Well, it's one of those epiphany moments, kind of, if you know what I mean. Usually these happen in baths (Archmedes) or on the toilet (or on the toilet on the top of a building if you watch Scrubs - good telly if you like that kind of thing and I do) .
Anyway to the revelation. Our relationship to God is described in the Bible in a variety of ways one can 'be' so many things as far as God is concerned but two particularly notable things are Father - Son and Bride - Bridegroom.
God is our Father, it's all over both the New and the Old testaments in so many ways. We are his children, Sons in many places. He is our Daddy (Abba is Hebrew(or is it Aramaic?) for daddy - look it up in Galatians4:6).
The church as the Bride of Christ is simply everywhere in the New Testament, Jesus is often referred to as the Bridgroom all over the place too.
Here's the kicker.
With children the object of the game is to encourage self-reliance and eventually independence as the relationship, not to mention the child, grows older. A loving healthy parent-child relationship grows apart as it grows older - it's why there is something wrong about still living with your folks when you are thirty; how wrong depends on how much you are still depending on them.
With a marriage the object of the game is to grow together, to become more and more part of each other. I don't mean more dependent on each other but it does sort of come in to it. It's the whole intimacy thing. A couple that grow apart, who lose the intimacy that should grow between them as the years go by, is a sad thing to see.
Do you see the 'paradox'? The Parent-Child relationship of growing towards apart-ness and the Bride-Bridegroom relationship of growing towards Unity.
Wild huh?
for the more logical amonst us that's going to be hard to resolve. How can both be right?
I'll leave that to another post when I've got more time, until then think about it yourself.
Wednesday, 18 June 2008
Wednesday, 27 February 2008
A bit of a rant...
There's a school of thought among Christians that what God wants is a bunch of stuff and if you do the stuff He wants you get stuff in return. Blessings, miracles, answered prayers you know what I mean.
Sit in almost any church and, given time, you will hear a sermon or two or ten saying this exact thing. A leads to B, so for a specific B figure out the A, do it and you'll get the B you are looking for.
Name the blessing, good kids, good job, good wife/husband, money, what ever you like. There's the B, figure out the A, do it and the B is yours.
If it doesn't work out you must be doing it wrong, not enough of the right sort of A.
It's an awfully attractive system. You can be as 'holy' as you like for the B too. Lots of converts at the next evangelism event, good worship at the next church service, deliverance ministry, counselling, healings! That's a very popular one, loads of people choose that for the B.
Of course God has an escape clause, if it doesn't work out you were doing it wrong, or you were sinful and 'spoiled' it that way. Either way, if you didn't get the B you were looking for it's your fault. If you do happen to get the B the Praise the Lord! He delivers when you get it right!
Now, I want to go on record as saying the above paragraphs are, unequivocally, purest uncut baloney. "A crock" I believe is a blunt way of putting it.
The "A leads to B" mentality is a fatal, futile, fleshly load of rubbish. It reduces God to a sort of supernatural mall where everything is available for the right price. It's blasphemy of the most insidious and subtle kind. The antichrist couldn't produce anything more calculated to alienate God from His people than this little mental deathtrap. It's appalling. What's worse it's everywhere.
The appeal is that it appears to put you back in the driver's seat. You review what the Christian life is all about, you select the benefit you feel you need for now, you do the work and if it doesn't work out you take the blame. You, you, you, all the way. If anyone is bold or stupid enough to point this out to you you can accuse them of not wanting the best for you like God does and therefore they are being uncharitable or, worse, envious of the blessings God is pouring out upon you as a reward for all the hard work you've done for Him. See? Can you spot the lies?
It can be dressed up in all the theological, Scriptural, pastoral jargon you like, it's still wrong.
God doesn't make deals. NO ONE gets to tell God "Hey, I did all this stuff for you, now You Owe Me". God is God, He's in charge and you, well you are to do what you're told, period. You are clay.
There is no B. It's an illusion that some unscrupulous enemy sold you to distract you from the truth. The blessings, the miracles, the good wife/kids/car/career/salary, all of it is just stuff, spin off, froth. It's not the point, none of it is the point, anyone who thinks it is is either lying or incapable of seeing beyond the trough his snout is deep in to.
