We see God not as God is, but as we are!
We see God through our eyes, our experiences, be they good, bad or otherwise. This is why, I believe, it is very difficult for a person who has lived a hard life or a life filled with insurmountable struggles both inwardly and outwardly, to hear and accept the words, "God loves you." Such a person cannot fathom a loving God in the midst of the painful circumstances of their life, especially if all they've known has been turmoil and pain.
Such a person may not even know what true love looks like or feels like. This is why I believe Jesus was about action and not just words. Maybe that's why he didn't write down anything he said-because he knew that people would fixate on the written words moreso than the doing of those words. We love to quote scripture but are we living what they say? Are our lives living expressions of the scriptures? It's easy to say to someone, "God loves you," but what about demonstration of that love. What do those words really mean and how does one manifest them? It's like a husband telling his wife,"I love you," while he continuously ignores her needs or fails to take time to show her that she matters to him.
Jesus was a man of action and words. The parables he shared, the stories he told were coupled with his feeding of the 5,000 along with his healing of the lepers, the blind, and the crippled. He spoke about God as his Father but he also demonstrated God. He came to show who God was.
When he spoke to the woman at the well, he pierced her heart simply by talking about regular drinking water from a well versus living water that he alone could supply. He went deeply into her personal life about the many men she'd had in her life. By the time Jesus was done talking with her, something inside her had been forever changed. She, from that moment on, knew God in a completely new way.
Someone once said that God created us in His image and we've returned the favor by making God in our image, meaning we oftentimes bring God down to our level.
Check out your life.
Check out your thoughts.
What are your beliefs about God?
Do you equate God's ways with the ways of people?
Do you believe God is just like man?
God says that His ways are not our ways, neither are His thoughts our thoughts. As a matter of fact, His ways and thoughts are higher than ours, as the heavens are higher than the earth.
Perhaps this is why there are so many strains of Christianity, so many varying views and beliefs about God. We all tend to see God as we are.
When will we make room for God to show up in our lives as God truly is and not the God we want Him to be? Let God in, you might be surprised!
Peace
God is much different than we thought and also much better than we feared.
- Richard Rohr,
Things Hidden, Scripture as Spirituality
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Taste and See
Be still and know that I am God. Be still, stop the running around, to and fro. Be still, stop letting your anxieties and your fears control you and drive you into making rash decisions. Be still, you wield much power when you are at peace! Be still.
Stop believing the lie that you're only productive and of value if you're constantly on the move fulfilling all the obligations demanded of you.
Be still for a moment and let God remind you who is really in charge. It ain't you and it ain't me!
Be still, take a minute.
Breathe.
When you are still, so much comes to you. You don't have to be running around like a crazy person searching for answers. Be still and allow the answers to come to you.
Be still and know that I am God- Psalm 46:10.
Why this scripture? Well, I think that we sometimes forget who we are and whose we are. We take it upon ourselves to run things according to our point of view. But do we ever stop to ask God what we should do?
Oh, yes, I forgot that many times we don't ask because we don't really want to hear the answer God might give.
The book of Exodus tells the story of the children of Israel and their journey from Egypt to Canaan, their promised land. It is an incredible story of God's amazing leading of them out of bondage into freedom through Moses. Although they were excited about escaping slavery at the hand of Pharoah, they weren't quite prepared for God being at the center of their very survival. Many times they spoke angrily of wanting to go back to Egypt instead of living day to day in the wilderness dependent on God to care for them. Suddenly Egypt looked better to them than their new life with God running the show. At least when they were slaves back in Egypt, they understood how things worked. They knew their boundaries and they knew very well what each day would bring. Nothing new, nothing exciting, no changes, just more back breaking, soul destroying labor! Interesting!
I enjoy reading this story because in it I see myself and how I sometimes prefer a life of security and familiarity and even mediocrity in place of a new life with God directing my steps. After all, who knows what God might do in my life if I actually let go of the reins?
