Keep Wondering

Sure are a lot of things to think about in this life we live. God-His nature,plan,purpose,presence,absence??? Scripture- inerrant,human error,literal,metaphorical??? Just a few things which come to mind. I am not sure just where i stand in some ways other than I trust God,Jesus and the Holy Spirit have total control of what keeps us and the entire creation in existence.

I wonder about the whole subject of predestination/freewill. Is the Genesis story of Adam,Eve and the serpent literal historical fact?? Did Adam & Eve actually begin the entire procreation of the whole human race??? What made the forbidden fruit desirous to make one wise to Eve?? Where did those thoughts and perceptions originate from??? Why did God say that Adam & eve could have eaten from the tree of life and live forever??? Did physical death, of both humans and animals, occur before Adam & Eve ate the fruit??? Had to be since all the dinosaurs were gone right???

Wonder just what does it mean to be human?? I'm serious here. We are told to not be afraid by Jesus and angels, but how do we manage that??? Is it a certain specific fear we can manage to not have?? Is practicing holiness a constant ongoing learning process, same as repentance??? We have our thoughts wander all over the place during the day and as we seek to fall asleep don't we??? If we were to sell all we had and follow Jesus as He instructed the rich young ruler to do, how would we be able to live??? Surely Jesus never intended us today to take Him literally there right?? Just like the song by chumbawomba we get knocked down, we get up again,nothing gonna keep us down right??? Fear cannot remove fear, like fire cannot extinguish fire, so how does perfect love truly remove all fear and idea of punishment??

Hopefully someone will read this and comment. Interesting things to wonder about though.

Thoughts Continue

I wonder if people in ancient times drove themselves crazy with thinking the way we can do now??? Solomon sure had a great point that much knowledge equals much pain. He declares that a life lived without God is vanity and chasing after wind. A proverb states that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Just how to interpret that meaning has challenged our minds ever since.

God is Creator and He chose to make reality as He deemed fit. In pondering a utopian world, we would eliminate all disease, all pain,all death and violence. Truly Heaven on earth right?? We may dream of this existence, but truth is we cause our own hell and pain upon ourselves most of the time. Even the best of us, whoever that might be, have moments of insanity in the sense we act in selfish ways or destructive ways. We are not purely rational beings ala Mr Spock. We often let our emotions be our undoing. Of course our emotions also provide our greatest joy and triumph so often as well.

What is the human factor??? The New Testament is filled with descriptions of how believers struggled with conforming their attitudes and actions into that of Christ. Some things never change eh??? If we are brutally honest with ourselves we acknowledge we are saint/sinner almost always at the same time. It is the human condition. How do we get to a point of purer holiness??? How do we actualize Gods perfect love so all fear is removed and we carry out the Greatest Commandment in every interaction we have?? Still working things out in my head so sorry if this comes out discombobulated.

Thoughts

Are grace and hell compatible??? Is fear really the tool God wants to use to restore relationship with Himself??? Been pondering this for quite sometime. Hell is actually a transliteration i believe. The places in the Bible where hell is used are actually gehenna or hades i believe. Was Jesus speaking about an eternal place of conscious torment when He used gehenna or was He talking about the valley of Hinnom which was a refuse dump where constant fire burned to destroy all that was tossed there???

In 1 Timothy Paul says that it is the kindness of God that leads one to repentance. Why then have so many sermons and teaching focused on Gods wrath,judgment and anger as evangelistic methods??? What is the balance between Gods holiness and discipline and His love and grace??? If satan were truly a fallen angel who tries to lead every person astray and send them to hell wouldn't God sound the alarm a LOT louder,stronger and more frequent to warn us??? I mean satan is hardly mentioned in the OT except for in Job. I don't count lucifer in Isaiah because i believe that is referring to Nebuchadnezzar and Babylon.

Paul never mentions hell in any of his epistles. NEVER!!!! I think Romans, Hebrews and 1 & 2 Corinthians would have warranted its being told about ya know???

Hope to hear back from any who pass by here their thoughts. Maybe Oprah, Ellen or someone from Dateline NBC or 20/20 will see it and i can get on tv!!! LOL Hey i can dream :D

Man of LaMancha-Spiritual Metaphor

I acted in a high-school production of this play. Don Quixote was a very interesting character. He was a madman in one sense, seeing windmills as giants, a shaving basin as a magical golden helmet,and a small inn as a castle. However, he also saw a serving girl who was treated as a tramp and even viewed herself that way, as a beautiful fair maiden, pure and innocent, worthy of love and respect. He saw his quest to fight against evil and wrong in all its forms, and to seek to dream the impossible dream and reach the unreachable star.

i watched the movie last night, and was really struck by it. Especially how Don Quixote saw Aldonza. He saw her as a special lady whom he had sought unknowingly all his life. Well, his adult life anyway. She was used to being treated like dirt, used and abused by all the men she encountered. She sings her lifestory to him when she lashes out in outrage and anger because he imagines her so much better than she actually is. She knows how to handle the abuse and deal with it, she has no clue how to handle tenderness, hope and love.

Is this not a vision of how God deals with us??? Of course Aldonza was born in a ditch and left there to die. We were created by God in His Image. However, that image has been marred so deeply and obscured by ourselves over the decades. A highly accepted philosophy declares us to be nothing more than animals bascially, with a bit higher level of functioning. No soul, no dignity,no special purpose. Life is hard then you die. That's it. God and Jesus say hold on there one second. They give the real truth of who we are, of our value and our preciousness. Despite any and all declarations to the contrary, They see us for who we really are and can become. I hope and pray that reality is what gets grounded in us all more and more with no end.