The point is much much straight forward. The point is God, period. Nothing else.
God created you to be friends with Him, well friends to begin with, then good friends, then lovers, married ones at that. It's simplistically put, I admit, but when you boil it all down it really is that simple. It's Love, huge, epic, passionate, personal, love. God LOVES you; and me.
All He's ever wanted is you, He even gave his own Son as a sacrifice in your place so that you and He could be together forever instead of apart for ever.
People dress it up for all sorts of reasons. Most of them misguided, some of them thoughtless, and some of them downright malignant; but it doesn't need dressing up really because it is obvious when you think about it.
It is scary though. Especially if you compare it romantically. A nice guy will give you flowers sometimes, the more extravagant will fill your place with roses or something, God on the other hand, well, have you ever visited Kew Gardens? Ask anyone there, they'll all tell you the same thing, no one knows how many species of flowers there are but it's a lot. A nice guy might take you to the movies, the extravagant one might book the entire cineplex, but God, well, how many breathtaking sunsets do you see every year? Thought so. A nice guy will buy you a ring, the extravangant one will certainly make sure the diamond is big enough to see, and if you are really lucky, too large to be swallowed whole by any animal smaller than say a guinea pig (that's a really big diamond actually, trust me on this). God on the other hand, spreads more diamonds than anyone can count out on a black velvet expanse that the whole world can see and no one can steal. Do you get the picture?
To paraphrase the Beatles: He loves you, yeah! yeah! yeah! And with a love like that, you know you should be glad.
Instead, we distrust it, we test it, we disbelieve it, and worse we are unfaithful to it. Loving and adoring all manner of things above and beyond the Love that manifests itself in every glorious hilltop and shines from every diamond drop of dew.
Yet, still He loves us. God doesn't give up on us, He chooses still to draw you to Himself, wipe away the tears, the grime, the shame and set you right there next to Him.
You can rebuff Him, turn Him down, ignore the gifts, the flowers, go your own way. While you live, God will try every day to win you back. But once you die, then you lose the option to choose to stay away from Him. You pass out of this world and in to eternity, where He lives. He will respect the last choice you make though, He won't keep you where you say you don't want to be. The problem is, there are only two places you can be in eternity; with God or, well it's called Hell you understand? It wasn't devised for humans, but there's only the two places you can go in Eternity and you get to choose which one you want to go to here in the real world.
Don't take too long making up your mind, you only have 70 years or so.
Sit in almost any church and, given time, you will hear a sermon or two or ten saying this exact thing. A leads to B, so for a specific B figure out the A, do it and you'll get the B you are looking for.
Name the blessing, good kids, good job, good wife/husband, money, what ever you like. There's the B, figure out the A, do it and the B is yours.
If it doesn't work out you must be doing it wrong, not enough of the right sort of A.
It's an awfully attractive system. You can be as 'holy' as you like for the B too. Lots of converts at the next evangelism event, good worship at the next church service, deliverance ministry, counselling, healings! That's a very popular one, loads of people choose that for the B.
Of course God has an escape clause, if it doesn't work out you were doing it wrong, or you were sinful and 'spoiled' it that way. Either way, if you didn't get the B you were looking for it's your fault. If you do happen to get the B the Praise the Lord! He delivers when you get it right!
Now, I want to go on record as saying the above paragraphs are, unequivocally, purest uncut baloney. "A crock" I believe is a blunt way of putting it.
The "A leads to B" mentality is a fatal, futile, fleshly load of rubbish. It reduces God to a sort of supernatural mall where everything is available for the right price. It's blasphemy of the most insidious and subtle kind. The antichrist couldn't produce anything more calculated to alienate God from His people than this little mental deathtrap. It's appalling. What's worse it's everywhere.
The appeal is that it appears to put you back in the driver's seat. You review what the Christian life is all about, you select the benefit you feel you need for now, you do the work and if it doesn't work out you take the blame. You, you, you, all the way. If anyone is bold or stupid enough to point this out to you you can accuse them of not wanting the best for you like God does and therefore they are being uncharitable or, worse, envious of the blessings God is pouring out upon you as a reward for all the hard work you've done for Him. See? Can you spot the lies?
