Wrestles with God

(what are we about that has eternity written on it?)

these are the days of names…Rick, Bill, and Joyce
the days of mega church cells leaving the institutional church
and these are the days of book blogging gatherings
and purpose driven prophetic words emerging

and night is coming…

the days are fading away.

night is coming…

things seen in the light of the day- will they shine in the dark?

There are many things which happen in this world which can’t be explained through the reason and logic of this world.

This is not so strange since most of us can not really explain how the world started with 100% certainty or indeed how/why we came into being ourselves. Unsurprisingly we find out that many other things beyond our understanding happen in this world.

For myself I have opted for the rather easy route of believing in God. This solves all the problems associated with ‘luck’ or ‘coincidence’ and in my head and my heart I can put it down to faith in God.

So what miracles do I want to talk about other than the miracle of life itself. Well I have been so overwhelmed by God recently that I have to show it in writing for if I don’t I feel I may forget how completely stunned, amazed, dumbfounded, ludicrously happy, shocked and surprised I am with miracles.

A small aside is that an interesting twist on the above emotions is that I also felt guilty, very undeserving, humbled, greed and fear.

On to what miracles I’m on about. Well I’ll give you ones throughout my life just so you realise that this sort of thing doesn’t just happen once.

Age of 9 – Prayed that a teacher wouldn’t get cross that I hadn’t done my project (he was normally quite strict). He was in fact very kind and considerate.

Age of 19 – Prayed that Cardiff would accept me even though I missed their offer by one grade. I now have a 2.1 (yeah baby) from Cardiff.

Age of 20 – Asked God if he would give me some friends I could trust if I was to follow him, I can safely say I have friends I would trust my life with.

Age of 23 – Started to join in prayers about the possibility of a nephew, since my brother and his wife couldn’t seem to have kids. They now have two.

Age of 25 – Prayed about job – became a volunteer.

Age of 27 – Asked God where I would get the money for an MSc. Cheques totalling £6,000 came literally through the letter box a month before I started. (Tuition and rent for the year was £7,500)

Age of 28 – Asked God where I would get a car since mine just died. God has given me a car for free, which is even better than the last one.

I have only given the highlights but needless to say there are many more miracles or at least mini-miracles which I have witnessed or been part of. The odd thing is, my faith you would of thought would be like that of an apostle but it really isn’t. I have my doubts and worries and my family will certainly tell you I’m less than perfect, so why me?

I have no answer to that except to say – “Praise God, Praise God and more Praises to God” (also noted that saying this while dancing around with an enormous smile on my face)

~

P.s. I’m going to starting a discussion topic about miracles if you want to speak of any since it is less formal than writing an article.

Are you proud to be a Christian? Do you ever feel embarrassed by Christianity, and feel disturbed that it might be nonsense? I certainly do on occasion. A sermon I heard recently claimed that, once you’ve resisted the devil for the first time, he may tempt you again but will never fundamentally challenge your relationship with God. Well, either I’ve not resisted him for the first time, or that’s absolutely false. I often question the foundations of my faith. But as a result, I often spot new rays of hope, such as the one I’m writing about.

I was walking round Baltimore harbour the other weekend, wondering glumly what Christianity has in its favour. Then I realised that there was a way of thinking about it that’s quite positive, and which I don’t normally think about. I’m usually thinking from within Christianity, worrying about the things it says about God and humanity. Or I’m thinking from within atheism or agnosticism, thinking about how these views attack and question Christianity.

But what about another point of view: ask the question, “What does Christianity ‘do’ to God?” In other words, step outside thinking from within Christianity for a moment, but don’t go as far as committing oneself to an opposing view. Just look at the concept of God, and the concepts of Christianity, and ask how Christianity deals with, modifies, and operates on the idea of ‘God.’

What does Christianity do to God? When I think about it like this, I realise that Christianity is quite exciting, because it does all the sorts of things to God that I find attractive, the things I feel desperately need doing to ‘God’.

