Walking wounded?
In the book, A Long Time Gone by Ishmael Beah, Beah recalls his life as a ‘boy soldier’ in the mid 1990’s during Sierra Leone’s civil war and writes of how as a child of 13 he would fight gruesome battles while high on cocaine and marijuana in which he would feel no pain from the gunshot wounds in his body. It was not until later that he would realize his own injury and start to feel the pain.
In a similar fashion, many of us go throughout the day as wounded people who do not realize our own injuries and festering scars. They may start to show their effects when we are tired or stressed, or when triggers come such as a certain word spoken to us, or event that befalls us.
For instance, how many of us have made a pledge or promise as a reaction against some painful event—without realizing the deep and enduring effect of the pledge? “I’ll never let a man hurt me like that again”—which can lead to a lifetime of trouble with intimacy with a spouse. “I’ll make mom proud of me someday”—and one’s family wonders where one’s desperate, destructive drive comes from. Similarly, sometimes that which is wounding us isn’t so much a pledge as a misguided belief like: “God is perpetually angry with me and disappointed in me”—which leads to searches for self-esteem in all places other than the loving Creator.
In the 11:11 am Faith Infusion service we’ll be dealing with several key causes of such walking wounds, but you can also gain some great help today by asking the loving, heavenly God whom Christ referred to as “our Father” to show you pledges you’ve made or misguided belief’s you’ve held that are causing you to be perpetually injured and without the health Christ has waiting for you. Ask for a change of mind and heart, and receive as a gift—actively, willfully, perpetually receive--the healing of God’s Spirit within you!
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Sunday, May 1, 2011
Thursday, February 17, 2011
What’s God saying to me????
Some years ago I developed a little list of questions to ask when I am seeking God’s insight or action on a particular issue. It will assuredly make its way back into a sermon soon, but I’ll share some of the insights here to give us a head start in understanding God’s will.
1. Am I actually talking to God about my issue / request, or am I just fretting? (There’s a difference!)
2. Do I believe God is listening and answering? (It’s my choice to believe it.)
3. Has God already told me something I need to do that would somehow relate to my situation and prayer? (Quite often we’re choosing to ignore the obvious input God’s already given.)
4. Is it possible that I, or others, might be better off in the long-run if God answered my prayer differently than what I desire? (When we really believe in eternal life, then our perspective on what God’s answers and actions should be radically changes.)
5. Is my current situation a ‘natural’ result of free decisions I, or other people, have made? (Often the ‘why did God do that!?’ question might be answered, ‘It’s not God’s fault.’)
6. Would answering it my way demand that God override someone else’s free-will actions and decisions? (Something God often, or perhaps always, is not willing to do.)
7. Is my prayer consistent with God’s love and ultimate will for us? (Remember, God’s goal is our eternal life not our momentary comfort.)
8. Have I prayed for wisdom to understand how God is answering my prayer? (Just as children sometimes don’t understand their parents’ wise decisions, so we too may need God to explain the answers to us!)
1. Am I actually talking to God about my issue / request, or am I just fretting? (There’s a difference!)
2. Do I believe God is listening and answering? (It’s my choice to believe it.)
3. Has God already told me something I need to do that would somehow relate to my situation and prayer? (Quite often we’re choosing to ignore the obvious input God’s already given.)
4. Is it possible that I, or others, might be better off in the long-run if God answered my prayer differently than what I desire? (When we really believe in eternal life, then our perspective on what God’s answers and actions should be radically changes.)
5. Is my current situation a ‘natural’ result of free decisions I, or other people, have made? (Often the ‘why did God do that!?’ question might be answered, ‘It’s not God’s fault.’)
6. Would answering it my way demand that God override someone else’s free-will actions and decisions? (Something God often, or perhaps always, is not willing to do.)
7. Is my prayer consistent with God’s love and ultimate will for us? (Remember, God’s goal is our eternal life not our momentary comfort.)
8. Have I prayed for wisdom to understand how God is answering my prayer? (Just as children sometimes don’t understand their parents’ wise decisions, so we too may need God to explain the answers to us!)