It can be dressed up in all the theological, Scriptural, pastoral jargon you like, it's still wrong.
God doesn't make deals. NO ONE gets to tell God "Hey, I did all this stuff for you, now You Owe Me". God is God, He's in charge and you, well you are to do what you're told, period. You are clay.
There is no B. It's an illusion that some unscrupulous enemy sold you to distract you from the truth. The blessings, the miracles, the good wife/kids/car/career/salary, all of it is just stuff, spin off, froth. It's not the point, none of it is the point, anyone who thinks it is is either lying or incapable of seeing beyond the trough his snout is deep in to.
The point is much much straight forward. The point is God, period. Nothing else.
God created you to be friends with Him, well friends to begin with, then good friends, then lovers, married ones at that. It's simplistically put, I admit, but when you boil it all down it really is that simple. It's Love, huge, epic, passionate, personal, love. God LOVES you; and me.
All He's ever wanted is you, He even gave his own Son as a sacrifice in your place so that you and He could be together forever instead of apart for ever.
People dress it up for all sorts of reasons. Most of them misguided, some of them thoughtless, and some of them downright malignant; but it doesn't need dressing up really because it is obvious when you think about it.
It is scary though. Especially if you compare it romantically. A nice guy will give you flowers sometimes, the more extravagant will fill your place with roses or something, God on the other hand, well, have you ever visited Kew Gardens? Ask anyone there, they'll all tell you the same thing, no one knows how many species of flowers there are but it's a lot. A nice guy might take you to the movies, the extravagant one might book the entire cineplex, but God, well, how many breathtaking sunsets do you see every year? Thought so. A nice guy will buy you a ring, the extravangant one will certainly make sure the diamond is big enough to see, and if you are really lucky, too large to be swallowed whole by any animal smaller than say a guinea pig (that's a really big diamond actually, trust me on this). God on the other hand, spreads more diamonds than anyone can count out on a black velvet expanse that the whole world can see and no one can steal. Do you get the picture?
To paraphrase the Beatles: He loves you, yeah! yeah! yeah! And with a love like that, you know you should be glad.
Instead, we distrust it, we test it, we disbelieve it, and worse we are unfaithful to it. Loving and adoring all manner of things above and beyond the Love that manifests itself in every glorious hilltop and shines from every diamond drop of dew.
Yet, still He loves us. God doesn't give up on us, He chooses still to draw you to Himself, wipe away the tears, the grime, the shame and set you right there next to Him.
You can rebuff Him, turn Him down, ignore the gifts, the flowers, go your own way. While you live, God will try every day to win you back. But once you die, then you lose the option to choose to stay away from Him. You pass out of this world and in to eternity, where He lives. He will respect the last choice you make though, He won't keep you where you say you don't want to be. The problem is, there are only two places you can be in eternity; with God or, well it's called Hell you understand? It wasn't devised for humans, but there's only the two places you can go in Eternity and you get to choose which one you want to go to here in the real world.
Don't take too long making up your mind, you only have 70 years or so.
Monday, 25 February 2008
Commandment number 10 - Thou shalt not covet.
This is going to be a short one - I think. It's just a couple of things I've noticed whilst thinking about envy.
Covetousness is the last one on the big ten, it's by no means the least but something had to go last and envy got it. I wonder if there's a subtle pun in there, or even an unsubtle one. My mind seems to think there is but I can't for the life of me figure it out.
Anyway, covetousness, or to put it another way, envy.
It really is a stinker isn't it? If you look at it in even the least way objectively you can see it is an insidious, pervasive cancer to the soul. Envy is a sort of cousin to another out and out sin, Pride, but Pride is one of those hard to pin down things. Pride gets everywhere and taints everything it touches but is rather woolly when one tries to confront it. Pride will hide behind even quite noble motives and aspirations using excuses to temporise and misdirect one's attempts at humility, Pride will suck the life out of your soul with surprising ease and you'll probably not notice it doing it. Envy on the other hand is much more up front and in your face about itself. You can't mistake a pang of envy for anything else, it just shows up and tries real hard to push your face right in the dirt in front of whatever it is you are envying. "Why haven't you got one of those you stupid loser?" is the general thrust of an envy attack. It'll use pride and whatever else as additional lines of attack too, usually hitting the self esteem pretty hard too. Relationships suffer out of all proportion too, how can you love a neighbour if you are envious of his success, his material prosperity, or perhaps his hot looking wife? (Lust, yet another running dog to this versatile sin's repertoire). You let envy loose in your heart at your peril.
