many factors that contribute to this widening distance from faith that people often experience.

One cause certainly is what people are taught in their education at high schools and universities, and how that body of knowledge is translated into the popular culture through movies and music and ideas that just seem to take hold. What people are taught can create distance with what they have previously believed.

Another factor is the effect of moral behavior on faith. As more and more of the traditional sins and vices become acceptable in the wider culture, people tend to pull away from their faith and from the church. Immoral sexual behavior, drunkenness, gambling, and dishonesty all can have the effect of lessening a person's ability to continue a close relationship with God. Sin not only has physical and emotional risks, but spiritual ones too. It is like sin casts a shadow over the soul.

But another factor I thought of that contributes to this distancing of our experience from our faith is the increasing speed of life. Feeling distant from God or at odds with the teachings of faith is not new. But past generations dealt with these times in ways that do not work as well in our rushed and pressured lives. For instance, we say that to keep close to God it is important to have a "quiet time" each day, a time to pray and read the Word. That gets increasingly difficult to do as your world goes faster and faster and you try to pack more and more in to each day.

In past times the week long camp meeting, the Bible conference or the intentional spiritual retreat could be scheduled into every summer. These were significant times of renewal. It gets hard to make those commitments for extended time away with God any more.

So, the rhythm of life has changed. In so many of the older testimonies I have read, people reflected on times of extended recuperation from disease or injury, when in the quietness the Lord would speak to the soul in profound ways. I have also read the experience of those who worked on a farm, kneeling behind a haystack for a "season of prayer." In the unhurried unburdening of the soul to God there came an experience of closeness and renewal. It is hard to imagine having a "season of prayer" when your BlackBerry is playing a tune, the line of emails is growing in the inbox, and various other technological wonders urgently call for your attention.

I worry that we grow distant from our sustaining faith because of our fast pace and overstimulation. But the Gospel of John says that "The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us." God is the one who acts to close the gap.

We begin with Enoch, who walked with God. One translation has "walked faithfully with God" and another "walked in accord with God." This comes after sin has intruded and spoiled the relationship found in the garden. Still there is the "likeness" of God that gets passed on generation to generation. So Enoch lives out of his likeness to God, he behaves in accord with who he was created to be. He does not give in to sin, but consciously forms his life around "walking" with God.

We know all too well, that in addition to likeness to God, we also carry a tendency to wander, a willful "chasing after" other gods. So walking with God is an intentional response. Walking with God is more than living a moral life; it is in fact dwelling with God. It is responding to God, agreeing with God, and living in God's will.

In Christ, the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. He walked with us. He has made God known. God moves our way when we sense distance between us. Leon Morris writes that for the Greeks, the Logos, the Word, was the rational principle of the universe, the soul of the universe, the creative energy that brought all things to being, and the force that permeated and directed all things. But it was always seen as something impersonal and detached from people. John says that the Logos is God who is passionately involved in our lives, God who moves to where we are, God who takes human nature upon himself, God who wins our salvation even out of his agony. Morris writes that "For John, the Word is not a principle, but a Living Being and source of life." Then John stops using the word "Logos" and simply goes on in the rest of his Gospel to tell us about Jesus.

Jesus is the Word of God who took on flesh for our salvation. He "lived for a while among us." Actually it says he "pitched his tent" among us. That reminds us of the tent of meeting, the tabernacle that Israel carried with them in the wilderness. There God was present, and (Exodus 40:34) "the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle." God in the flesh of Jesus came to earth to pitch his tent among us, to move to where our wandering souls had gone, so that we were distant, lost and alone. He found us in the cross, and has not left us since.

Last week I went with the furniture team. We filled the truck and then went to two apartments. At the first place, a woman met us in the driveway. "This is the happiest day of my life," she said. We went upstairs. She did not have a single chair, or a table or a bed. She lived in an empty apartment. I thought about what that would be like.

The second stop was similar, except here the woman had five children. Again, we walked into the apartment, and there was no sofa for them to sit on, no table so they could eat together, no beds for them to sleep on. "This is the happiest day of my life," she said. Why? Because, while she had shelter, now she had a place to truly be at home. This was now a place where she could actually dwell. I thought about what it means to me that Christ now dwells in my life, that he has brought love and faith and hope to a heart that without him would surely be cold and empty.

To one of the women we brought a couch that had a big floral pattern printed on it. We all rolled our eyes when we loaded it, and hoped it would be received graciously. It had not been in place a minute when Mark walked by with a chair and heard her talking on the phone; "I love my flowered couch," she said. It did not take long to bring life to an empty space. When Christ dwells in us, he brings new life patterns that may not be the choice of our culture, but patterns that lead us to joy in the Kingdom.

There are indeed many factors today that push people to feel distant from God. You may find yourself there. Whatever has caused the gap, in Christ God moves across it and dwells with us.

"Hallelujah, what a savior. Hallelujah, what a friend. Saving, helping, keeping, loving, he is with me to the end."

         Amen.