today, i lay in bed and thought, "i'm afraid of everything?!" and then because dino brought it up yesterday, i thought, perfect love drives out all fear. but then i was confused by the verse. so went on a mini reading spree that brought me to this story:
Once upon a time, Jane was going to get married, and her friend Jemima
decided to send them a text message wishing the happy couple well. She
thought of the verse that we had in our first reading, “There is no fear in love.
But perfect love drives out fear”, but, text messages being what they are, she
decided just to send the reference: 1 John 4:18. Unfortunately, in her haste,
she omitted the “1”, showing that it was John’s letter rather than John’s
Gospel, and the verse Jane found when she looked it up in the Gospel read:
“For you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your
husband.”
but there were better stuff:
I will extol the LORD at all times;
his praise will always be on my lips. (so many things are, in a way, manna from heaven that i have become so accustomed to - egg in my fridge! comfy bed. so many things i've now just accepted as the norm, failing to see the beauty of their existence in my life... when in fact they are all such great blessings from Jesus - more praise and joy from this heart shall we?)
2 My soul will boast in the LORD;
let the afflicted hear and rejoice. (rejoice)
3 Glorify the LORD with me;
let us exalt his name together.
4 I sought the LORD, and he answered me;
he delivered me from all my fears.
( seek the lord
5 Those who look to him are radiant with joy;
their faces are never covered with shame.
6 This poor man called, and the LORD heard him;
he saved him out of all his troubles.
7 The angel of the LORD encamps around those who fear him,
and he delivers them.
8 Taste and see that the LORD is good;
blessed is the man who takes refuge in him.
9 Fear the LORD, you his saints,
for those who fear him lack nothing.
10 The lions may grow weak and hungry,
but those who seek the LORD lack no good thing.
11 Come, my children, listen to me;
I will teach you the fear of the LORD.
12 Whoever of you loves life
and desires to see many good days,
13 keep your tongue from evil
and your lips from speaking lies.
(i spend so much time thinking i can be good by following rules and norms. recently i wonder what it means to do good. to turn from evil. am i sitting in evil telling myself i'm being good? a good alice? British author C. P. Snow reminds us that more crimes against humanity have been committed in the name of obedience than disobedience. something suffocating it is, dying in manmade goodness. i want to be filled with the spirit that is alive with goodness.)
14 Turn from evil and do good;
seek peace and pursue it.
(
15 The eyes of the LORD are on the righteous
and his ears are attentive to their cry;
16 the face of the LORD is against those who do evil,
to cut off the memory of them from the earth.
17 The righteous cry out, and the LORD hears them;
he delivers them from all their troubles.
18 The LORD is close to the brokenhearted
and saves those who are crushed in spirit.
19 A righteous man may have many troubles,
but the LORD delivers him from them all;
20 he protects all his bones,
not one of them will be broken.
21 Evil will slay the wicked;
the foes of the righteous will be condemned.
22 The LORD redeems his servants;
no one will be condemned who takes refuge in him.
God loves me and protects me and answers when i cry out to/for Him.
"And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God's love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow - not even the powers of hell can separate us from God's love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below-indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 8:38
"Fear is not just a distressing emotion; it is the spiritual force of Satan’s
kingdom. Faith is the force of God’s kingdom. We are saved by faith, we are
healed by faith, and we move mountains by faith. Faith attracts God’s blessings
to you, yet fear attracts Satan’s curses to you. Fear is a force. Remember when
Peter walked on the water. He did fine until he was afraid. His fear sank him.
Fear is the opposite of faith. "And whatever is not of faith is sin" (Romans
14:23). Fear is a sin. According to the Revelation 21:8, the fearful will be cast into the lake of fire.
Fear is that serious! We have to resist it like we would resist any other sin. Yet,
many Christians do not even consider it a sin. Yet it is! "
i'm starting to wonder these ideas about opposite. maybe it's more an opposite spirit so much as opposite as two sides of the same coin. it's God or not God.