The other thing that occurs to me is how easily a bit of envy can corrupt a church.
Some moderately famous (in Christian circles) speaker comes to talk at church and in the talk refers to his home church in some way. It's membership (more than you get on a Sunday), it's ministry (bigger miracles than you've ever seen) or some record of service (they have a soup kitchen, say) is mentioned as an example of how God is blessing that speaker. It is the work of a moment for the enemy to slip in a couple of envious thoughts and suddenly (if those thoughts get to grow) you are on some slippery slope abandoning the current God-given program of growth for a vast array of wasteful, time consuming ostensibly useful short term programmes to match or exceed the wonder church's level of committment in some way. They have monthly prayer meetings we have weekly half nights of prayer. They have 1000 members, we have a redoubled evangelistic effort aimed at getting new bums on seats - at the expense of the home groups' carefully devised and prayerfully implemented to encourage and disciple our existing brothers and sisters. Give it some thought and I'll bet you can see just such a correlation - it might even be happening right now in your church. Oh, yes I'm sure the originators of the ideas didn't for a minute think they might be proposing these schemes out of any motive as base as Envy, no-no-no, the reasons seem a million miles away from that. It's any number of things before something as vile as Envy is mentioned.
Envy teaches us to despise the gifts of God in favour of some other unrealistic or unrealisable other goal. Don't look at what you've got, says Envy, look at what they've got over there; you'd like that here wouldn't you? The moment you say "Yes" you are in trouble.
The only positive thing to say about Envy is that it doesn't diguise itself, or there isn't much subtlety to the disguise (if any). Envy doesn't show up as anything other than what it is, a sin. Once you are aware of it's presence it's a pretty easy to confront and defeat. The hardest part of it is when it shows up apparently promoting good things such as the extra Bible study, the more prayer and quiet times I mentioned. Then it becomes a hard enemy to defeat because it can feel as if you are giving up something good for no good reason. The thing to remember then is that these apparently good things are not motivated by good reasons they are not rooted in your faith they are rooted in one's perception of one's inadequacy. Paul in Romans 14:23 is pretty blunt about this, "anything that does not come from faith is sin".
Covetousness is the last one on the big ten, it's by no means the least but something had to go last and envy got it. I wonder if there's a subtle pun in there, or even an unsubtle one. My mind seems to think there is but I can't for the life of me figure it out.
Anyway, covetousness, or to put it another way, envy.
It really is a stinker isn't it? If you look at it in even the least way objectively you can see it is an insidious, pervasive cancer to the soul. Envy is a sort of cousin to another out and out sin, Pride, but Pride is one of those hard to pin down things. Pride gets everywhere and taints everything it touches but is rather woolly when one tries to confront it. Pride will hide behind even quite noble motives and aspirations using excuses to temporise and misdirect one's attempts at humility, Pride will suck the life out of your soul with surprising ease and you'll probably not notice it doing it. Envy on the other hand is much more up front and in your face about itself. You can't mistake a pang of envy for anything else, it just shows up and tries real hard to push your face right in the dirt in front of whatever it is you are envying. "Why haven't you got one of those you stupid loser?" is the general thrust of an envy attack. It'll use pride and whatever else as additional lines of attack too, usually hitting the self esteem pretty hard too. Relationships suffer out of all proportion too, how can you love a neighbour if you are envious of his success, his material prosperity, or perhaps his hot looking wife? (Lust, yet another running dog to this versatile sin's repertoire). You let envy loose in your heart at your peril.
The other thing that occurs to me is how easily a bit of envy can corrupt a church.