Firstly, it makes God into a human. Not totally; Christianity doesn’t claim that Jesus is only a human, or simply God wrapped in a human-skin rug (“Why are you wearing that stupid man suit?” as Frank the Rabbit from Donny Darko might say). But still, it takes ‘God’ – a distant, all-powerful, terrifying concept – and makes him comprehensible, touchable, near. He has taken on flesh. He knows how we feel, and feels it himself.

Next, amazingly, it kills God. Many people see this as scandalous, once it’s taken out of its familiar setting in Christianity. Christians are shocked when Phillip Pullman kills God in ‘His Dark Materials’; but the God there is almost relieved to die. Christians are shocked when Russell T. Davies poisons the Son of God in ‘The Second Coming’; but his girlfriend in that drama feels that she’s doing the right thing, killing God for all the mess he’s caused.

I don’t want to criticise Christians for being upset by these modern writers, as there is something very dark about what they’re doing. But equally, we should realise that Christianity, seeing it as an ‘operator’ for a moment instead of committing ourselves to its truth, does the same thing to God. We could say that, when people wish that God was dead, they may be wishing something wicked, but nevertheless their wish is jiving with Christianity, which kills God. Christianity says that the Son of God has died, shouldering all that is wrong with the world. All the things we (wrongly) blame God for – injustice, suffering, wrongdoing – are pinned on him (or him on them) at the cross with which Christianity kills him. Christianity doesn’t rejoice in killing him – it sees it as a tragedy – but kill him it does, and sees that as universally important. Perhaps Pullman isn’t as far from the kingdom of God as he’d like to be.

Finally, we may wish that God would take the blame for our terrible world, we may wish to kill him… but then what? Do we really want to live in a world without him? Where can we get a sufficient yardstick for good behaviour, for what we should do with our lives? Where can we get any affirmation for our belief that love is real, that reason is reliable, that choice is not an illusion? How can we beat the answer that Ted Hughes’ crow gives to almost every question as to who is strongest – death? (The fact that crow thinks he’s stronger still doesn’t really help us – it may be true at the womb-door, but not at death’s door).

Christianity does another thing I approve of to God here. It brings him back. It raises Jesus from the dead. He bears all of the darkness, and overcomes it. A God made human, made to share the bitterness of our darkness, nevertheless survives and is glorified. This is good news – Christianity has made ‘God’ into something that is truly sympathetic, but still far above us and deserving of our worship, devotion and life, and giving us hope of a life raised up with his.

The ‘God’ that many people hate is indeed a God in a very ugly form. Christianity does a lot to this ‘God’, and changes his shape in a very attractive way. A billion questions are left about whether the resulting ‘God’ is good – but I can’t fault the directions in which Christianity shapes him. Perhaps after this exercise I, with you, can now re-enter the mentality of commitment and relationship to this God, no longer seen as a concept to be operated on by a set of concepts, but as the one true God who has not been changed by Christianity, but who has engendered it as a true description of who he is and what he is like. Perhaps, after all, I am proud to be a Christian.

What is so miraculous about the name of Jesus?

How did this name we say become so, so life-giving?
Like described in Acts 4:12 for example;

Furthermore, there is no salvation in anyone else, for there is not another name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must get saved.

In a sense are all our names faithful? Depending on who puts faith in us when they say our names? Like family, or friends?

It is a simple name, yes but what makes it miraculous? As it is described in Acts (4:12 and 2:38.)?

God, you made some amazing stuff. The snow shows everything in a new light, but it’s amazing all the time.

Gravity, wind, photons dappling my carpet. My iris, my fingernail, human relationships. You made them.

You must love intricacy.

Why is there so much of everything?
And so little time.

Please let me live long enough to see some more.

You made the people in my life, you made the idea of people.

What can I understand of you?
That you, too, are people?
How? In what way?

Let me see your iris and I will understand.
But no, I’m scared. I take that back.

Can I see your fingernail?
Can I watch your forehead frown in amusement at me?

Do you love me? And why?