True, the Israelites were not at all familiar with this God that Moses adored,worshiped,followed and obeyed. Egypt was a place where many gods were worshiped. It must have been mind boggling for the Israelites to hear this God speak to them and perform various signs and wonders before their eyes. They probably wondered could this God be trusted? This was no easy transition. This was more of a mental change than the change in their physical surroundings. And so it is with us. A large part of the change God is trying to bring about in our lives has to begin with our minds and our deeply entrenched beliefs about ourselves, our lives and God.
But God revealed Himself to them over and over again, constantly providing their needs, speaking to them and showing them what a life of trust looked like and what true freedom felt like.
But, sadly, they were more comfortable with their past experience, namely slavery and its many cruelties. Imagine that!
Fast forward many years to the times of Jesus Christ and again you read about those who preferred slavery to freedom. Wow!
Are we any different today? Much God talk abounds in our culture but how many have really tasted and seen that the Lord is good? We love to talk about the promised land but few actually enter therein.
Stop believing the lie that you're only productive and of value if you're constantly on the move fulfilling all the obligations demanded of you.
Be still for a moment and let God remind you who is really in charge. It ain't you and it ain't me!
Be still, take a minute.
Breathe.
When you are still, so much comes to you. You don't have to be running around like a crazy person searching for answers. Be still and allow the answers to come to you.
Be still and know that I am God- Psalm 46:10.
Why this scripture? Well, I think that we sometimes forget who we are and whose we are. We take it upon ourselves to run things according to our point of view. But do we ever stop to ask God what we should do?
Oh, yes, I forgot that many times we don't ask because we don't really want to hear the answer God might give.
The book of Exodus tells the story of the children of Israel and their journey from Egypt to Canaan, their promised land. It is an incredible story of God's amazing leading of them out of bondage into freedom through Moses. Although they were excited about escaping slavery at the hand of Pharoah, they weren't quite prepared for God being at the center of their very survival. Many times they spoke angrily of wanting to go back to Egypt instead of living day to day in the wilderness dependent on God to care for them. Suddenly Egypt looked better to them than their new life with God running the show. At least when they were slaves back in Egypt, they understood how things worked. They knew their boundaries and they knew very well what each day would bring. Nothing new, nothing exciting, no changes, just more back breaking, soul destroying labor! Interesting!
I enjoy reading this story because in it I see myself and how I sometimes prefer a life of security and familiarity and even mediocrity in place of a new life with God directing my steps. After all, who knows what God might do in my life if I actually let go of the reins?
True, the Israelites were not at all familiar with this God that Moses adored,worshiped,followed and obeyed. Egypt was a place where many gods were worshiped. It must have been mind boggling for the Israelites to hear this God speak to them and perform various signs and wonders before their eyes. They probably wondered could this God be trusted? This was no easy transition. This was more of a mental change than the change in their physical surroundings. And so it is with us. A large part of the change God is trying to bring about in our lives has to begin with our minds and our deeply entrenched beliefs about ourselves, our lives and God.
But God revealed Himself to them over and over again, constantly providing their needs, speaking to them and showing them what a life of trust looked like and what true freedom felt like.
But, sadly, they were more comfortable with their past experience, namely slavery and its many cruelties. Imagine that!
Fast forward many years to the times of Jesus Christ and again you read about those who preferred slavery to freedom. Wow!
Are we any different today? Much God talk abounds in our culture but how many have really tasted and seen that the Lord is good? We love to talk about the promised land but few actually enter therein.
Monday, November 7, 2011
Judging
We all do it. We may fool ourselves into believing that we don't judge, but we all do. We judge each other by appearance, by the color of our skin, by the neighborhood we live in, by our material assets or lack thereof. We even judge one another according to religious affiliation. But didn't Jesus say, "Judge not, that you be not judged?"
Why is it that the simplest words spoken by him seem to be the ones we have such a hard time following?
But, you may say, what's wrong with judging others?