2 Tim 1:7 For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love…
"Let us ask an important question: why do we fear? We are afraid because we
feel powerless. We feel that we can’t change something. We fear because we
feel helpless. As long as you have power to change some evil, then fear cannot
take over. "
So Paul confidently says: I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
Phil 4:13
"When we are tormented by
fear, our focus is self-centered and not Christ-centered. We are looking at the
forces that threaten us in light of our weaknesses and inadequacies, rather
than looking at them in light of the supernatural power of God. When we focus
on the fact that, as a Christian, Christ is our very life, we can say with Paul: I
can do all things Phil. 4:13 "
I don't want to be miserable, paralyzed in fear that I lose out on life. nope nope nope.
Matthew 8:26 But He said to them, "Why are you fearful, O you of little faith?"
I want to be made perfect (not simply a squeaky stagnant, don't touch me clean perfect, but a fulfilled round round circle delivered perfect. not that i should be unholy, but that i should not be afraid to give up princehood in egypt or to touch the leper) in Jesus and fully experience his perfect love. God lives in us, and his love is brought to full expression in us. This is when we love other Christian brothers and sisters because he loved us first. If we don't love others, how can we love God?
"Jesus said, "Men’s heart’s will fail them for fear." You may not die as quickly as
this freshman did, but you will experience another kind of death. You will
begin to lose courage. Without courage you will never be able to win over your
battles. Isaiah prophesied what fear could do. "Whoever flees at the sound of
terror will fall into a pit" (Isa 24:18).
God told Gideon to send home all the men who feared. God knows that fear
will bring failures. It’s time that you purpose to live fear-free. Whenever you
notice fear in your life, then resist it by quoting the Word of God.
Hebrews 13:6 So we may boldly say: "The LORD is my helper; I will not fear.
What can man do to me?" "
I love education because it's a way of learning more about Jesus. my coworker believes knowledge is enlightenment and will save us. something about that bothers me. i like the sound of it, but it seems incomplete. i think it depends on what you know. but even then, i will never know enough. knowledge and reason will never fully drive out fear because knowledge without love is really not that powerful. i will never understand enough on my own to face the world and all its mysteries. to face the future and all of life's curve balls. "Don't worry about anything; instead, pray aobut everything. tell God what you need and thank him for all he ahs done. Then you will experience God's peace, with exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus." - Phillippians 4:6-7. It's God's love that drives out fear - not any understanding we have. it's His peace that guards our hearts and minds and sets us free. it is hope, not knowledge, because the amount of knowledge we have will always be limited. hope is not limitless in its transcience or wishy-washy nature. hope is certain. but it's certain in something that is limitless. then again it's not even hope, not even faith - but the one in whom we hope. it's not really how we believe or anything about us, but in whom we believe that matters in setting us free/ delivering us/ saving us. of course, i'm not a perfect philosopher, and even as i think, i think it's a little ironic that i'm writing about this since my knowledge/reason must be limited (even in my capacities for thought). but i guess these are just thoughts mixed with heart and breaths of a little girl in the arms of a wonderful God so that whatever it is lacking in full understanding, it is subsidized a wee bit in joy and thankfulness and peace.
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Friday, November 27, 2009
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
slice of infinity (jill carattini)
http://www.rzim.org/USA/Resources/Read/ASliceofInfinity/TodaysSlice.aspx
"Jonah was a prophet by profession. He knew the liturgy and worship of the people of Israel by heart. So it is not unreasonable that as his life was ebbing away in the depths of the sea, Jonah cried out with the words of a psalm he had certainly heard countless times before. And yet, the words no doubt had a depth of meaning for him unlike anything they had ever had. As he was losing consciousness—literally in Hebrew, "in the feebleness of his person,"—Jonah not only remembered the LORD, but in some ways was seeing Him for the first time. Like one woken to a world both real and imaginary, Jonah quickly clung to what was real.
Jonah's behavior up until this point suggests the mentality that God was not entirely omnipresent, but present only in Israel, in the temple, and in the places of his own interest. As Jonah ran to Tarshish to avoid the call of God to go to Nineveh, he ran believing there was a place he could go where God could not find him. But as he sunk further into the depths of the sea, the prophet realized he was mercifully mistaken. His language seems a play on words—As I was losing consciousness, I remembered the LORD—or else, it was a sudden recognition of the Really Real in the imaginary world he had occupied. Losing consciousness, Jonah was actually gaining it.