Some moderately famous (in Christian circles) speaker comes to talk at church and in the talk refers to his home church in some way. It's membership (more than you get on a Sunday), it's ministry (bigger miracles than you've ever seen) or some record of service (they have a soup kitchen, say) is mentioned as an example of how God is blessing that speaker. It is the work of a moment for the enemy to slip in a couple of envious thoughts and suddenly (if those thoughts get to grow) you are on some slippery slope abandoning the current God-given program of growth for a vast array of wasteful, time consuming ostensibly useful short term programmes to match or exceed the wonder church's level of committment in some way. They have monthly prayer meetings we have weekly half nights of prayer. They have 1000 members, we have a redoubled evangelistic effort aimed at getting new bums on seats - at the expense of the home groups' carefully devised and prayerfully implemented to encourage and disciple our existing brothers and sisters. Give it some thought and I'll bet you can see just such a correlation - it might even be happening right now in your church. Oh, yes I'm sure the originators of the ideas didn't for a minute think they might be proposing these schemes out of any motive as base as Envy, no-no-no, the reasons seem a million miles away from that. It's any number of things before something as vile as Envy is mentioned.
Envy teaches us to despise the gifts of God in favour of some other unrealistic or unrealisable other goal. Don't look at what you've got, says Envy, look at what they've got over there; you'd like that here wouldn't you? The moment you say "Yes" you are in trouble.
The only positive thing to say about Envy is that it doesn't diguise itself, or there isn't much subtlety to the disguise (if any). Envy doesn't show up as anything other than what it is, a sin. Once you are aware of it's presence it's a pretty easy to confront and defeat. The hardest part of it is when it shows up apparently promoting good things such as the extra Bible study, the more prayer and quiet times I mentioned. Then it becomes a hard enemy to defeat because it can feel as if you are giving up something good for no good reason. The thing to remember then is that these apparently good things are not motivated by good reasons they are not rooted in your faith they are rooted in one's perception of one's inadequacy. Paul in Romans 14:23 is pretty blunt about this, "anything that does not come from faith is sin".
Monday, 18 February 2008
Stupid Electricity!
I'm having a lot of hassle with the house electricty at the moment. I hope I've found the problem and fixed it but I won't know for sure because even the fault appeared to be intermittent. It's so frustrating.
It's not entirely unsurprising.
I had a great prayer time on Sunday afternoon. I got a couple of things really sorted between me and God and when I got back to the house the whole world pretty much explodes. The electrical system goes on the fritz, I argue with my wife, the fishtank overflows. All in the space of a few hours and all within minutes of me arriving back in the house after a productive time with God.
Something like 18 hours of nuisance, inconvenience, heartache and stupidity (not all other people's, probably not at all other people's) hot on the heels of me and God sorting something fairly landmark out between us.
Don't tell me there isn't an enemy.
Oh yes it's easy to explain away all of it in hindsight. The electrical hassle turned out to be a kettle, old, worn out and now thrown out. The cause of the argument was not hard to spot either. I've known my wife for nearly twenty eight years now and there's not a lot that either of us don't know about the other, good and bad; this particular dust up followed a fairly well established path which led to a predictable outcome (we don't always follow the same pattern in our rows, we have some hope, but if you aren't looking or are distracted some other way it's terribly easy to fall into a pattern). It's just the timing which was so odd, so diabolically good.
I don't usually ascribe my own hassles to diabolical enemies, I do enough on my own I freely admit. But this one is just too pat.
It's a reminder. This is a war, here is not Heaven, and the enemy who has come to steal and kill and destroy is here looking for someone to devour.
I hope the new kettle works as well as the old one used to.
It's not entirely unsurprising.
I had a great prayer time on Sunday afternoon. I got a couple of things really sorted between me and God and when I got back to the house the whole world pretty much explodes. The electrical system goes on the fritz, I argue with my wife, the fishtank overflows. All in the space of a few hours and all within minutes of me arriving back in the house after a productive time with God.
Something like 18 hours of nuisance, inconvenience, heartache and stupidity (not all other people's, probably not at all other people's) hot on the heels of me and God sorting something fairly landmark out between us.
Don't tell me there isn't an enemy.
