Ahhhhh....

No, I did not just burp or pass gas! Yesterday, while riding the commuter bus home from work, I suddenly realized that I felt quite a bit lighter in my spirit. Funny I hadn't fully realized I was carrying some weight until I noticed it was gone. Thanks Papa! What was that all about anyway?

I knew, of course, that I had been deeply disturbed by the images of Hell, as portrayed by a recent 'Judgement House' event. But I guess I didn't realize that it had become a constant weight on my soul. Wrestling through all that has helped me to realize just how deeply we are effected by Greek philosophy here in the west. As westerners when we hear the words Holy, Just, Righteous we automatically think in legal terms. That paradigm is greco-roman in origin and carries with it the though that God is more of a singular entity, than Trinity. It's an important distinction to make; if God is a singular entity then a legal/moral being would make the most sense. But the Father, Son, and Spirit is Trinity -- a community. That means that the Father, Son, and Spirit are relational at their core, just as we are. Now look at the terms Holy, Just, and Righteous in relational terms instead of legal terms. They take on whole new meanings. Holy - whole, beautiful, perfect community. Just - setting things right, a promise to restore all things. Righteous - relationally right.

Just some thoughts that have helped me to see our true Father a bit better.

This is a bit random, but I just had to post this quote from C. Baxter Kruger talking about the idea the God punishes Jesus for our sin:

There is no forgiveness in that model. God doesn't forgive you, Jesus suffers your punishment. That's not forgiveness is it? It's justice; there's not any forgiveness there. Now, I know that rocks your world -- I hope it does.

Just another reason why I believe the Cross was a cure for our sin, rather than satisfying God's supposed 'need' to punish.

A public thank you to Paul, Wayne, Brad, and Papa

I want to thank these guys, and Papa for 'The Shack', I have read it 3 times to date and it continues to impact me deeply.
Paul, Wayne and Brad have all been voices of Hope in a sea of voices that seem to want to kill the smouldering ember of faith that I have. Just today, I was at lunch thinking about the story of 'Baby Grace'; my emotional blender couldn't quite decide on the anger setting, or the tears setting. She was found not 20 minutes from my home, and lived 45 minutes away when she was alive. I have a 2 year old myself (youngest of 4) so it was particularly difficult for me to understand how someone could do this. I thought "God, If you would have told me, I would have gone a picked her up before all this happened. I would have taken care of her, or Travis and Sundy could have taken care of her." (Travis and Sundy are friends who have tried for years to have a child and are now close to an adoption in January) And the amazing thing is that Papa answered back, which doesn't happen often for me (or should I say I don't hear it that often). He said, "Do you think I will be a good Father to her? Because I saw her, and now she is home with me." I totally lost it; not a pretty thing when you are eating Chick-Fil-A in the middle of a mall food court -- not a pretty sight when you are trying to type it in an email in the middle of a cube farm at work and it makes you all blubbery again either. I don't think I would have heard God say that to me if these guys hadn't given me a touch point that has enabled me to know God as a Papa who is especially fond of his children.

Thank you, and may the outbound ripples continue.

A Season of busy-ness

Oy vey! (That's yiddish if you've ever wondered) I have been busy lately. It makes me wish for a simpler time, when you could enjoy the relationships of family and friends.

But for now, we have a few more weeks of being busy ahead of us. My wife is a photographer, and we are heading into the Christmas season. So that means a full schedule for her, and a few evening and weekend appointments, even though she is usually reluctant to do so. To add to the madness, our oldest works at a college books store, but doesn't have his license yet so we shuttle him to and from work two to three days a week. Then my daughter is taking some art classes in the eveing and my 6 year old son is now in Cub Scouts. He is a Tiger Cub, which requires a parent to be present, and since I'm the resident boy scout expert, that falls to me. I really do enjoy it, but I've been finding myself far busier that I had hoped. Oh well, things should ease up come January. Oh wait! My wife and oldest son will be off to Thailand in January leaving me to take care of the other 3 kids. Maybe mid-January.

Did God get a makeover after Malachi?

Wayne and Brad over at The God Journey discuss the challenge of reconciling God's actions in the Old Testament, where God appears to be harsh and vengeful, with his actions in the New Testament, specifically with the gentleness of Jesus. Some people wonder what happened. Is this 2 different Gods? Or is Jesus the nice guy, and God the father is the mean guy (with a personality more in line with the godfather). Or is there something else going on that we need to consider. It is a very interesting discussion and can be heard here.

