When “the universe” calls, let it go to voice mail
Tony Robbins recently made me laugh when he said, “Something in this universe expects you to become more. That’s why it feels so good when you become more.”
The universe expects something from me? What in the universe is Tony talking about? My parents expected me to eat my greens. My wife expects me home in time for dinner. My boss expects sales reports. My mayor expects taxes. I cannot, however, ever recall feeling an expectation from thistles, right angles, toasters, igneous rocks, or Neptune.
People expect, not the universe. A Who expects, not a What. When we lend personal attributes to something inanimate – five-dollar word alert – we anthropomorphize the thing. Now, anthropomorphism can be entertaining and even helpful, like lending human personalities to animals in books like the classic book Animal Farm by George Orwell or the Disney movie Cars. Fiction as entertainment is one thing, but fiction as reality is perilously something else.
So what exactly is Tony Robbins talking about? I don’t know him personally and want to be careful not to presume upon what he means by the universe expecting something from me, but as John Stonestreet from the Colorado Springs-based Colson Center says, “ideas have consequences and bad ideas have victims.” De-personalizing God into “the universe” is perilous because if, in fact, God has expectations of us as his creation (and he does), then we should learn about those expectations. The personal Creator God has expectations of me; the weeds in my flower bed, the Keyhole Route of Long’s Peak, and the red supergiant Betelgeuse do not.
Alternatively, maybe Tony is on to something worth considering, if perhaps not taken far enough. Maybe he is simply dropping breadcrumbs to the living God who has been “expecting more” from his image bearers through the ages.
The Apostle Paul faced a similar challenge when he visited the Areopagus, a giant outdoor theater in first century Athens, which were kind of like our TED talks. The Athenians at the Areopagus had a cultural strength in that they were an open-minded society that welcomed anybody to introduce a new idea or bit of news.
After waiting in line for his turn, Paul told the Athenians, “I see that you are extremely religious in every respect. For as I was passing through and observing the objects of your worship, I even found an altar on which was inscribed: ‘To an Unknown God.’” Maybe I’m hearing an echo in Tony Robbin’s point.
Believing in another god was no problem for the first-century Athenian, much like today. What could get you in trouble was holding out god A as stronger, prettier, or nobler, than god B or, even worse, that god A was true, and god B was false. Them were fightin’ words, and for many even today, them’s fightin’ words in our secularized culture where many bend over backwards to accommodate religious pluralism.
The problem – and it’s a big one – is that the God of the Bible is a Who, not merely a What and he wants to be respected as a Who. There are plenty of What’s that describe me – I’m a man, a citizen, a father, a husband, a taxpayer, and the rest. But in the course of getting to know me, if you seem to be avoiding me as Rob, the real person who loves fly fishing, Buckeyes football, dining with my wife at Teocalli Cocina, and playing kitchen with my daughters when they were young, then I’m wondering not about any problem you have my What, but with my Who.
“The Universe” evokes power and teases the idea of personhood and connecting with the human soul, but stops short of the real thing – the real Who.
There are plenty of What’s about God – his creation of fishing, leather, asteroids, and taste buds. But in the course of getting to know God, if we confuse the Who-ness of our Father in heaven with his What-ness through vague anthropomorphisms of “the universe” and the like, then we not only offend God, but we fail to appreciate the God who reveals himself as our Creator who is for us, not against us, and whose “steadfast love endures forever.”