Oh yes it's easy to explain away all of it in hindsight. The electrical hassle turned out to be a kettle, old, worn out and now thrown out. The cause of the argument was not hard to spot either. I've known my wife for nearly twenty eight years now and there's not a lot that either of us don't know about the other, good and bad; this particular dust up followed a fairly well established path which led to a predictable outcome (we don't always follow the same pattern in our rows, we have some hope, but if you aren't looking or are distracted some other way it's terribly easy to fall into a pattern). It's just the timing which was so odd, so diabolically good.
I don't usually ascribe my own hassles to diabolical enemies, I do enough on my own I freely admit. But this one is just too pat.
It's a reminder. This is a war, here is not Heaven, and the enemy who has come to steal and kill and destroy is here looking for someone to devour.
I hope the new kettle works as well as the old one used to.
Thursday, 14 February 2008
Language, communication, telepathy and the other end of the transaction
Romans 1v20 - For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse (New King James version)
God speaks through creation to men. All men, me, you, (even, gasp! ... them). Yes, it's not actual words like the ones spoken, written down and printed like the Bible itself but it is communication, you can't deny that. Like a beautiful landscape or a great painting or a good movie. Ask any artist and they'll tell you that any work of art is a species of communication. It's not in the same league as the entire universe but it's definitely the same language.
I love the movie "It's a Wonderful Life", the finale always makes me smile so hard to avoid welling up and blubbing like a baby. I love stargazing on a clear night in the countryside. You can see more stars there and the view is, to me, quite simply breathtaking. I remember the first time I drove through Glen Coe in Scotland and my heart seemed to just swell inside my chest with the beauty. These experiences 'speak' to me and the voice I believe I hear is God's.
I say 'believe' but that's to allow a sceptical reader to keep reading. Yes, I'm looking at you; but not at you, you know what I'm talking about. Having made that one concession to the sceptical I'm going to carry on as if we all were believers. The sceptics now know I'm not to be trusted but can carry on because I respect them and their beliefs and the believers can smirk.
Kidding.
Anyway, God speaks, through creation. Loudly.
Now, the Bible. Scripture. It's The Word Of God. It's definitive and it says, pretty much, everything that needs to be said about God, Man, and the relationship between us. It says a lot (I have supernatural understatement abilities). I'm probably going to share a lot about what I think it says in the coming days but just now that's not my focus. I'll get to it soon, have patience, or faith.
In his book "On Writing", the writer Steven King says that writing is telepathy. Yes, really, telepathy. It goes like this:
I'm thinking of a room, it's about ten feet square, richly decorated in blues and greens. In the centre of the room there is a table and on that table there is a golden cage; inside the cage there is a parrot.
Now, as you read that, look at what's happening. I thought of some stuff, the room, the decorations, the table and the parrot and you read my thoughts. The thoughts came out of my head through my fingers onto the 'paper' and you read them where they turned into thoughts in your head. This even works across time and space, I'm writing this on Valentine's day 2008 and I live in the UK, you the reader can be anywhere else, anywhen after this point in time and you still pick up my thoughts from there and then. Telepathy. Who knew?
Of course some noise gets in to the process. You didn't pick up exactly what colours blue and green decorate the walls, the cage is golden but is it really gold, you don't know, I didn't tell you. You have to use your own brain to fill in the details to get a proper picture, but you can, and the basic idea is still there. You got the parrot, right? Pictures help of course, the old adage of a picture painting a thousand words would be easily true for my little telepathy exercise. I wouldn't have to tell you exactly which blue and green, for example, you'd see it and know instantly - but it's still got thinking room in it, can you hear music in the room for instance. But you still got the parrot, right?
Which is starting to get to the point. Communication. Language. It's thought transference via a medium - words and/or pictures for humans, words, pictures, planets and/or near numberless galaxies for God. But the actual thoughts engendered by the medium, the actual stuff you process is really up to you and your own imagination, what goes on inside your head is entirely out of my control once the thoughts (my thoughts) leave my mind they take on an existence independent of me and they are subject to your interpretation. My thoughts are not your thoughts and my parrot is not your parrot.