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Epistemic Distance
In my own humble opinion, the part of the worldview of a Christian could be summarized in these three statements that follow, that then result in the problem that is listed below:
1) God wants to be in a good, direct, loving relationship with humans.
2) Humans have hurt this possibility by sinning against God and going their own, selfish way.
3) God is now reaching out to humans to restore the relationship.
Problem: Humans still, in spite of God’s efforts to reach out and make the effort of reconciliation, have a difficult time hearing from God, believing in God, understanding God, following God, and so on.
Explanation: Epistemic Distance. One might think that an all-loving and all-powerful God would be able to make it perfectly clear to humans what that God is like, what that God wants us to do, how we can reconcile the relationship, and so on, and that upon making these things very clear humans would therefore choose to follow God, love each other, and the world would be a beautiful place. However, several factors make this not the case.
1) God is non-created; but Humans are created by God. This means there’s a huge difference (distance) between what we can know (epistemology) and what God can know. There’s an epistemic distance between us and God, and our understanding will always be incomplete.
2) God is perfectly loving; but we have to overcome sinful tendencies to perfectly love. There’s an epistemic distance here as well, that we cause to be greater and greater the more we choose to give in to sin. We can know God’s love less and less the more we move away from God by giving in to sin.
3) God is providing evidence of God’s love, will, existence, etc.; but humans determine their receptivity of these things by their own desire and decisions. A biblical example is found in Exodus, when the Israelites witnessed many miracles first-hand and received direct communication from God in the form of specific laws, then chose to reject God and build a golden calf to worship!
So, God does make tremendous efforts to reduce the epistemic distance and offers us the power to reduce the distance on our end, but our ability to grow close to God is also dependent upon us having the desire to do our part to reduce that distance on our end—by accepting God’s graceful offer of reconciliation through Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit, by accepting our state as humbly dependent on God, by avoiding sin, and by reaching out in love through prayer and worship. Then we may know more fully God’s love and grace!
1) God wants to be in a good, direct, loving relationship with humans.
2) Humans have hurt this possibility by sinning against God and going their own, selfish way.
3) God is now reaching out to humans to restore the relationship.
Problem: Humans still, in spite of God’s efforts to reach out and make the effort of reconciliation, have a difficult time hearing from God, believing in God, understanding God, following God, and so on.
Explanation: Epistemic Distance. One might think that an all-loving and all-powerful God would be able to make it perfectly clear to humans what that God is like, what that God wants us to do, how we can reconcile the relationship, and so on, and that upon making these things very clear humans would therefore choose to follow God, love each other, and the world would be a beautiful place. However, several factors make this not the case.
1) God is non-created; but Humans are created by God. This means there’s a huge difference (distance) between what we can know (epistemology) and what God can know. There’s an epistemic distance between us and God, and our understanding will always be incomplete.
2) God is perfectly loving; but we have to overcome sinful tendencies to perfectly love. There’s an epistemic distance here as well, that we cause to be greater and greater the more we choose to give in to sin. We can know God’s love less and less the more we move away from God by giving in to sin.
3) God is providing evidence of God’s love, will, existence, etc.; but humans determine their receptivity of these things by their own desire and decisions. A biblical example is found in Exodus, when the Israelites witnessed many miracles first-hand and received direct communication from God in the form of specific laws, then chose to reject God and build a golden calf to worship!
So, God does make tremendous efforts to reduce the epistemic distance and offers us the power to reduce the distance on our end, but our ability to grow close to God is also dependent upon us having the desire to do our part to reduce that distance on our end—by accepting God’s graceful offer of reconciliation through Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit, by accepting our state as humbly dependent on God, by avoiding sin, and by reaching out in love through prayer and worship. Then we may know more fully God’s love and grace!