Well, the act of judging automatically sets you up as being perfect, no faults, no blemishes,just a great person all around. Judging is limiting because our view of others is quite limited. We only see what's readily visible at that particular moment. It is impossible to see/know everything about another human being. The only one who is able to see everything is God. So, judging is also made from your point of view, your experiences, your beliefs,likes, dislikes, and your overall take on life. How do you know that your view about things isn't a little skewed?
Several years ago, I thought I had it going on concerning how I believed things should be, how people should be and of course, how God should be. I didn't know it at the time but I was quite smug in my understanding of life. I lived in a very small, tight box and I put others into boxes as well with labels and all.This made me feel very secure, by the way.
The labels helped me to figure out who was who and helped me to determine how to approach others, treat them, distance myself from them, trust them etc. Of course,if the person shared the same religion or belief system as I did, we were compatible.Because then we could come together around a shared belief and look down our noses at those who were "different." This worked greatly for awhile until I began to notice how small minded and self-righteous I was becoming. I wasn't the happiest person to be around because I was always looking to tell others what they needed to do to change their lives, which was my prescription. Who made me God? Self-righteousness, by the way, is an exhausting hobby. Don't take it up, it will drain the life out of you!
Jesus says, don't judge- Why? because when you do it you set yourself up by telling a lie, which is that you are perfect and that you know what every one else should be doing. Remember God looks at the heart. God is the only one able to look within at the heart and judge rightly.This is why, I believe, God is a forgiving God over and over again.
Judging requires lots of energy and the energy expended on others could be energy used on oneself to be about your own business.If I am busily judging you, I can't see where I'm going or what I should be doing in my own life. Perhaps this is why Jesus spoke these words. He knew that judging creates division, anger,fear, a false sense of security, and even hatred among people.
Why is it so difficult to let God be God in our own lives and the lives of others?
He's been in the God business for a very long time. I think He knows what He's doing and is more than able to do what He does best.
Why is it that the simplest words spoken by him seem to be the ones we have such a hard time following?
But, you may say, what's wrong with judging others?
Well, the act of judging automatically sets you up as being perfect, no faults, no blemishes,just a great person all around. Judging is limiting because our view of others is quite limited. We only see what's readily visible at that particular moment. It is impossible to see/know everything about another human being. The only one who is able to see everything is God. So, judging is also made from your point of view, your experiences, your beliefs,likes, dislikes, and your overall take on life. How do you know that your view about things isn't a little skewed?
Several years ago, I thought I had it going on concerning how I believed things should be, how people should be and of course, how God should be. I didn't know it at the time but I was quite smug in my understanding of life. I lived in a very small, tight box and I put others into boxes as well with labels and all.This made me feel very secure, by the way.
The labels helped me to figure out who was who and helped me to determine how to approach others, treat them, distance myself from them, trust them etc. Of course,if the person shared the same religion or belief system as I did, we were compatible.Because then we could come together around a shared belief and look down our noses at those who were "different." This worked greatly for awhile until I began to notice how small minded and self-righteous I was becoming. I wasn't the happiest person to be around because I was always looking to tell others what they needed to do to change their lives, which was my prescription. Who made me God? Self-righteousness, by the way, is an exhausting hobby. Don't take it up, it will drain the life out of you!
Jesus says, don't judge- Why? because when you do it you set yourself up by telling a lie, which is that you are perfect and that you know what every one else should be doing. Remember God looks at the heart. God is the only one able to look within at the heart and judge rightly.This is why, I believe, God is a forgiving God over and over again.
Judging requires lots of energy and the energy expended on others could be energy used on oneself to be about your own business.If I am busily judging you, I can't see where I'm going or what I should be doing in my own life. Perhaps this is why Jesus spoke these words. He knew that judging creates division, anger,fear, a false sense of security, and even hatred among people.
Why is it so difficult to let God be God in our own lives and the lives of others?
He's been in the God business for a very long time. I think He knows what He's doing and is more than able to do what He does best.
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