Why can I give so little of myself to you,
when my self is so much, and you are so interesting?

So complex. So many thoughts there must be in your head.
So many expressions sharing the wrinkles around your eyes.
So many people in your hands.

Why can I give so little of myself to you?

Why do you tolerate that?

How did you make light?

How do you feel right now?

I was chatting to a student yesterday who introduced me to the concept of buying ready-done pancake mix. I found this funny and curious – to me, it seems strange to buy this rather than the easy and cheap task of mixing the few ingredients. But it got me thinking – what does this say about our culture, if anything?

I’ve had a few thoughts which I haven’t had time to develop:

– This could be considered iconic of where we are in the West. Instead of pancakes signifying using up even basic ingredients so that one can fast and concentrate on God, they’re now a commodity for the consumer. I hardly ever fast myself, and I don’t offer this as a criticism, really – I just think it’s an interesting example of where our society is.

– I also find myself thinking about the distancing of people from food ingredients. This student says he doesn’t really know how to cook – he’d have to phone his parents for a recipe. And anyway, he doesn’t buy milk, eggs, flour as part of his diet – pancakes and their ingredients really are an oddity to him; he has to buy them specially, so why not the ready-made mix?

I see this as the second stage in a distancing from ingredients:

* The first stage is our modern distancing from how ingredients are produced. I’m not used to killing animals, or seeing them killed; I’m not used to the processes of sowing, harvesting and processing.

* The second stage is a distancing from the ingredients themselves. What are pancakes made of? No idea, I’ll buy the mix ready-done. How is bread made? No idea, I’ll buy a loaf. How do you make a curry? No need to know – I’ll get a ready-meal. This stage is less-developed in me and many people, but it exists. Will we just eat flavoured lozenges in 3000AD?

– On the other hand, hey, don’t you wish you could make perfect pancakes? With a hint of blueberry? Let’s get down to Tescos for some ready-made mix…

We should all ban the “Jerry Springer – the Opera” because it is blasphemous.

We should ban gay marriage.

We should ban abortion.

We should all think the same things.

Everyone in the country should bend to our will.

I thought we were supposed to be building relationship with our loving personal father God, but it appears that we are actually a censorship pressure group.

The problem is I don’t agree with everything you think is right. For example, I think the media should be largely free to show what it wants, and I feel my opinion comes out of my Christian faith, just as much as you feel that a belief in censorship does. Who is right? I don’t know, but please don’t make me and people like me feel like outsiders just because we disagree with you. There are lots of us, but we don’t shout so loud.

We don’t live in a Christian society – there aren’t any Christian societies any more. So we have to re-evaluate how we approach things: we can’t over-rule the majority with these opinions just because God told us it was so. We need to persuade, not rule, and the most important thing we need to persuade people of is the fact that God exists and is worth listening to, not the specifics of what we think he says about these issues of personal morality and censorship. Just as Muslims or others living in former Christian countries have to accept the society in which they find themselves, so do we.

When I get these emails written as if the author’s point of view were so obviously correct (even though often the author hasn’t seen e.g. Jerry Springer – the Opera) I think of Amos 5:21-24:

I hate, I despise your religious feasts;
I cannot stand your assemblies.
Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings,
I will not accept them.
Though you bring choice fellowship offerings,
I will have no regard for them.
Away with the noise of your songs!
I will not listen to the music of your harps.
But let justice roll on like a river,
righteousness like a never-failing stream!

This is pointless, showy stuff, and there is so much we could be making a noise about that is really important: why are the governing rules of trade between rich and poor countries so unfair? Why do we step in to “humanitarian crises” in Europe but not Africa? Why are we wasting our time on “personal morality” issues when we could be spending it on situations that are just plain wrong? I think personal morality is for personal people, but injustice is a collective sin, and that is what, if we must be a pressure group, we should be pressuring about.

Anyway my main point is should we be a pressure group at all?

Apologies if you sent me one of these forwarded emails – this is a rant, and not one aimed at you.

Really, we should ban email, and then I’d get less annoyed generally.

