I have quite a passive and receptive relationship with God, but one thing that sometimes sparks complaint is the protesting "Why?" when I see people (and their relatives) suffering and in pain.
As a nurse I see lots of this, and in some ways I am privileged to be 'there' in the intimacies and actuality of another persons suffering. But the sheer sadness of this happening and being endured by another human being sometimes makes me cry out "Oh, come on God, this isn't fair."
I believe God is always loving and always gracious, but why is suffering 'allowed'? God has the power to stop it, and yet we live in a world where many people have to go through suffering and pain.
There have to be reasons. But all I get to do in my nursing is trust God's goodness, and get on with trying to provide practical help.
Lord, have mercy. Lord help us to be there sometimes, when people are suffering in loneliness. Do I have a neighbour or relative who is suffering, who I could visit? It seems like we can't get the answer to the question 'why' but we can try to be practical and care.
Any thoughts on this?
As a nurse I see lots of this, and in some ways I am privileged to be 'there' in the intimacies and actuality of another persons suffering. But the sheer sadness of this happening and being endured by another human being sometimes makes me cry out "Oh, come on God, this isn't fair."
I believe God is always loving and always gracious, but why is suffering 'allowed'? God has the power to stop it, and yet we live in a world where many people have to go through suffering and pain.
There have to be reasons. But all I get to do in my nursing is trust God's goodness, and get on with trying to provide practical help.
Lord, have mercy. Lord help us to be there sometimes, when people are suffering in loneliness. Do I have a neighbour or relative who is suffering, who I could visit? It seems like we can't get the answer to the question 'why' but we can try to be practical and care.
Any thoughts on this?
I think there should be a difference between anxiety and the fear of God. Lately I have lot's of anxiety about God, so much that I really suffer from it. Instead of being able to rely on God I turn away from him, intuitively, because of the anxiety I just can't seem to trust anything. How can I overcome that? I feel bitter about it already because the anxiety became medical, it invaded all of my life really. Because of this I can't even begin to try to do works of love and such, I never get any good feelings from it, the anxiety prevents everything. Recently it got a bit better because my doctor discontinued a medicine I had gotten which has anxiety as a listed side effect. But the problem remains. When I read the bible I can't gather strength either because I'm always reading the judgment verses and don't know my way out of them. Also, in previous times the simple belief that God exists came easy for me, now it's not quite the same anymore, I just don't see and feel God around me. I'm confused. I'm scared because of bad political happenings like with the IS in Arabia and with the crisis in the Ukraine. I used to distract myself with games or something from the net, but it's not working so well anymore. In short, I'm pretty much a mess. I'm grateful for any advice. Thank you and God bless!
I wanted to ask you how you can continue to believe in biblical inerrancy when you can't accept the flood and other things from the OT anymore, ie old earth creation and such. It seems to me that when you can't accept some details from the bible anymore, then it's open that many other things from the bible might not be true either, ie Paul's arguments for strict marital faithfulness that allows no divorce, doctrines like those of hell and eternal punishment, Paul's arguments against homosexuality, etc.
Usually christendom seems to test so many things against the bible, now instead it seems like we have to test the bible against so many things.
I have to admit that I actually like this because many things in the bible that you have to accept as a requirement for being a christian in some churches, are not so nice, to put it mildly. But this leads to some incoherences, ie some would accuse you to be cherry picking if you accept only the positive things in the bible and not the negative parts of it, in essence you get questioned whether your loyalty to God is as honest as you would claim it to be.
I figure that some things in the bible can be proven somewhat easily enough, we know that Israel existed, that King David is a historically authentic figure, that Jesus walked through Israel and got crucified, and so on. But for many things we don't have proofs of authenticity. For example, I have read arguments that David was considered a bloodthirsty tyrant by contemporaries and I have read arguments against the resurrection that say Jesus' body was taken away (this is even in the bible, though they say there it's a fabrication by pharisees).
I would like to try to base my faith on things that have good proof to them, but it seems to me that this is impossible in the case of this religion. I do have some good circumstantial evidence for God's existence, like how improbable it seems that this world was created just by chance. And how meaningless life would be if there were no afterlife. And how much sense Jesus makes in the scriptures as the foretold Messiah who would righten everything including the harsh jewish system that contained all the things that seemed so bad to me when I read the bible.
If you're a bible believer, you have it all in a big and "neat" package. You believe on the basis of authority, ie "God told me everything so it must be true". But as an official cherry picker I don't have such a big and neat package, I only have a collection of sweet details yet I have no complete evidence for them. If you're maybe in the same boat, how do you go on from here? What do you consider the proof for a good God? What are your proofs of God that you haven't found in the bible but elsewhere?
Usually christendom seems to test so many things against the bible, now instead it seems like we have to test the bible against so many things.
I have to admit that I actually like this because many things in the bible that you have to accept as a requirement for being a christian in some churches, are not so nice, to put it mildly. But this leads to some incoherences, ie some would accuse you to be cherry picking if you accept only the positive things in the bible and not the negative parts of it, in essence you get questioned whether your loyalty to God is as honest as you would claim it to be.