In the podcast Brad spends quite a bit of time on the unorthodox view that Nephilim were the reason for the flood, and the mass genocide that God commanded when Israel entered the promised land. I enjoy listening to Brad, and I certainly don't think that this unorthodox view is Heretical in any way, but I wish they would have spent more time on other possible explanations. I don't think it really is necessary to dig that deep to find an adequate explanation. I do think that you do really need to look at each of these events in the context of the larger story of the Bible. The overarching story of the Bible is one of God pursuing and rescuing humanity and if you keep that in mind, you can concluded that there were good reasons for these actions, even if we don't fully understand them. There are two things that I notice in particular. First the most extreme actions appear very early on in human history -- perhaps during critical junctures in history, where the plan to rescue humanity could have been derailed if such extreme measures were not taken. And the second observation is these actions in reality were rare, and not as common place as one might think. Sometimes we miss that point because there are no dates affixed to each of these events in the Bible.

So is Brad right? I don't know, but I do not think that God is up in heaven playing 'whack a sinner', constantly whacking those who step out of line. I think that he is reluctant to take such actions, and only does so when there is no other way.

soft gnostics and semi pelagians

I was blog surfing yesterday and came across a post where someone said the 90% of Americans were soft gnostics and semi-pelagians. I'm sure this was the bloggers personal opinion, but it got me wondering. What was he seeing that caused him to make the statement. First I think that in context he was really talking about 90% of American Christians.

So, if there was a 'Gnosticism for Dummies' it would say something along the lines of, "Material things are bad, spiritual things are good". There is a lot more to gnosticism, of course, but I think this will due for now. Maybe the blogger I read was looking at Evangelicalisms focus on 'saving souls'. Certainly in evangelicalism there appears to be a lack of concern for things like social justice, or the environment (it's all going to burn after all). Could this be considered soft gnosticism?

As for semi-pelagianism the definition can be found here. I also have a friend who took one of those 'what is your theological worldview' quizes and he registered as semi-pelagian. At the end of the quiz's results it said 'If you left God out of your beliefs, nothing would change'. Kind of harsh, but many of his posts do border on something like - 'if we don't get busy, nobody will get saved'.

Camping

I took a couple of days off last weekend, and went camping with a friend of mine as part of celebrating my 39th birthday. There were supposed to be four of us guys going but two of them backed out at the last moment. I was determined to go, even if I had to go alone, because it had been 4 years since I had gone camping. As soon as we got there, I thought to my self, "why don't I do this more often"? The campsite was absolutely picturesque; nestled among the trees and located on the shorline of a small lake. I really enjoy sitting among the trees, looking at nothing in particular, and just decompressing. It was a wonderful time of chatting around a campfire, reading, hiking, swimming, and enjoying the beauty of the outdoors.

Message of the arrows

Over the past 2 years, I've had probably a half-dozen instances where I woke up in the middle of the night with this fear that God didn't exist, or if he did, he certainly could care less about me. The very first time it happened was during a particularly difficult time and it was a borderline panic attack as a jumble of thoughts bounced around my head. "Maybe God doesn't exist", "You are all alone, no one can help you.", "When you die all this will be meaningless, you wont even know that you ever existed, dieing now or in 30 years won't make any difference".

None of the episodes that followed were nearly as severe as that one and I believe a major reason for that is due to God revealing to me that my life lived in him is not to be lived out Religiously, but Relationally -- even the phrase 'relationship with Christ' that I often used (religiously) has taken on a new meaning. Still I have had a couple of recurrences. Even though they are pretty minor these days, I've started wondering what that is all about. I've prayed about it, and I've asked a couple of trusted friends what they thought, and all of them have helped me to think about what is going on. Even though the details of what my friends have suggested have been different, a general consensus is that God is working out something deep within me and I'm beginning to think that the issue is something that happened in my childhood. Something unresolved that has been buried in my subconscious for quite some time and has kept me from trusting Father.

I hesitate to give details of my childhood because someone might get the idea that my life as a child was all hell all the time, but it wasn't. I do have some wonderful memories of my childhood and of my family. But there was abuse in our home, and there is no way to sugar coat that reality. There is what you could call a defining moment in my memory that I still remember vividly to this day. I'll spare you the details, but after I had received a particularly severe punishment, I was crying out to God. I begged him to take me out of the family that I was in because I couldn't take it anymore. I was desperate, and in pain, and probably in need of medical care. I even gave God an ultimatum, "Please take me out of this family, or I won't believe in you any more." My prayer was met with silence, God didn't take me away to live with another family and, at 11 years old, I learned that I was on my own that day.

I think that if I'm brutally honest with myself, to this day, I don't ask God to do anything difficult out of fear of disappointment. Somewhere deep down, I don't think he would do (fill in the blank) for me. Who am I after all, just one of 6 billion on this planet.

I know that there aren't too many that read this blog, but if you've ever had to deal with anything like this, please drop me a line. Let me know how God worked it out with you. As for me and God, we are going to have a weekend alone soon and, just maybe, like Mack and his encounter at The Shack, I'll come away changed.