How many times I have said to myself, "What's wrong with you". How many times have I labeled myself a failure, or looked at everything that's wrong with me. Wondered how long am I going to be like this? Why are we so hard on ourselves?
We all have things about us that aren't so pretty, and that God has to be the one to change.
There were times I had been so afraid of any of it slipping out. I used to be wound up so tight inside you couldn't pull a pin out of my "spiritual butt" with a tractor. So afraid of falling into bad attitudes and bad behavior. I felt like I was choking myself, I spiritually wasn't able to breathe because I was squeezing so tight. The thing is all that is putting importance on my performance.
God has really freed me from that. He died not just for my sin but also the guilt and shame of it. His word says he has given us a robe of His righteousness. What does that mean? It means it cover us and all our weakness, imperfections, and all the times we quote "fail". I really think that when we do fail we're disappointing ourselves more then we are God. He knows that sin is going to be a part of our lives as long as we are here, that's why He sent His Son - so that we may be set free from it. I didn't used to understand that concept of being free from our sin when we still commit them. I do now.
Why do we assume that in order to be "walking" with God it has to feel like we're climbing a steep mountain, in the hot sun with nothing to drink, in our bare feet, on jagged rocks? I used to say concerning my Christian life, "It's just so hard". I had a great misinterpretation of God's changing me. I was trying to "choke" out the weeds in me instead of letting go and grabbing hold of the great pruner Himself.
I had a situation recently where I had bad feelings towards another Christian. I wasn't overly concerned with feeling the way I did. I just let go of it and went about my business. I kept focusing on God and my fellowship with Him. It wasn't long after that I saw this person and guess what? They didn't bother me anymore. I was free from my critical and hard feelings. The way I would have handled this situation before would have been to beat my head against a wall trying to force myself to stop having those feelings towards them. After all having hateful feelings towards someone is a sin. I would have been, " I must not allow this ".
We can't stop ourselves from sinning. Instead I give myself the freedom to go through it even if that means committing that sin. Uh-oh. Is that statement sending up red flags in your brain. Let me explain further then. When I was in labor with any of my many children they told me to relax and not fight the contractions. The contractions help dilate you and fighting them slows down the process and makes them less effective. That's what I was doing in my Christain life. I was so busy fighting every little thing it just slowed down what God wanted to do in me. Where there is sin there is also Grace and just as Paul said that doesn't give us a license to sin. So that's not what I'm saying, rather we can't stop sin by fighting it. We have to go through it. Our sin is already taken care of, why be afraid of sin coming out in our lives when it's going to anyways. We all have a desire not to sin against the God we love. That desire and love brings obedience rather then fear. For instance we don't scold our children for falling down when they are learning to walk. We let them go through the process and let them fall because that's what helps them learn. I believe God has the same attitude towards us. When we fall He doesn't say, " why the hell did you do that?" He lovingly extends His hand and says, " let's take another stab at it." He gives us the freedom to fall down, why should we give ourselves anything less. By falling and failing with our sin it produces a very wonderful thing...a true desire to not do it anymore and a lesson learned. Unfortunately most of us have to learn the hard way. I know I do...I'm a product of the school of hard knocks.
We all know the term go with the flow, and it's usually referred to as a bad thing. We think of going with the flow of the world and people. Instead I'm going with the flow of God. It's a much smoother ride than we all might think. No mountain, no dehydration, no jagged rocks. Christ is the river of life and it's a more peaceful and joyful ride going with the flow of His currents. We don't even have to waste energy paddling, just enjoy the ride and stay in the boat.
In a previous post I explained that God changing me felt so stifling. Boy has that changed. I feel more free than ever before. No longer climbing a mountain but feel like I'm smooth sailing. I expressed this at a recent small groups meeting. Everyone probably thought what a sappy, corny geek. Well...I am...and proud of it. This way of living can be a little scary because it means being transparent. There is a great possibility of being looked down on and judged. For a great example of transparent living check out my friend at College Ruled Mom. This freedom however is not worth giving up for presenting a perfect picture for people to see. Yes, they'll see the faults but they will also see the change as it happens. Whatever you may be struggling with...let go of it and grab hold of the One who will take care of it for you. It's His job not yours, so relax, and quit stressing. It's worth it.
>We can't stop ourselves from sinning...