Supernatural Encounter While Reading the Bible
That title sounds a bit like a supermarket tabloid headline, doesn’t it? Many people I’ve talked to are interested in hearing from God and interested in having a supernatural encounter with God but do not testify to such an experience happening in their reading of Scripture. One author who has tried to address this unfulfilled longing is Robert Mulholland, a professor who has spent his life studying how people interact with the Lord. Here are some tips and insights from his book, Shaped By The Word:
“You are the ‘victim’ of a lifelong, educationally enhanced learning mode that establishes you as the controlling power (reader) who seeks to master a body of information (text) that can be used by you (technique, method, model) to advance your own purposes,” (p. 19). Yet, in reading the Bible we want to do the opposite—we want God to be the controlling power who communicates back to us in ways consistent with God’s loving purposes and plan.
So instead, when reading the Bible he recommends: 1. “Listen for God to speak to you in and through, around and within, over and behind and out front of everything that you read. Keep asking yourself, ‘What is God seeking to say to me in all of this?” 2. Respond to what you read” with your heart and spirit,” rather than only your intellect and reason. 3. Constantly pause to hear from God, reading to know and understand God better. 4. As you’re reading, examine yourself to see how you relate to the characters in the Bible, listening for God’s communication to you, and thoughtfully “act on what God communicates.”
Many of us deeply long for God to communicate to us but overlook one of the main tools of God’s communication because we treat that mode of communication like we would any other book. Hopefully as we attempt Mulholland’s other suggested method (which is congruent with many of the ancient Christian teachers and missionaries) we will have more frequent and more personal communication from the Lord!
“You are the ‘victim’ of a lifelong, educationally enhanced learning mode that establishes you as the controlling power (reader) who seeks to master a body of information (text) that can be used by you (technique, method, model) to advance your own purposes,” (p. 19). Yet, in reading the Bible we want to do the opposite—we want God to be the controlling power who communicates back to us in ways consistent with God’s loving purposes and plan.
So instead, when reading the Bible he recommends: 1. “Listen for God to speak to you in and through, around and within, over and behind and out front of everything that you read. Keep asking yourself, ‘What is God seeking to say to me in all of this?” 2. Respond to what you read” with your heart and spirit,” rather than only your intellect and reason. 3. Constantly pause to hear from God, reading to know and understand God better. 4. As you’re reading, examine yourself to see how you relate to the characters in the Bible, listening for God’s communication to you, and thoughtfully “act on what God communicates.”
Many of us deeply long for God to communicate to us but overlook one of the main tools of God’s communication because we treat that mode of communication like we would any other book. Hopefully as we attempt Mulholland’s other suggested method (which is congruent with many of the ancient Christian teachers and missionaries) we will have more frequent and more personal communication from the Lord!
Immanuel: God WITH Us
Matthew 1:22-24 (New International Version) 22 All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: 23 “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” (which means “God with us”).
Jesus Christ is Immanuel, God with us…
Not just “above us,” even though he rules the universe...
Not just “more powerful than us,” even though by him all things were created…
Not just “better than us,” even though he was like us in all temptation but did not sin…
Not just “loves us,” even though he is the epitome of love…
Not just “forgives us,” even though his death and resurrection gives us access to forgiveness…
Not just “judges us,” even though he holds our eternal future in His hands…
But WITH us…by His Spirit he’s there with you when you’re ecstatically joyful and agonizingly suicidal, with you when you need him and when you mistakenly think you don’t, with you when you’re listening to him and when you’re ignoring him, he sees you when you’re sleeping, he knows when you’re awake, he knows when you’ve been bad or good so call on the Holy Spirit of Christ for goodness sake!
Jesus Christ is Immanuel, God with us…
Not just “above us,” even though he rules the universe...
Not just “more powerful than us,” even though by him all things were created…
Not just “better than us,” even though he was like us in all temptation but did not sin…
Not just “loves us,” even though he is the epitome of love…
Not just “forgives us,” even though his death and resurrection gives us access to forgiveness…
Not just “judges us,” even though he holds our eternal future in His hands…
But WITH us…by His Spirit he’s there with you when you’re ecstatically joyful and agonizingly suicidal, with you when you need him and when you mistakenly think you don’t, with you when you’re listening to him and when you’re ignoring him, he sees you when you’re sleeping, he knows when you’re awake, he knows when you’ve been bad or good so call on the Holy Spirit of Christ for goodness sake!
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