The topic of salvation sprang up at small group and I threw out a blank question, "What do you guys think salvation is all about?" Really, I expected someone to say something, but instead we were all engulfed in an inpenetratable silence. I looked up at the ceiling and said, "Oh boy..." Finally someone said, "Does it mean we're saved?" "Uh-huh. What does it mean, though, to be 'saved'?" Another: "Forgiveness." "Yeah, forgiveness is a part of it, but it's so much more than that. Forgiveness paved the way for this." "So we can go to heaven?" A friend laughed: "Sunday school answers." I kind of looked at them all with a face not unlike that of a racoon caught in headlights.

It's amazing, isn't it? We will sing songs in church, thanking God for salvation, yet we can't define what salvation is. We will talk to our friends about being saved, but God be with us if our friends ask what being saved is all about. How would you define being saved? What would you define it as? The most common answer is: forgiven of our sin. But yet that's only a part of what true salvation really is.

Salvation is simply us being friends with God; it is us being able to interact with God. Salvation is entering into a new reality, a truer reality, one where God consumes us, lives in us, lives with us. It is when we are pulled into God's story, given an acting role. Salvation itself is made up of many parts, not the least of which is forgiveness and life transformation. It is because of salvation that such arenas of life as prayer and fasting, meditation and work, worship and humility take on new meaning. If we say salvation is just being forgiven of our sins, I think we've all but completely missed the boat; we're barely holding on to an oar.