Perhaps not wanting to consider the discomfort it would take to uproot our own embedded fallacies, we often minimize the distress that broke Jonah's silence with God. But the popular notion that Jonah went straight from the side of the ship and into the mouth of the fish is not supported by either the narrative as a whole or Jonah's cry for help. H. L. Ellison suggests, "[Jonah] was half drowned before he was swallowed. If he was still conscious, sheer dread would have caused him to faint—notice that there is no mention of the fish in his prayer. He can hardly have known what caused the change from wet darkness to an even greater dry darkness. When he did regain consciousness, it would have taken some time to realize that the all-enveloping darkness was not that of Sheol but of a mysterious safety."(1)
In the mysterious safety of the fish, Jonah shows us the strange world that unwound his imaginary one, and in it, the God who hears. Though the deep surrounded him and reeds were bound to his head, Jonah was heard—and his awareness of this was an essential turning point in his story. In prayer and darkness, Jonah admitted that the role of salvation is not in his hands. If only momentarily, the drowning prophet clung to a truth more hopeful than escapism and more able than idols: "Salvation belongs to the LORD" (2:9).
It is hard to believe that Jonah would have considered being swallowed alive a rescue, and yet it is precisely Jonah's considerations from which he needed to be rescued. At times, the deliverance we need is that of deliverance from ourselves. The reluctant prophet introduces us to the reality of self-deception and what is all too often our ironic refusal to face the face of God. Though our thoughts be wound in self and seaweed, and the depths of our imagined autonomy threaten to drown us, rescue is a valid hope. God is far more real than we often imagine.
---
my ideas of the realness of God being challenged over and over again in this exhaustion
http://www.rzim.org/USA/Resources/Read/ASliceofInfinity/TodaysSlice.aspx
"Jonah was a prophet by profession. He knew the liturgy and worship of the people of Israel by heart. So it is not unreasonable that as his life was ebbing away in the depths of the sea, Jonah cried out with the words of a psalm he had certainly heard countless times before. And yet, the words no doubt had a depth of meaning for him unlike anything they had ever had. As he was losing consciousness—literally in Hebrew, "in the feebleness of his person,"—Jonah not only remembered the LORD, but in some ways was seeing Him for the first time. Like one woken to a world both real and imaginary, Jonah quickly clung to what was real.
Jonah's behavior up until this point suggests the mentality that God was not entirely omnipresent, but present only in Israel, in the temple, and in the places of his own interest. As Jonah ran to Tarshish to avoid the call of God to go to Nineveh, he ran believing there was a place he could go where God could not find him. But as he sunk further into the depths of the sea, the prophet realized he was mercifully mistaken. His language seems a play on words—As I was losing consciousness, I remembered the LORD—or else, it was a sudden recognition of the Really Real in the imaginary world he had occupied. Losing consciousness, Jonah was actually gaining it.
Perhaps not wanting to consider the discomfort it would take to uproot our own embedded fallacies, we often minimize the distress that broke Jonah's silence with God. But the popular notion that Jonah went straight from the side of the ship and into the mouth of the fish is not supported by either the narrative as a whole or Jonah's cry for help. H. L. Ellison suggests, "[Jonah] was half drowned before he was swallowed. If he was still conscious, sheer dread would have caused him to faint—notice that there is no mention of the fish in his prayer. He can hardly have known what caused the change from wet darkness to an even greater dry darkness. When he did regain consciousness, it would have taken some time to realize that the all-enveloping darkness was not that of Sheol but of a mysterious safety."(1)
In the mysterious safety of the fish, Jonah shows us the strange world that unwound his imaginary one, and in it, the God who hears. Though the deep surrounded him and reeds were bound to his head, Jonah was heard—and his awareness of this was an essential turning point in his story. In prayer and darkness, Jonah admitted that the role of salvation is not in his hands. If only momentarily, the drowning prophet clung to a truth more hopeful than escapism and more able than idols: "Salvation belongs to the LORD" (2:9).
