Monday 23 January 2012

copy cat...

I was reading this post:

http://withoutjah-nothin.blogspot.com/2012/01/its-funny-that-i-consider-myself-artist.html

on my friend Kellen's blog, and realised how i feel very much the same as she does, though regarding a different thing. I copied her post almost completely, just changing a few (but significant) words:

It's funny that I consider myself a Christian. Faith is a constant mind-battle for me.
I do think that I have some measure of gifting to theologically reason and it's something that I love to do, but at the same time, I have never been really affected by a spiritual experience. I strive to fill my days with meaningful conversations that have the potential to move people, while I myself have never been moved (to any significant degree).
I feel like a hypocrite; that is my struggle.
Don't get me wrong, I know that it's possible for God to make an impact on someone. I just have a hard time believing that the impact could ever be huge, even though I know that it can. There is a small disconnect between my knowledge and my understanding...

Thursday 19 January 2012

Community

I love Moses! I love the story of God meeting with Moses. I’ve wished that I could have just a bit of what Moses had when he went up on the mountain and spoke with God for forty days. I have often thought to have an experience anything like that of Moses’ I would have I needed to spend time in silence and solitude. I still think those are great things, but I have been trying to understand what is meant by a “personal relationship with God”. I don’t think that it is a phrase that occurs in the scriptures anywhere, and I’ve been wondering if it leads me to have false expectations about how God should be interacting with me. I was flipping through my Bible with this question in mind, and bouncing some Ideas off of a friend. The letters in the New Testament are written to whole churches, so when it is written “you are the temple of God”, it means that we are the temple of God. That blows my mind. We were talking about how it seems that we should relate to God as a community. (Does that happen in church? Or do we all just relate to God individually while happening to be in the same place?) I thought if we are to relate to God as a community, maybe he will relate to us when we are in community. I wondered if that was true. My friend mentioned the letters to the churches in Revelation; they are to churches, not individuals. I find that to be interesting. I then thought about Moses. In Exodus 19 God has a message for his people, the commandments. He gathers them all together so that as a community they hear from God.

“Then Moses led the people out of the camp to meet with God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain. Mount Sinai was covered with smoke, because the LORD descended on it in fire. The smoke billowed up from it like smoke from a furnace, and the whole mountain trembled violently. As the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder, Moses spoke and the voice of God answered him.” (Ex 19:17-19)

I wonder what it was like to be among the Israelites that day?

“When the people saw the thunder and lightning and heard the trumpet and saw the mountain in smoke, they trembled with fear. They stayed at a distance and said to Moses, “Speak to us yourself and we will listen. But do not have God speak to us or we will die.”

Moses said to the people, “Do not be afraid. God has come to test you, so that the fear of God will be with you to keep you from sinning.”

The people remained at a distance, while Moses approached the thick darkness where God was.” (Ex 20:18-21)

In the end the Israelites back off, and Moses alone approaches God, but I can’t help but wonder if God desires to meet with us in community. I wonder if we’d be ready for that. I think it is time for me to focus on my communal relationship with God.

Friday 6 January 2012

I is creative...


Look!
I made a tree!
I made it out of dreads... Yup, my dreads, but don't worry there is still plenty of dread left on my head.
A tree made out of dreads...? That's disgusting... I know.



Look!
I made cookies!
They are pretty!
It was fun!
My inspiration?
http://wifeofthecolonel.blogspot.com/2012/01/easy-slice-and-bake-cookies.html
Only, I think I did something wrong because the dough was too soft. I only made a half recipe, so maybe I did bad math, or maybe it was the use of vegan margarine instead of butter.
I added extra flour... and sugar

Sunday 1 January 2012

Is that really so?

I have been trying to wrap my head around what is true, and have found myself in a place where I do not know anything. I start praying out of habit, but then questioning if there is even a God. The thing is I want to believe in God, and in Christ, that causes me no problem. The problem is that I have no way of knowing if they are real. I want my beliefs to accurately reflect reality, but I don't know how to make that so.
When I think about Monks through ages, they spent their whole lives trying to know God, and yet they all had different ideas about certain things. I have been reading Thomas A. Kempt (The Imitation of Christ) and I think that he is wrong about things. Namely that he seems to think that he must work a lot to be able to go to heaven and he feels no security in what Christ has already done. Who am I to say that he is wrong? If he could be wrong about something, then I could be wrong about something. I am sure that I am wrong in some of my beliefs, but then I fear, what if I am wrong about some of the major things I believe. What if there is no God. How can I know?
My life is centred around my faith in Jesus. My reasons for everything I do rest on my faith in God. I would be lost without my beliefs. I am lost. Even my thoughts of trying to work this week are rather foggy as my perception of God is foggy.
A lot of people have a lot of strong believes in a lot of different things, and someone who thinks differently than me isn’t stupid, unlearned or evil. They might even be right, just as I might be right.
I have no reason to doubt that God exists. I have no evidence against Christ, but I am sure that I must believe many wrong things, because there are so many different beliefs out there and I am not always right. The question then is which of my beliefs reflect reality, and which ones should just be thrown out?