God, you are so good

Dear God

In looking over my life, I have become impressed even more at how good you are.  The insight you have shared with me has given me great comfort and peace.  My discovery of your Word being designed to give me comfort in a turbulent world has increased my sense of your presence and how you have so well taken care of us.

I am most impressed with your ability to tell me how much you love me without condemning me.  In fact, you asked me how you could be so nasty when i can be so loving.  Over all the years, it never occurred to me how good you could be.   Because I was looking to piss poor examples of you, I thought you were someone you never have been.

You are just.  You are righetous.  You are fair.  You demand perfection.   You came to earth and gave the perfect offering so that I could snuggle up to you and tell you how much I love you.

In the last 20 or so years of my life, I intend to take advantage of the wisdom you have given me.  I intend to give this idea of God to my wife and my boys.  I will also give this kind of treatment to those who might hate me.  As you have given to me, God, let me give to others so they can understand who you really are.

You are mightly.  the Universe in it’s glory is made by you.  Your creativity from the great is applied to the microscopic as scientists discover just how amazingly complex the microcosm of our atoms are.   So great as to have created an immense Universe and yet so detail oriented as to create the amazing particles we continue to discover.

Let your mercy flow from me, God.  Wherever you command, let me go there and show others how great you are.

And to think, you love me.

 

I do not understand

Hello World

I confess.  I do not understand the mind of God.  I also do not understand how the world was created.  I do not understand why such a large God would bend his ear down and listen to me.  My righteousness does not exist in the presence of a perfect God.

What I do understand is how people can reject the God that offers freedom.  I understand how I get caught up in myself.  I understand how my foibles separate me from God.  I also understand how I can live a lie, have a mental breakdown and then be restored by a very kind, gentle being who knows me.

Hey world.  Let me ask you this.  If you can forgive your partner for cheating on you, why can’t God forgive you?  How about this.  If you can love your child in the face of their most stupendously dumb decisions, how can a God not love you in the midst of your own stupidity?

We are made in the image of God.  Not the other way round.  This means that he is far better than we are at lovingkindness and mercy.

If we can love and forgive, how much MORE can God?

He’s the maker of all things.  The creator of all the Universe.  Wouldn’t He be the first to understand when we fail and turn to him for help?

If I can do it, I know He can do it so much better.

Think about it.  If we, who are evil, will not give our sons a stone when he is hungry, how much more will God do that for us?

We, who are evil to each other, know how to be kind to our friends.  Jesus called us friends.  He is perfect.

Would a friend conedmn us to hell every time we failed?  Geesh… I know I wouldn’t.

 

We are made in God’s image

Hello World

In our own ways, we have part of the equation correct when we say we are made in God’s image This is aligned with scripture.

What about when we make God into our own image?  What then?

Of course, Jesus is human.  Jesus is also God.

There is a side to our Jesus that we humans cannot possibly fathom.  The Word also says “Who can know the mind of God?”

When we squeeze God into our understanding, we shrink his power in our lives.  I have considdered the vast expanse of the Universe and have discovered that there is no way that I can understand it’s power, it’s variety or it’s origins.   I choose not to get lost in the argument regarding the origin of the Universe because I will not know in this life.  I can scrabble away at trying to understand how large it is, but I will never comprehend all of it.  Scientists claim to have become very close to understanding a theory of everything and how the Universe was made.

We create a supposition that the Universe was created at random from nothing.  Yet this very premise violates all the laws of science that are in place.   Much like religion, there is no logic to that premise.   You have to have faith that something came from nothing.  Therefore, science is religion without a god.    I’ve never cared for that kind of Physics because it tries to leave God out of the equation.  I posit that the more I know about the Universe and the World about me, the more I am convicned that God made it. This is as far as I go. I do not have to debate the existence of God.  He existss.  Science is an evolving religion.  Nothing more.

We suppose that we can understand things that are far beyond our grasp.  If we spend enough money and time creating overly complex theories of everything, then we will understand the universe withou God.  Surely, we jest.   It is the height of arragance to put ourselves in the place of God.  Our fate will be much like Lucifer’s.  Alone.  Without God.  I cannot stand the darkness.  I prefer Godly light.

I will never forget that I am made in God’s image.  A pale image, for sure.  The best I can do is imitate Him.  I cannot understand Him.  Why?  I live on a speck of dust inside a great cosmic universe that is so vast, I cannot grasp it.  Science has advanced to the point where it convices me that there is, indeed a God.  How else could anything this large and complesx exist?  by random chance?  really.  How was that done? Can you explain it?  Were you there?  No, we must create a better model and have bigger computers.

