Thinking about God

No, I don't think about God all the time, really I don't. But how do you avoid him? The expert on world mythology, Rudolf Otto, in his book The Idea of the Holy argued that every culture on each, despite its belief in many gods (or no god at all) has a foundational sense that beyond everything it knows there is a presence, vast and powerful that is the true authority in the universe.

It depends, of course, on how you conceive of God. What we call "God" could be the sum total of all that exists, deity imbodying every atom from tree to dog to us. Or God could be a personal being who thinks and feels and communicates. Or God could be a totally unatainable concept - an ideal so majestic and so aloof that we can search for him (it) but never really have a hope of success.

When I think about God, I suppose I could create an image of him in my own mind, but that's not very satisfying, because I'd do the same if I were imagining a fictional character. That's why, for me, thinking about God is based so centrally in the book I believe to be his communication to us - the Bible. I'm not interested in visualizing my own God into existence, because why good could he do me? But if he's actually spoken to us, there is a degree of certainty that's sure worth investigating.

Of course, even then we have a lot of questions. If he made us, why are we so messed up? Why doesn't he show himself? Why does he let bad things happen to people like us, who are mainly undeserving of bad things? and so on. I'd like to explore some of these, even explore God. That's a pretty daunting task, but I'd like to give it a try.

Thinking About Terror

This is a meaning-of-everything blog, so I should be able to comment on most anything. Yet I'm a bit leery about commenting on international terrorism. I mean, I could simply rant against the evil of people who carry out monstrous acts simply to fuel whatever insane cause is consuming their souls. But I'm thinking that there's a much deeper reality here.

People who believe in ultimate reality (like I do) face a serious risk unknown to those who don't know for sure if anything is real or absolute. People who believe in ultimate reality tend to get a very narrow perspective in which their belief that they've found the answer translates into a conviction that everyone else is wrong. From there, some of the more extreme believers begin viewing anyone who does not share their perspective as an enemy. Add some poverty and real or imagined oppression, and you have a recipe for believing that you are at war, with the prize being the triumph of your cause, and the deadly fear being the destruction of your reality.

The snare of religious terrorism (whether extreme Islam or a "Christian" abortion clinic bomber) is essentially a lack of faith. If God is God, he is big enough to defend himself. The terrorist, in fear or disgust at the threat of the enemy, takes it upon himself or herself literally to play God. That's the real tragedy - that when you defend the cause of God in your own strength, you do a lot of damage and end up denying the basic principles of whatever you believe in.

Hope for Eternity

You can wrap your reading of the Bible in an hour with Revelation 21. Amazing stuff:

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the old heaven and the old earth had disappeared. And the sea was also gone. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven like a beautiful bride prepared for her husband.
I heard a loud shout from the throne, saying, "Look, the home of God is now among his people! He will live with them, and they will be his people. God himself will be with them. He will remove all of their sorrows, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. For the old world and its evils are gone forever." (Revelation 21:1-4)

A promise of heaven one day, of God living fully with us, of all our sorrows being gone, of being in a new world, seems like one of those dreams that will never see reality. It seems too idyllic to be anything but wishful thinking.

But look at it this way - if we walked away from God, but he reached out to us and sent his own Son to die a gory death for us and rise again, then why shouldn't we expect something amazing at the end of it all. Here, take a look at this photo. I took it at Susan Lake, high in the Purcell mountains of British Columbia just over a week ago:

Fabulous, isn't it? The beauty, the bigness, the color. All of this evolved through some blind working of blind chance, right? Or God made it, and Jesus is alive. And one day Revelation 21 will be a reality.

The Message in a Nutshell

I suggested, a while back, that it was possible to read the basic message of the Bible in about an hour. The essence of what it is saying is found in Romans 10:1-13, written by the Apostle Paul, an early follower of the resurrected Jesus.

He starts by lamenting the fact that certain of his own people hadn't attached themselves to the concept that Jesus was their Messiah, their chosen one. Christ had become the endpoint of the Jewish law, its utter fulfilment, its complete goal. Through him, all of God's plans to bring humanity back to himself are accomplished.

It isn't complicated. You don't need to get your head or your spirit into some heavenly trance to find the answer. Nor do you need to consult the dead. The answer is right here. Let me quote it:

For if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by confessing with your mouth that you are saved. (Romans 10:9-10)

The Bible makes it clear that our problem is that we wanted independence from God. God tells us that Jesus must be in control if we want to be reconciled to God. And we must believe that he is truly alive.

The prayer is simple: God, I recognize that I've wandered very far from you and offended you by living my own life my own way. I declare that Jesus will be my Lord from this point on and believe in my heart that he is risen from the dead. He died for me to pay the penalty for my rebellion, and I gratefully take the sacrifice of his blood as my cleansing.