Protecting God

My experience of life outgrew my understanding of God. Pure and simple. At some point, I was overcome by the realization that the God I was raised worshiping could not handle the complexities of real life. He was perfectly fit to deal with lollipops, candy canes and sugar plums, but avalanches, wildfires, and tsunamis He was not. Literally and metaphorically. What’s odd about this realization is not its ridiculous nature but my response to this realization. The next few years I shifted into a defensive posture. I became protective of God, like an older brother watching out for his diminutive little sister who couldn’t hold her weight on the school playground. And this posture eventually seemed odd to me. Why did God need defending? Who was I really protecting?
[re]Understanding prayer page 4-5

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The Other Side

I’ve had this experience in life where what I perceive to be real was in fact not real at all. Some of these experiences have been spiritual in nature because they pertain to how I’ve understood God, or rather misunderstood God; how I’ve understood scripture, or rather misunderstood scripture; how I’ve understood the nature of prayer, or rather misunderstood the nature of prayer. When God, scripture, and prayer create 98% of your worldview, you can imagine how jarring it can feel to have someone or something come along and tilt the axis on which your world has spun for more than 30 years. At times the jolt is so overwhelming that I choose not to accept it and simply continue along my merry way. It may be truth, but truth is not welcome when it comes to such a high price. The hollow cavity it creates in the pit of my stomach cannot be worth whatever awaits on the other side, or so I tell myself. And that works for a while . . . . .
[re]Understanding prayer page 3-4

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Prayer -- Way of Life

Henri Nouwen said that when prayer becomes a way of life for you, it does not mean that you think about God in contrast to thinking about other things, or that you spend time with God instead of spending time with other people. Rather, it means to think and live in the presence of God. As soon as we begin to divide our thoughts into thoughts about God and thoughts about people and events, we remove Him from our daily life and put him in a pious little niche where we can think pious thoughts and experience pious feelings.
[Re]Understanding prayer, page 100

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God's Grace at Work

It’s possible to learn to recognize the myriad ways that God touches us outside of that which is openly spiritual and we can share these moments with others. God touches us through painful growth experiences of loss and grief, through moments of creative and athletic excellence, through moments of victory over our problems and through the tenderness of relationships. God’s grace falls on the just the unjust alike. All of humanity experiences God’s hand. These moments when we touch something eternal and noble and good are God’s footprints in our lives – his prevenient grace. People need to realize that the God they feel they do not know has, in fact, been at work already in their lives in many ways.
The Shaping of Things To Come, Page 105

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Who Do Men Say We Are?

In the second century, Diogenetus wrote of the fledgling Christian community in the following way:

They dwell in their country, but simply as sojourners. As citizens, they share in all things as if foreigners. Every foreign land is to them as their native country and every country of their birth as a land of strangers. They marry, as do all others; they beget children; but they do not destroy their offspring. They have a common table, but not a common bed. They are in the flash, but do not live after the flash. They pass their days on earth, but they are citizens of heaven. They obey prescribed laws, and at the same time surpass the laws by their lives. They love all men, and are persecuted by all. They are unknown and condemned; they are put to death and restored to life. They are poor, yet make many are rich; they are in lack of all things and yet abound in all; they are dishonored and yet in their very dishonor are glorified. They are evil spoken of, and yet are justified; they are reviled and blast; they are insulted, and repay the insult with honor; they do good, yet are punished as evil doors. When punished they rejoice as if quicken into life; they are assailed by the Jews as foreigners and are persecuted by the Greeks; yet those who hate them are unable to assign any reason for their hatred.

Do people say this of us as we sit in our beautiful structures, watching a well choreographed presentation, seeing yet never being asked to question or even to speak. Watching, alone in our own thoughts, knowing the pain that dwells deep within our being.

Who do men say we are?

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A Billabong

A billabong is an Australian term for a pond or lake that was once part of the bend of a river or creek but which has been cut off from the flow as the river slowly changed direction. Many 2nd or 3rd generation Christians find themselves in a church billabong. Where once their parents or grandparents were part of a church that was like a flowing stream, now they are trapped in a stagnant backwater. Growing up Christian, they have adopted a middle-class perspective and embraced a certain way of doing church. Their motivation for staying in the church is no longer to fulfill Christ's mission in this world, but to have their own needs met.
Page 85-86 The Shaping of Things to Come

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Submit to One Another

In our power structure based culture the thought of submitting to one another normally evokes thoughts of position and control. But, what if the command to submit to one another is simply an exortation from God to allow ourselves to be willing to receive a helping hand from a fellow traveler on the journey of faith? Can we truly allow another believer to 'bear our burderns' if we do not open ourselves up and allow him access to the depths of our being?

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What If?

What if this is what Christianity was meant to be?A radical, almost extreme commitment to the faith; a deep desire to create community; a longing for a worship that emphasizes the otherness of God’s transcendence, yet the healing power of God’s presence; a ministry not based on programs but on transformed lives; a commitment to rebuild the cities of the world and establish a presence of the kingdom that changes neighborhoods. Page 47

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Submission

Submission is a very interesting biblical term and in our cultural hermeneutic it is often interpreted as an issue of power, where one is to submit, be under the authority of another. A very popular usage of this term in some circles occurs in the command for a wife to submit to her husband. However, what if it is not a power term but is instead a relational term. What if believers were to have the 'mind of Christ' and in so doing be willing to do whatever it takes to bring health to a relationship, the body? This interpretation would allow for the possibility that all believers are to submit to one-another.

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Oyster and the Pearl

I wondered about oysters and pearls...I wondered if oysters ever got used to the irritant that caused the pearl. Not being an oyster, but realizing that they keep covering up the irritant to make it more acceptable to live with, made me realize, that when God doesn't remove an irritant, we can 'cover' it to make it more acceptable...We ARE supposed to be gems in His crown aren't we? The gates of the Holy City are going to be massive pearls.... anyway....
Irritants can be lodged in our body, our heart, and our soul....The question is...what are we covering our irritants with? I think...if we cover them with love, prayers, hope, kindness...that we will create a beautiful pearl...one of great value...

I suppose the oyster could allow the irritant to make him/her irritable...which would be fruitless...as that does nothing to remove the irritant....

Anyway...for those things that are irritants in your life today...may they all become Pearls of Great Price.

A Fellow Traveler

Cristianity & Institution

The heart of our Christian faith is a personal, intimate relationship with God and with the Children of God? What happens to this relationship of mutual care and submission to one-another when it is to function within an institutional setting? If institutions are a manifestation of relational cultural norms and if the cultural norm is structured around power and authority, then what happens when believers enter into that setting and give tacit approval of the relational cultural norms? Would this limit the ability and desire for a believer to move up in the system if it would mean that they have to take on more of the structrural norms of power? Why is the question, 'Who is in control?' so significant in settings where our greatest desire is to be the greatest servant?

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The Gospel

What is the Gospel
What if we have missed the heart of the Gospel. What if the essential element of the Gospel is that mankind lives a life of total separation from personal relationship with God and we have been given the task of telling men and women that God has made a provision by the death of His Son in order that they can be born anew into the family of God?
What if Pascal was right in his diagnosis of the core element mankind seeks after? "Years ago Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) insightfully said, "There is a God shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God the Creator, made known by Jesus Christ.""
Do we tell people by our relationships that we are a part of God's community, God's family and we are inviting people to join us in His family?
Can we effectively demonstrate our faith by our love for God and for one-another? If not, what is the message we are really telling the world?
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