It is hard to believe that Jonah would have considered being swallowed alive a rescue, and yet it is precisely Jonah's considerations from which he needed to be rescued. At times, the deliverance we need is that of deliverance from ourselves. The reluctant prophet introduces us to the reality of self-deception and what is all too often our ironic refusal to face the face of God. Though our thoughts be wound in self and seaweed, and the depths of our imagined autonomy threaten to drown us, rescue is a valid hope. God is far more real than we often imagine.
---
my ideas of the realness of God being challenged over and over again in this exhaustion
there will be a day
wrote this to cccnc blog, in response to large group meeting on suffering -
i’m sorry i did not attend the previous counterparts to this large group meeting. suffering is something that has been on my heart lately, and a couple of thoughts that swim around in whirlpool of exhaustion have been: “the world is such a large sea and my boat is so small.” and “where is joy?” i literally wake up and ask, where is joy? perhaps that’s just a consequence of being a baby adult, maybe.
but i think it may be rooted in some deeper blindness and broken images we’ve created for ourselves. dreams of being great for God shattered for the moment. beliefs of who we are suddenly revealed as fantasies. putting much of ourselves in certain people we thought would always be there. even a torn idea of a good world and a garden of eden that we’ve suddenly been cast out of. and then there’s doubt in God’s ability to use me, suddenly thinking, i can’t walk on water. yes, jesus can, but can he use me to do so? the sea is so big…and the winds are so strong. and i am just a weak weak little girl.
and what do we do? sleep. sleep from sorrow, like the disciples at gethsemane. television, videogames, work – whatever postpones dealing with the issue at hand, because the body is weak even if the spirit is willing.
i won’t go into detail now regarding why this issue has become a sudden interest, and i don’t know what you’ve discussed, but for whatever reason, i just wanted to jot down some thoughts.
something that has stuck with me on the issue of suffering came from greg ganssle who gave a series on talking about jesus. in one session, (and in a very similar article) he said: “When a person asks, “What about God and evil?” I usually ask, “What kind of evil do you have in mind?” I ask this question, because I want to know what kind of question the person is asking. I want to know, especially, if he is thinking of evil in general or if he is dealing with and struggling to understand some particular experience with evil. So I ask, “What kind of evil do you have in mind?”" the responses to these two questions are drastically different. one is a philosophical question, the other is existential.
a lot of the times we’re asking for the latter. the issue then becomes whether God is able or willing to help. and in the story of the leper who comes to jesus and says, “if you are willing, you can make me clean” we find some semblance of an answer. how does Jesus respond? he says i am willing and touches the leper. the kicker is jesus doesn’t heal the man and then touch him. he touches the man while the leper was still unclean, and only then does he heal him. “He reaches across barriers, and he touches those who are untouchable. He entered our world with all its joys and sorrows and he showed us that God is real and his presence is available to all who call upon him…In fact, God entered human history to solve the problem of suffering.” We now have the means to overcome suffering around and in us. That’s huge. When I’m suffering, my biggest wonder is when will this end? Will it end? There must be the hope that it will.
“Our hearts are still broken and we still ask the question, “Why?” The Christian response is not an answer to that question, so much as an encounter with the one who enters our suffering and bears it for us and through us.”
and finally, for some reason, when i’m suffering i just want to go home. not chicago home, not even college home – but perhaps moments of rest and peace they represent. nostalgia for something hoped for. most likely, heaven. and that’s why i put up the link for the jeremy camp song. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=le-TG4sRRiQ) it’s on repeat on my itunes. perhaps our suffering now will allow us to experience heaven in that much more glory.
“They admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead they were longing for a better country – a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.” (a holiday at the sea - reminder from josh)
God has prepared a city for us. the trouble is not that we yearn and dream too big, but rather that we dream too small. we cannot see the greatness in store for us in God’s plan.