ReplyDeleteThe biblical definition of sin is ridiculous. That there is a divine dictator keeping track of everything a person does or thinks every moment of their life is ludicrous and offensive. No one, religious, christian, or otherwise, would listen to me for an instant if I said that invisible beings or space aliens were reading your mind and watching everything you do. Outside the context of religion, saying so would get you a trip to the human zoo in a padded wagon. Its amazing how much insanity can not only be said and held as credible when sprinkled with the magic pixie dust of religion. There is no more proof of god then there is for faeries or unicorns, so why does anyone consider the bible any more important or credible then any other piece of medieval literature?
This peace of mind is something that you've given to yourself as your mind has matured into a state of sophistication to realize you can't control everything. You don't have to, and this truth is *exactly* the same in every way with or without the existence of a god.
God love ya and your magic pixie dust brother.
ReplyDeleteI believe in an existence of more than just mathematical equations and scientific facts. There are many things in this world that can't be explained by either.
Yes, religion on a whole is evil, I will agree on that with you. Religion is something made up by man and therefore faulty. I don't believe everything that has been sprinkled with the name of God. To do so would be foolish.
I have no actual physical evidence of God's existence other than what He does done in my life. I've never been able to look into the eyes of any of my children as newborns and thought, " this is simply scientific and the laws of biology at work." I believe in a Creator and not just in the things He has created.
The foolish things of this world confound the wise, if I'm saying that right. It's easy to look at people who believe in a God that can't be proved as existing in a physical way as simple minded. I get that. But it can also be said for those who don't believe as being too smart for their own good.
Just remember that Anikan did turn into Darth Vader, but in the end he returned to the ways of the force.
Reality isn't defined by mathematics or scientific facts, of course. Mathematics and scientific facts are merely the best estimation we have of the universe that's constantly improving. Science is a painting of the universe, not the other way round. Biology in a painting of living organism, not the other way round. Anyone with an open mind who is deeply invested in these disciplines should realize that, otherwise scientific progress might grind to a halt (and often has). But, I never promoted the idea that mathematics and scientific facts (which are really ultimately the same thing as discussed here) either explain everything or replace god. In fact, to put a finer point on it, absolutely nothing is required to replace god since there is no evidence of a god to replace.
ReplyDeleteThere's nothing unreasonable that I can find in having seen things in your life that make you wonder if there is something more to it then we have yet to comprehend. However, there is no reasonable segway, and one fantastically huge leap, to get to being amazed by the look in a newborns eyes and accepting the christian god and literature as absolute and infallible. Surely muslim parents have seen this look in their children's eyes and thanked allah. Choosing christianity means that you also have to believe that they are wrong and eternally damned because they have attributed their wonder and belief to another god. Choosing islam means they have to believe you are wrong and eternally damned, too. But both christian and islamic followers have exactly the same amount of credibility in the authenticity of their beliefs. Which is none whatsoever.
The verse you are referring to is 1st Corinthians 1:27, "But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty;"
However, application of a verse from the bible, at least without any critical thought beforehand, requires a preexisting belief in its infallibility without proof. Which is to say, there is no credibility in refuting criticism of a religion with that which is only acceptable by the religion itself. Quoting verses really doesn't carry the argument unless all participants agree on the authenticity of the bible beforehand. Also, it a matter of record that the bible has been imperfectly translated, or mistranslated entirely. The exact wording here could be completely wrong to the intent of the author. Nevertheless...
In this verse I do not discover that god should have liked to displaced science and mathematics with ignorance and foolishness. Contrary to this verse, god is particularly critical and harsh with fools, the foolish, and ignorance everywhere else in the bible. What I would propose is that the intent of the verse would be better seen with the word "foolish" replaced by the word "simple". It is very well known in scientific disciplines that simplicity is preferable to complexity where complexity can be avoided. Unnecessary complexity usually clouds rather then clarifies discovery. Maybe that's what Paul was getting at here. Maybe not. Maybe its all just a big bunch of horse paddies to begin with.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, science doesn't explain everything, but faith explains _nothing_. It does the exact opposite, in requires behavior and allegiance it has not earned with proof, and never will. If it did, it wouldn't be faith. Real belief is acknowledgement of fact by proof, no fairy tales by faith. That's not belief, it wishing and hoping for a thing you don't know is true to be true. The insidious thing about religion is that the so-called non-physical "proof" you have in god based on feelings and circumstances in your life can be made to fit into any other religion equally well. There is nothing unique in it that shows it is solely christian, or muslim, or bat-guano crazy. But picking any one of these religions means you got to accept that all the rest are wrong and adopt a whole truckload of other nonsense just because a newborns eyes are amazing. I think the newborn would be better off if its amazing qualities were left as mystery, rather then attribute it to as ridiculous notion as god.