You will lead me to the same conclusion.  God is.  I am a poor imitator.  I cannot understand Him because He is far too big.  And He loves me.

That God loves me.  And you, too, scientists.  Oh yes, don’t forget all the other 6.5 billion that live here.

 

The Character of God

Hello World

I live in a land of judgmental, arrogant people.  That land is the United States of America.  Religiously speaking, we have become fat and complacent.  Why dare I say this?  Because on both sides of the religious spectrum, godly or atheist, we have a smug sense of superiority that is completely unwarranted.  Why?  Because we are certainly not gods.   We don’t even know how big the Universe is.  How can we begin to judge each other?

I have come to know a different – unpentecostal God. I know a God who is not a respecter of denomination or religioin.  If we can open ourselves to Him, he will reveal Himself to us.

Over the past year, I have struggled with my mind.  I have had a breakdown that stopped me in my tracks.  Isn’t God just like that.  Puts on the breaks and gets my attnetion. Without goring the details, suffice it to say my mind has been changed.

God asked me the other day “Do you condemn your children to hell for making mistakes? “  I was stunned.  “Of course not”.  God replies “Then why do you think I am such a cruel God if you can be so kind?    I made you in my image.  If you can show mercy to a child, why can’t I show mercy to you? “

I started to think.  If I can show kindness and mercy to my kids and not condemn them for every sing thing they have ever done . . . Why would God?

Not that we aren’t supposed to do what is right.  I consider David – the murdering, salacious king of Israel.  His heart was after God and yet he did some horrible things.  God remembered his name.

Who, but God, can show oceans of mercy, patience and kindness.  Yet we humans think of him as a cruel, judgmental tyrant – much like the Greek gods.

Is that who God is?  Cruel thrower of the tempest upon all humankind?

Who is this God, creator of a vast Universe that can’t even be fathomed by our high technology.  Our high and mighty priests of science can’t begin to tell us how huge this universe is.  Conversely, they cannot tell us how small it is, either because they keep finding smaller and smaller bits that hold us together.

I have experienced a profound change of mind.

 

Is anybody out there?

Dear God

You have more than answered that question in my life.

When I consider the heavens snd the vastness therein – You are there to comfort my soul

When I feel like the smallest speck on a piece of dust – You are there to greet me and tell me I’m important.

Thanks, God, for being here for me all the time.

Love

Your son

 

I can be a nerd and a Christian

Dear God

I appreciate you letting me be a nerd and a Christian.  Is that a nerdy christian?  hah!

God, you have always taken care of us in ways that continue to surprise me.  One day, I quit my job, the next day you put 5,000 in our bank account.

You inspire me to stay alive and continue until you are done.

Thanks, God.

 

I am blessed

Dear God

Thank you for letting me follow my passion.  I love being a teacher and developing curriculum.

If I could do it over again, i would teach again.  I love teaching.

 

High Blood Pressure

It’s in my family and in me.

I get the privilege of taking medication.

God, I know we carry bits and pieces of your suffering with us.  Thank you for this privilege.

Could you do me a favor?  Take away those gnarly side effects.

 

How Wondrous

Dear God

I was looking at a picture that National Geographic put together.  It was crafted in such a way that has given me pause.

Nat Geo put together a picture of where we fit in the Universe.  It struck me today just how small we are in such a large Universe.

Our solar system is a speck inside the Milky Way Galaxy – which is part of a group that is over 20 million light years in width.   This group is a part of billions of other groups that make up the expanding Universe.

I paused.

how can anything I say or do have any significance – unless you make it so?  What true difference does my life make in the scheme of things?  Given such a huge and unimaginably large Universe – why did you come and save my soul?   I am so tiny.

Thank you, God, for the wondrous gift you gave me.  If you, indeed, created the universe then I am terrified of the Wondrous nature of your Name.   If the Universe fits in your Hand, I cannot imagine how big you are.

God.  Thank you – from the bottom of my heart.

 

Dear God – Do you know me?

Dear God

I wonder sometimes – do you know who I am?

I read somewhere that you have the hairs on my head numbered.  I suppose that gets easier with my ever increasing bald spot.

God, do you know who I am?

I also read somewhere that you knew me before I was born.  I wish I knew what that meant as I have no recall of the time before – barely up to the current time anyway.

If you humbled yourself and became a mortal man for me – how can you not know me?   I would not do that for somebody I didn’t know.

Would you?