I WANT THE TRUTH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Maybe truth is something that we don't need to convince each other of. I don't see why we can't just live out the conclusions of theology and let God worry about the premises. He heals. He wants us to believe He will answer our requests (faith). He wants us to save the world. He wants us to be wise and good and true. He wants our love and respect. He wants to be our friend, our lover and our life. So why do we have to analyze it? Why do we have to tell Him, "this is how you work" and "you must not exceed my boundries nor my understanding"? Why is it we insist He must heal or He must not under whatever conditions we insist He must operate? He can do what He wants. He is good. He is God. That should be enough.
Since Laurie got healed the other night, the biggest problem I have is trying to encompass a God who is big enough to make sense with what I know is true. Last Friday, I discovered something about God that I ignored prieviously. He has this deep desire to help people who are sick. I want to get close enough to Him so I can bring some relief to people in this way. But do I want to get close to Him to make myself this mighty healer? Or do I want to get close to Him because He is my Lord and my God, my lover and life? Is that why He doesn't always heal? Because the healer is so worried about himself that he forgets the victim and the God from whom his life springs? I want to help people! How do we restore the hurting and the sick and the dying? Miracles? Medicine? Mission trips to empty out hospitals? WHAT?!?!?!
I'm sorry. It's difficult for me to process stuff like this without extreme emotion. It's a subject that comes with a lot of hurt that I must give to God every day for His healing and peace and life. Grace is not a point. It is a line we all must continoually walk. I want to know Him and advance His kingdom. Doctrine kills, religion kills, man's reason can only go so far.
BUT HOW FAR CAN IT GO? I feel like it would be a lot easier if I know when to draw theories and when to shut up and be mystical. You can say that reason never has a place in the life of a Christian but that would be wrong and dishonest to history. Jesus says love the Lord with all your heart, soul MIND and strength. (Interesting tidbit: the Hebrew conception of your mind had just as much to do with your emotions as it did with your head. Your heart was both reason and passion for the Hebrews). You will be hard pressed to find a guy more logical than Paul. Untill the enlightenment, most in science and math had some sort of religious background. Paul was a rhetorician in the old style.
At the same time, Jesus was widely acknowledged to be the most obtuse teacher around. He taught in mysteries and parables and was always talking about fire and life and truth and death.
This leads me to several questions....
1. What part does reason and theory/conclusion drawing have in the life of a Christian?
2. What part does trust have in the life of a Christian? (trust here is not the ephermal concept of faith that you must work up or build. Trust is the acknowledgement that there is information that you don't know and it influences your daily life on a regular basis. Trust in God is believing He knows what's going on and that it makes sense to Him even if it will never make sense to you. I am asking where these dark areas areas are in which we must appeal to the knowledge of God.)
3. How do I think about God as a lover and a lion and not as a doctrine or a concept or something to make me feel warm and fuzzy and nice? How do I think about Him as an objective personal reality with feelings and thoughts and passions and anger and great fierceness of love and compassion, with hands that throw down the pillars of creation and feet that pace the galaxies? How do I think about Him, like Donald Miller said, a great terrible being with a voice like the wind and feet like trees? Is there any way to do this without me coming undone?
I am entirely too dramatic. But to answer these questions of our faith feels as though it is to, somehow, ever so slightly, diminish the grandeur of God. That terrifies me and plus, I don't know if they have answers or if my feeble mind can even begin to approach them with any measure of justice.
I ask anyway. My judgement comes from God and it will stand with the great lineage of foolish question askers that extends all the way back to the days of Moses, David and the Apostles. Jerimiah was a prophet and He called God a liar and dishonest for the trouble of his office. I take some solace in that with the asking of all these questions.
As always, thoughts are appreciated and posts are lauded.
in the Three-in-One
Daniel
posted by Daniel @ 6:52 下午
3 comments
3 Comments:
yesssssssss!!!!!!!! We are so worried about drawing doctirnal conclusions and understanding the rules by which God works that we forget God. Thank you for posting that, because I have to constantly remind myself not to think, even about thinking.
Daniel
Dan, you're going all post-modern on me.
While modernism quite frankly doesn't work, neither does the "my experience, my story," view that comes with postmodernism.
The problem with postmodernism and existentialism is that it puts us as the main characteters in the story. It makes the story Ourstory instead of Hisstory.
"There is more to life, Horatio, than what is dreamt of in your philosophy," said Hamlet. Postmodernism is all about "what works for me." The idea is that if something works for you, then it's true for you, and you don't have to worry about whether or not it is universally true. God speaks to everyone in his own way.
But beneath that is a greater lie: that the Way to Heaven is broad, that everyone finds his own path. All paths lead to heaven, so who are we to judge the way that another has chosen? This leads to the lie that that we don't have to convince anyone of the truth, that we should let them believe whatever they want to.
But those people are already dead. They've been the wraiths, the zombies, the Scabs, the shadow of who they really could be.
My friend, we have to convince others because the way to Eternal Life lies only in drowning in the red pools! They must die to live. We must deny ourselves. We must live disciplined lives. That is not a way that most would choose because it is not easy. It was never intended to be easy. But it is right.
People choose sin not because of Christian's hypocrisy, as they claim to, but because they have never died to thier sin. Blaming Christians who don't live out the way of Christ is no excuse for their own sorry behavior. We know that sinning leads to death. We must kill the old, diseased man. and rise again from the ashes, reborn. This is not a path that all will choose.
But we must convince people whose hearts are hardened that this way DOES lead to life. Do you understand that? We can't just LIVE THE LIFE, we were COMMANDED to "go make disciples."
No, I'm not "going all postmodern on you" :: rolls eyes:: you know me better than that.
I mean God is truth. He has to be. Not everything is right. That much is obvious. It makes no logical sense, goes against the Bible and is just generally stupid. Plus, relativism is impractical to live. Randy Alcorn said, you can't navigate by the clouds instead of the stars.
But at the same time, I guess I'm only willing to take postmodernism as far as a "Aslan is not a tame lion." and no further. He is big and I don't now if doctrine can contain him any more.
At the same time, we have to be able to make true statements about God for it to mean anything. We have to know God truly but not exhaustively (Schaeffer said that).
I don't know. I know I'm not connecting with the logical premise of the arguement but I can't see it. I feel like I know A and I know C, i just am missing a valid B.
More later
Daniel
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