"Sometimes I lie awake at night and I ask where have I gone wrong? Then a voice says to me - This is going to take more than one night... In the Book of life, the answers aren't in the back."...Charlie Brown
Friday, November 21, 2014
"Visualization..........................."
The “Faith Meets World” link on my sidebar connects me with a friend recently encountered over the Internet, a place where his thoughts encourage discussion concerning Biblical matters and the two of thus far fairly close in our theology. He lives in England. His denominational preference is yet unknown to me and, in truth, doesn’t matter to this old man. We talk “of” Christ, “in” Christ, and “seek” Christ as a Resurrection still leading us in this journey we have undertaken. His latest post, however, has me searching, both the Book and the Spirit’s influence, in how to respond to the subject brought forth. Is God “fear”, or is He “love”? Should we simply scrap the image that comes to us via the Old Testament and replace them with New Testament verses that express His character in much more attractive terms? For me, it’s not so much whether the Creator “is” any particular attribute (How can we separate Him into individual units of anything?), but rather how He is “to be received” by us in so far as any relationship attempted in this life as it comes to us. There are those who think Him “evil”, in the sense that natural disasters occur, seemingly with His consent. Hitlers, serial killers, and child molesters are cancers, not divinely eradicated, but brought to judgment only in as much as we, ourselves, attack the disease. The question, therefore, as I see it, becomes “How has He been taught to us by the Church and by those who claim membership within the faith”, for all we possess other than that is what our environment, our culture, and our history has reinforced in our brain. When Rob suggests that the Old Testament portrait of God is not there to tell us what He is like, but “to show us that this is how we humans, in our fallen, damaged, fearful state, see God”, projecting “our fears onto him and assuming that he is angry and to be feared”; and thus, in believing such lie, “we actually keep ourselves locked into that fear-filled condition”, I personally find him “right on the mark”, but ask myself why it is so. There most certainly is that aspect of the Father which is to be held in reverence, a knowledge of Him that recognizes Him in all His potential; but there is also the possibility of our gaining “merger”, if only temporarily, wherein we might also be convinced that we are, indeed, His children, able to come unto Him just as we are if we will but surrender all into His arms…….
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"but ask myself why it is so"
ReplyDeleteYou know how it is when someone sends us a text or email and the message we glean from it is very much dependent on our particular mood at that particular time. Sometimes, the message is so misconstrued that we reply to a meaning that wasn't intended and before you know it world war III has broken out.
Or it makes me think of a friend at work who woke up with a huge zit-like thing under one eyebrow. She said it was this monstrous thing that everybody was staring at and yet, I hadn't even noticed it until she mentioned it.
WWIII is one reason why I like Rob's site thus far. There have been no such occasions, he and those there seemingly, like me, simply in pursuit of truth and willing to investigate it from others' perspectives without feeling like one's own reasoning is under assault. I had a friend text me this morning about something I said on Facebook concerning a verse in Romans. We disagree about a few things, yet remain good friends. "Noticing the zit", in terms of being awakened to what chapter and verse might mean, can be a good thing if people can but control their own vanity and explore together as one with HIs Spirit.....
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