I figure that some things in the bible can be proven somewhat easily enough, we know that Israel existed, that King David is a historically authentic figure, that Jesus walked through Israel and got crucified, and so on. But for many things we don't have proofs of authenticity. For example, I have read arguments that David was considered a bloodthirsty tyrant by contemporaries and I have read arguments against the resurrection that say Jesus' body was taken away (this is even in the bible, though they say there it's a fabrication by pharisees).
I would like to try to base my faith on things that have good proof to them, but it seems to me that this is impossible in the case of this religion. I do have some good circumstantial evidence for God's existence, like how improbable it seems that this world was created just by chance. And how meaningless life would be if there were no afterlife. And how much sense Jesus makes in the scriptures as the foretold Messiah who would righten everything including the harsh jewish system that contained all the things that seemed so bad to me when I read the bible.
If you're a bible believer, you have it all in a big and "neat" package. You believe on the basis of authority, ie "God told me everything so it must be true". But as an official cherry picker I don't have such a big and neat package, I only have a collection of sweet details yet I have no complete evidence for them. If you're maybe in the same boat, how do you go on from here? What do you consider the proof for a good God? What are your proofs of God that you haven't found in the bible but elsewhere?
Recently I've been studying some philosophy and came upon Descartes again. I've wanted to ask you, do you accept his cogito and the subsequent logic of Descartes that says that we cannot know something for sure except that we exist, by the fact that we are thinking? Is there a better start or means to develop a good phenomenology than using the Cogito?
I mean, for me it is evident that the Cogito, while logical, is also rather absurd because it sounds more reasonable to say, I am, and then I think. The self precedes thought because evidently I can sleep and don't think and yet I exist. Or, take stones or plants, they don't think yet they exist.
I would see a connection to God's will for us to live in love, which means that I'm supposed to abandon myself. But when my self (my ego) is supposed to be only thing which is evident with certainty, how can I leave it aside? I would want to try to develop a phenomenology that begins with God and not with me. My eyes at first see the world, and not myself. My thoughts are structured logically and most often formulate themselves etymologically, with a language, and language is something I have learned from others, mostly. The way I think is at least partially determined by input from other people and by what I perceive, and what I perceive is not myself only. But if I am supposed to doubt the external because I cannot prove it with certainity, then I'm so dependent on myself and my self becomes so huge that I'd rather loose it than live on with it.
Also, there's the historical. When God is my father who has born me then existence starts with God and not with me, and then God's love becomes evident in the fact that my existence is something good and that I have been given my existence by God, so God is evident as a good God.
But it's hard to develop a phenomenology of certainty without using the Cogito. My question would be, what exactly is a proof that brings certainty, and why does the Cogito prove my existence and yet why am I supposed to be unable to prove something else as easily?
Thanks for the discussion. God bless you,
Daniel
I mean, for me it is evident that the Cogito, while logical, is also rather absurd because it sounds more reasonable to say, I am, and then I think. The self precedes thought because evidently I can sleep and don't think and yet I exist. Or, take stones or plants, they don't think yet they exist.
I would see a connection to God's will for us to live in love, which means that I'm supposed to abandon myself. But when my self (my ego) is supposed to be only thing which is evident with certainty, how can I leave it aside? I would want to try to develop a phenomenology that begins with God and not with me. My eyes at first see the world, and not myself. My thoughts are structured logically and most often formulate themselves etymologically, with a language, and language is something I have learned from others, mostly. The way I think is at least partially determined by input from other people and by what I perceive, and what I perceive is not myself only. But if I am supposed to doubt the external because I cannot prove it with certainity, then I'm so dependent on myself and my self becomes so huge that I'd rather loose it than live on with it.
Also, there's the historical. When God is my father who has born me then existence starts with God and not with me, and then God's love becomes evident in the fact that my existence is something good and that I have been given my existence by God, so God is evident as a good God.
But it's hard to develop a phenomenology of certainty without using the Cogito. My question would be, what exactly is a proof that brings certainty, and why does the Cogito prove my existence and yet why am I supposed to be unable to prove something else as easily?
Thanks for the discussion. God bless you,
Daniel
Wednesday, September 24, 2014
GOD IS FOR US
Read Romans 8:28–39
And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. Romans 8:28 NKJV
* * *
In the early days of the church, believers faced opposition among their own people, sometimes in their own families. Rome certainly had no great love for the Truth and the Jews saw it as a threat to their long established traditions. Paul is writing from afar, teaching by the written word, giving encouragement that was sorely needed in the lives of these new believers.
He first reassures them that God knows and sees everything they are going through. Not only that, He has a plan which was in effect even before they were born. He says, “For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.”(8:29)
He tells them that just as they are now justified, they will one day be glorified in His presence. “What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all-how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?” (8:31-32)
* * *
Lord, never let me take for granted that You have a plan for my life, You knew me before I was born and All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. (Psalms 139:16 NIV) Nothing can separate me from Your love.
* * *
For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:38-39 NIV
On Friday my friend Jessie and his wife Irma lost their youngest child, 4-month-old Adam.
Prayers are appreciated.
If you were stranded on a desert island, and just got a few pages of the Bible left from the shipwreck (and no internet connection to cheat!)... which book of the Bible would you choose?