God is in a similar boat, albeit a better appointed one. He can speak, but how you interpret the thought thus transferred is up to you, how you react to those thoughts is up to you. That's what Free Will (and we'll look at that some other time) is all about. You have the choice to make about what your reactions are about the words you hear - however you hear them. If you allow me to tell you how you should react to, say, John 3:16 then what you have done is choose my words over God's words. It's not my problem, you did the choosing, you chose to react the way I told you to rather than reacting the way YOU (your soul, heart, inner you whatever) personally thought you should, but the CHOICE was yours.
Which is, paradoxically, why you need to think and read as much as you possibly can so that the choice you make (me or God, good or bad, kill or heal) is as informed as possible. You need to know as much as you possibly can about as much as possible so that the choice of reaction you make is as true to you as possible. Don't simply go with what others tell you, think about it for yourself because they (me too) might be wrong and, well the choice you might make could have huge consequences (or not, I'm sort of exaggerating here to make the point; you don't need to be a master chef to decide whether you want waffles this morning for breakfast for example).
And here, kind of, comes the point.
You might not have the whole picture, you might, but on the whole I'm betting not. I know that I don't always have the whole picture whch is why I tend to qualify everything I say. Whenever a human talks to another human there will be something missing, guaranteed, I know, I'm human. So I must think for myself when it comes to another human's communication and what I do with it. You will have to think for yourself when you get to the end of this and decide what your conclusions are.
Whenever God speaks you can be sure the whole picture is being given, but you must then be sure you've heard it all. The human factor in a God to human exchange is at the receiving end, me in my case. God speaks to me from scripture and from the whole creation. I can't 'listen' to just one because to do that is to ignore as much as half of the message - just how wrong do I want to be. It's wrong to say one supercedes the other either because that is to deny the other as being God's communication - do you want to tell God he was wasting his breath with the Milky Way galaxy? Thought not.
To not think for yourself, to not listen with your complete attention isn't just rude, it's potentially a terrible mistake.
Thank you for your patience.
God speaks through creation to men. All men, me, you, (even, gasp! ... them). Yes, it's not actual words like the ones spoken, written down and printed like the Bible itself but it is communication, you can't deny that. Like a beautiful landscape or a great painting or a good movie. Ask any artist and they'll tell you that any work of art is a species of communication. It's not in the same league as the entire universe but it's definitely the same language.
I love the movie "It's a Wonderful Life", the finale always makes me smile so hard to avoid welling up and blubbing like a baby. I love stargazing on a clear night in the countryside. You can see more stars there and the view is, to me, quite simply breathtaking. I remember the first time I drove through Glen Coe in Scotland and my heart seemed to just swell inside my chest with the beauty. These experiences 'speak' to me and the voice I believe I hear is God's.
I say 'believe' but that's to allow a sceptical reader to keep reading. Yes, I'm looking at you; but not at you, you know what I'm talking about. Having made that one concession to the sceptical I'm going to carry on as if we all were believers. The sceptics now know I'm not to be trusted but can carry on because I respect them and their beliefs and the believers can smirk.
Kidding.
Anyway, God speaks, through creation. Loudly.
Now, the Bible. Scripture. It's The Word Of God. It's definitive and it says, pretty much, everything that needs to be said about God, Man, and the relationship between us. It says a lot (I have supernatural understatement abilities). I'm probably going to share a lot about what I think it says in the coming days but just now that's not my focus. I'll get to it soon, have patience, or faith.
In his book "On Writing", the writer Steven King says that writing is telepathy. Yes, really, telepathy. It goes like this:
I'm thinking of a room, it's about ten feet square, richly decorated in blues and greens. In the centre of the room there is a table and on that table there is a golden cage; inside the cage there is a parrot.
Now, as you read that, look at what's happening. I thought of some stuff, the room, the decorations, the table and the parrot and you read my thoughts. The thoughts came out of my head through my fingers onto the 'paper' and you read them where they turned into thoughts in your head. This even works across time and space, I'm writing this on Valentine's day 2008 and I live in the UK, you the reader can be anywhere else, anywhen after this point in time and you still pick up my thoughts from there and then. Telepathy. Who knew?