“Meanwhile the cross comes before the
crown and tomorrow is a Monday
morning.” ( the weight of glory, cs lewis)
and everyone around us is most beloved by God.
i just pray that we do become blind to the fact that everything, all eternity, has been woven in the beautiful tapestry of God’s plan – and the suffering we experience now is part of an amazing plan beyond time- something Jesus reminded his disciples as they came back from the cross, their hopes shattered. Is there meaning to suffering? Yes, but only through God’s grace, not from any good that we can do (lucas).
and these questions and desires and cries, as lucas reminded me, are all things God wants to hear from us, as honest and raw as they and we are. and thru all these, God challenges our conceptions of how much He loves us time and time again.
if there's anything good about this teaching gig, it's that it tears me down so that i can only look up to God.
i’m sorry i did not attend the previous counterparts to this large group meeting. suffering is something that has been on my heart lately, and a couple of thoughts that swim around in whirlpool of exhaustion have been: “the world is such a large sea and my boat is so small.” and “where is joy?” i literally wake up and ask, where is joy? perhaps that’s just a consequence of being a baby adult, maybe.
but i think it may be rooted in some deeper blindness and broken images we’ve created for ourselves. dreams of being great for God shattered for the moment. beliefs of who we are suddenly revealed as fantasies. putting much of ourselves in certain people we thought would always be there. even a torn idea of a good world and a garden of eden that we’ve suddenly been cast out of. and then there’s doubt in God’s ability to use me, suddenly thinking, i can’t walk on water. yes, jesus can, but can he use me to do so? the sea is so big…and the winds are so strong. and i am just a weak weak little girl.
and what do we do? sleep. sleep from sorrow, like the disciples at gethsemane. television, videogames, work – whatever postpones dealing with the issue at hand, because the body is weak even if the spirit is willing.
i won’t go into detail now regarding why this issue has become a sudden interest, and i don’t know what you’ve discussed, but for whatever reason, i just wanted to jot down some thoughts.
something that has stuck with me on the issue of suffering came from greg ganssle who gave a series on talking about jesus. in one session, (and in a very similar article) he said: “When a person asks, “What about God and evil?” I usually ask, “What kind of evil do you have in mind?” I ask this question, because I want to know what kind of question the person is asking. I want to know, especially, if he is thinking of evil in general or if he is dealing with and struggling to understand some particular experience with evil. So I ask, “What kind of evil do you have in mind?”" the responses to these two questions are drastically different. one is a philosophical question, the other is existential.
a lot of the times we’re asking for the latter. the issue then becomes whether God is able or willing to help. and in the story of the leper who comes to jesus and says, “if you are willing, you can make me clean” we find some semblance of an answer. how does Jesus respond? he says i am willing and touches the leper. the kicker is jesus doesn’t heal the man and then touch him. he touches the man while the leper was still unclean, and only then does he heal him. “He reaches across barriers, and he touches those who are untouchable. He entered our world with all its joys and sorrows and he showed us that God is real and his presence is available to all who call upon him…In fact, God entered human history to solve the problem of suffering.” We now have the means to overcome suffering around and in us. That’s huge. When I’m suffering, my biggest wonder is when will this end? Will it end? There must be the hope that it will.
“Our hearts are still broken and we still ask the question, “Why?” The Christian response is not an answer to that question, so much as an encounter with the one who enters our suffering and bears it for us and through us.”
and finally, for some reason, when i’m suffering i just want to go home. not chicago home, not even college home – but perhaps moments of rest and peace they represent. nostalgia for something hoped for. most likely, heaven. and that’s why i put up the link for the jeremy camp song. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=le-TG4sRRiQ) it’s on repeat on my itunes. perhaps our suffering now will allow us to experience heaven in that much more glory.
“They admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead they were longing for a better country – a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.” (a holiday at the sea - reminder from josh)
God has prepared a city for us. the trouble is not that we yearn and dream too big, but rather that we dream too small. we cannot see the greatness in store for us in God’s plan.
“Meanwhile the cross comes before the
crown and tomorrow is a Monday
morning.” ( the weight of glory, cs lewis)
and everyone around us is most beloved by God.
i just pray that we do become blind to the fact that everything, all eternity, has been woven in the beautiful tapestry of God’s plan – and the suffering we experience now is part of an amazing plan beyond time- something Jesus reminded his disciples as they came back from the cross, their hopes shattered. Is there meaning to suffering? Yes, but only through God’s grace, not from any good that we can do (lucas).
and these questions and desires and cries, as lucas reminded me, are all things God wants to hear from us, as honest and raw as they and we are. and thru all these, God challenges our conceptions of how much He loves us time and time again.
if there's anything good about this teaching gig, it's that it tears me down so that i can only look up to God.
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