I'll start you off.
I choose: Ruth.
(If you want to add any reasons, to explain your choice, feel free to tell us!)
I'll start you off.
I choose: Ruth.
(If you want to add any reasons, to explain your choice, feel free to tell us!)
In my group home there is a woman that has severe pains recently. Her name is Marion and she has issues with her knees and with her hip. Because of her age and other complications, she can't go to surgery. So she is sitting at the table during the day and sighs and complains about it all. I wish I could say something to her but I can't. I don't have an effective pain medicine. I can't heal her from her distress. So what I did was bringing my little netbook and played for her some christian music. Then she laughed a bit and said it sounds good. The nurse took her to bed a bit later and she could sleep. The nurse said, someone in pain belongs to bed and must relieve herself by laying down. But Marion doesnt't listen well to this. Most of the day she sits at the table and bears out her pain. So what else can I do to help her? It is becoming hard to eat breakfast or dinner because she is always ouching... any ideas?
One of the things I like about my Christian faith is that it includes physicality. God came and dwelt with us in a physical body. Some of Jesus's miracles involved physical things - food, wine, healing. When he was raised from the dead, he was raised with a physical body. We are not just spirit, and kind of abstract. It seems like we are called to inherit physical bodies. They are part of God's reality.
I was watching a great clip on YouTube about Buddhist nuns who had taken up martial arts, and another clip of some monks who'd integrated martial arts into their disciplines. I like that concept. Combining physical presence with spiritual presence. Experiencing God through our bodies, and bodily disciplines or well-being.
Apart from anything else, as a nurse who spends much of the week on busy shifts, and handling pressures and demands and sometimes tension, I find physical relief really important. I play football as my means of just returning to simple physicality. That involves one evening a week training, and the matches themselves, and the unwind (and beer) afterwards. This switching off from other things, and just doing physical activity, I find really helps.
In the Christian tradition, are there any examples of faith being combined with physical disciplines (like the martial arts nuns)? Do *YOU* take physical activity to release the pressures, and get back in touch with your existence as a physical creature? I guess, obviously, sex can also have that kind of physical release as well, but I'm really just enquiring about how Christians can integrate physical disciplines and spiritual disciplines.
I'd also like to acknowledge that, of course, not everyone is blessed with physical freedom. Some people have to negotiate physical disability, and also, as we grow older, our bodies may be changed in how we pursue our physicality. But I know some older people, for example, who manage to do yoga even at an advanced age.
I am expecting eternity to be physical as well as 'spiritual' and I hope I can grow towards that!
I was watching a great clip on YouTube about Buddhist nuns who had taken up martial arts, and another clip of some monks who'd integrated martial arts into their disciplines. I like that concept. Combining physical presence with spiritual presence. Experiencing God through our bodies, and bodily disciplines or well-being.
Apart from anything else, as a nurse who spends much of the week on busy shifts, and handling pressures and demands and sometimes tension, I find physical relief really important. I play football as my means of just returning to simple physicality. That involves one evening a week training, and the matches themselves, and the unwind (and beer) afterwards. This switching off from other things, and just doing physical activity, I find really helps.
In the Christian tradition, are there any examples of faith being combined with physical disciplines (like the martial arts nuns)? Do *YOU* take physical activity to release the pressures, and get back in touch with your existence as a physical creature? I guess, obviously, sex can also have that kind of physical release as well, but I'm really just enquiring about how Christians can integrate physical disciplines and spiritual disciplines.
I'd also like to acknowledge that, of course, not everyone is blessed with physical freedom. Some people have to negotiate physical disability, and also, as we grow older, our bodies may be changed in how we pursue our physicality. But I know some older people, for example, who manage to do yoga even at an advanced age.
I am expecting eternity to be physical as well as 'spiritual' and I hope I can grow towards that!
OUR ULTIMATE HOPE
Read Romans 8:1-27
You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. Romans 8:9 NIV
Read Romans 8:1-27
You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. Romans 8:9 NIV
* * *
Paul has presented the dilemma of our struggle with sin and its solution through the sacrifice of Jesus. We still, however, must live with the presence of sin and in a physical sense we will one day face death, unless Jesus returns in our lifetime.
So Paul goes on to say, “...if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. (8:10) –so what is our ultimate hope?
“...And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.” (8:11)
We not only stand as righteous before God because of the death of Jesus, we also have the hope of eternal life because of His resurrection. This life begins today with the Spirit who dwells within us.
“For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, "Abba, Father." The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children ." (8:15–16)
So Paul goes on to say, “...if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. (8:10) –so what is our ultimate hope?
“...And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.” (8:11)
We not only stand as righteous before God because of the death of Jesus, we also have the hope of eternal life because of His resurrection. This life begins today with the Spirit who dwells within us.
“For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, "Abba, Father." The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children ." (8:15–16)
* * *
Thank you, Father that I am your child and I do not need to fear death. I thank you also for the abundant life you have promised us through your indwelling Holy Spirit and that no matter what my circumstances are from day to day, I can be secure in your love for me.
* * *
And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will. Romans 8:27 NIV