Of course some noise gets in to the process. You didn't pick up exactly what colours blue and green decorate the walls, the cage is golden but is it really gold, you don't know, I didn't tell you. You have to use your own brain to fill in the details to get a proper picture, but you can, and the basic idea is still there. You got the parrot, right? Pictures help of course, the old adage of a picture painting a thousand words would be easily true for my little telepathy exercise. I wouldn't have to tell you exactly which blue and green, for example, you'd see it and know instantly - but it's still got thinking room in it, can you hear music in the room for instance. But you still got the parrot, right?
Which is starting to get to the point. Communication. Language. It's thought transference via a medium - words and/or pictures for humans, words, pictures, planets and/or near numberless galaxies for God. But the actual thoughts engendered by the medium, the actual stuff you process is really up to you and your own imagination, what goes on inside your head is entirely out of my control once the thoughts (my thoughts) leave my mind they take on an existence independent of me and they are subject to your interpretation. My thoughts are not your thoughts and my parrot is not your parrot.
God is in a similar boat, albeit a better appointed one. He can speak, but how you interpret the thought thus transferred is up to you, how you react to those thoughts is up to you. That's what Free Will (and we'll look at that some other time) is all about. You have the choice to make about what your reactions are about the words you hear - however you hear them. If you allow me to tell you how you should react to, say, John 3:16 then what you have done is choose my words over God's words. It's not my problem, you did the choosing, you chose to react the way I told you to rather than reacting the way YOU (your soul, heart, inner you whatever) personally thought you should, but the CHOICE was yours.
Which is, paradoxically, why you need to think and read as much as you possibly can so that the choice you make (me or God, good or bad, kill or heal) is as informed as possible. You need to know as much as you possibly can about as much as possible so that the choice of reaction you make is as true to you as possible. Don't simply go with what others tell you, think about it for yourself because they (me too) might be wrong and, well the choice you might make could have huge consequences (or not, I'm sort of exaggerating here to make the point; you don't need to be a master chef to decide whether you want waffles this morning for breakfast for example).
And here, kind of, comes the point.
You might not have the whole picture, you might, but on the whole I'm betting not. I know that I don't always have the whole picture whch is why I tend to qualify everything I say. Whenever a human talks to another human there will be something missing, guaranteed, I know, I'm human. So I must think for myself when it comes to another human's communication and what I do with it. You will have to think for yourself when you get to the end of this and decide what your conclusions are.
Whenever God speaks you can be sure the whole picture is being given, but you must then be sure you've heard it all. The human factor in a God to human exchange is at the receiving end, me in my case. God speaks to me from scripture and from the whole creation. I can't 'listen' to just one because to do that is to ignore as much as half of the message - just how wrong do I want to be. It's wrong to say one supercedes the other either because that is to deny the other as being God's communication - do you want to tell God he was wasting his breath with the Milky Way galaxy? Thought not.
To not think for yourself, to not listen with your complete attention isn't just rude, it's potentially a terrible mistake.
Thank you for your patience.
My first post!
Well, here we go.
This is my first post, what does it feel like?
It's a bit of a let down actually. But then again what was I expecting?
My main feeling is a string of questions.
What to post? When? What is going to be the theme of most of the content? How am I going to handle other people's criticism? Is this fun yet? Should it be? Am I looking for a fight? Do I want to cause an argument?
Lots of questions. I think over time all of these will be answered. It may even be fun.
I think I'll post more than once per day sometimes - This is going to be a repository of stuff that occurs to me and to get it down straight away preserves the spirit of the occurrence. Stuff is probably going to occur more than once per day.
So, for now, see you around. I'll keep you posted.
Oooh look! A pun! I like puns.
This is my first post, what does it feel like?
It's a bit of a let down actually. But then again what was I expecting?
My main feeling is a string of questions.
What to post? When? What is going to be the theme of most of the content? How am I going to handle other people's criticism? Is this fun yet? Should it be? Am I looking for a fight? Do I want to cause an argument?
Lots of questions. I think over time all of these will be answered. It may even be fun.
I think I'll post more than once per day sometimes - This is going to be a repository of stuff that occurs to me and to get it down straight away preserves the spirit of the occurrence. Stuff is probably going to occur more than once per day.
So, for now, see you around. I'll keep you posted.
Oooh look! A pun! I like puns.
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