The issue I want to attempt to tackle is lust. Plain and simple

In my opinion this topic is all to do with DESIRES. Now that word to my mind had a bad reputation so allow me to at least speak of what I would call reasonable desires.

Nothing wrong in wanting food
Nothing wrong in smiling or being smiled at
Nothing wrong in wanting attention
Nothing wrong in keeping fit
Nothing wrong in having wine
Nothing wrong in admiring beauty
Nothing wrong in wanting to breath

From these and many more desires can be seen as not only helpful but essential to our well being. However is does also appear (to me) that when one or more of these desires takes a larger role than that appropriate, it starts to dominate and then this leads to problems.

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O.k. so that is my overall thinking on the subject but when you have a problem what do you do?

My initial thought is to take away the problem at the root. However this appears to be equivalent to chopping off a limb – fairly stupid and I don’t go in for that sort of thing!

So which way to turn, I look left and see my desires and feel overwhelmed and I look right and see a life with no desires which looks even more unappealing.

Now the subject of lust makes me feel ashamed and embarrassed of who I am which is why I decided to write this article since I believe it is still a bit of a taboo. I mean we know about sex and how it should be inside marriage but that is only one part of it. Lust is a thought which for me takes very little time and happens in the quiet secrecy of my mind. This is a much harder foe to beat, especially when the more I look to see who the culprit is the more I think it is myself.

Now I do not wish people to psycho analyze myself or anyone else but more see the problem as a whole. I can’t say for women but I am fairly certain every man on this planet has had a lustful thought. I don’t think there is a magic button for when your married either, I’m fairly positive that it is equally possible to have a lustful thought before and after your married.
This whole topic is horrifically difficult to separate from being to personal and specific (hence never making any headway into the issue itself) and to general as to do no good other than to say it is bad and you shouldn’t do it.

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SO on to the next piece of the puzzle What is a lustful thought and what is a loving thought and exactly how do those two cross?
Mix in a little friendship and romance and I’m certain I can make the line go gray. This is an area I’m deliberately leaving blank since I have not formed any definite opinions because I’m not sure you can since they appear to change depending on age and situation but I’m very willing to hear peoples views.

Just to recap
Desire – not a bad thing, except when they are out of correct proportion.
Lust a difficult topic to talk about.
What is lust?

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Moving along to the next question which is: How do you adjust the desire to the appropriate level?

I’m sure praying, fasting and reading the bible are the right answers but they seem to have what appears minimal effect for me. But this leads to a whole different topic which goes along the lines of “Deserted by God or growing in faith?”

For me my method revolves around logic and reason. This is where I try and work out logically why I am doing something and see if it is reasonable. However if you apply logic and reason to much into your life you lose that emotion which seems to make life fun and not just a program which needs to be iterated until it is the most efficient, cost effective and sacrificial life pops out.

So logic and reason seem to be inherently floored by emotion which is exactly where lust sneaks in.

So where next, I would try and be accountable to someone but this is not always possible (rarely when needed) and it is one reason why I write this article, so that I can be accountable to those that read it and hopefully give some form of hope to those that may be fellow sufferers of this most frustrating of sins.

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So I now give some more questions just in case the previous ones were not enough!
Is lust a desire – just out of proportion?
What exactly is lust?
Is giving or having one of those smiles which mean so much more good or bad?
Do you have any issues with lust?
Does it disappear after marriage?
Is masturbation sinful?
Is it o.k. to lust after your wife/future wife/girlfriend?
How do you stop a thought when your asleep?
When does emotion turn from good to bad? Or is it neutral?

All pearls of wisdom or general ranting gratefully received.
~

Does it really matter if Mary was a virgin? Jews in those times always thought God had something to do with a new life…it was His will. Why should Jesus have ancestors (Matthew Ch 1 v 1) if He wasn’y really part of the family? Why did Mary refer to Joseph as Jesus’ father (Luke 2 v 48). Would it really mean anything if the virgin birth was not exactly as we thought it was?