Relationship with God

I've been reading a book about hearing from God. In thinking about this subject and praying I've begun realizing the most important factor in hearing from God is listening for him and recognizing his voice or communication. Furthermore, in order to listen and recognize it helps immensely when you have been praying to Him in faith and speaking to him from your heart. It tunes your heart and mind to the Lord's frequency if you will. Jesus spent the night with the Lord in prayer. All night long he was praying. So often I will find myself convicted that I need to pray more and so I will say a few sentences, a paragraph of words or maybe a page length of prayer to God and then... be done. After I finish praying, once I've said 'Amen' my mind tends to start shutting Him out again. Paul said that we should 'Pray continually.' (1 Thes. 5:17) It's hard for me to understand how to do that. I have great trouble with multi-tasking sometimes, because I have never been able to focus on more than one thing at a time, in fact I wonder if anyone really can. Another concept of multi-tasking is to keep switching from task to task focusing on each one periodically rather than the idea of focusing on all the tasks simultaneously. This seems more realistic, however I think what Paul/(God.. aka. God's revelation to Paul) had in mind was different from each of these two ideas. I think it was more like a colored lens that filters light. There's a phrase about looking at things through rose colored glasses. It refers to people who only see good things even when times are tough and might be seen as bad to someone else. I think this analogy can also be used here in that when we live life we see all things whether good, bad or neutral with a perspective of God and his hand in them. We should see everything in life through the lens of how it relates to our personal God. That is, we should see life through God-colored glasses if you will. Praying is more than just speaking a sentence of communication to God in your mind or aloud. Praying is about focus. The idea of focus has been a fascination of mine for some time now. The Bible speaks of the power of the tongue. Which I agree it is powerful. However, the focus of one's mind seems to me to be the precursor of the tongue. A person's focus is a seed for actions. My friend and youth leader when I was growing up, Roc Moore, used to say "what a mind thinks on, it will seek to act out". Dreams are fantasies that have the capacity to capture hearts. Sometimes they are grandiose fantasies, sometimes they are simple. Dreams are dangerous because they can be deceptions. But good dreams, dreams that are true can be an anchor for our souls. What I mean by this is that a useful tool in fixing our eyes on Jesus and focusing our minds through God-colored lenses is to hold onto the dream or picture of reality that the Bible paints for us. When we realize that the truths taught to us and promises given us in the Word are more than just exciting stories but an actual reality, then our dream can become to see those truths fulfilled in our lives. Then we can strive to let that dream capture our hearts. I am striving to hold onto the dream of intimacy with a personal God. The Bible speaks of many stories where God had a personal relationship with individual human beings. I believe each person should seek out fulfillment of a dream to have relationship with our loving God. In Jer 29:13 it says, "You will seek me and find me if you seek me with all your heart." My problem and the problem of many I suppose is to not be whole-hearted and persistent in my seeking. This comes from not truly having a dream a.k.a. a heart for this reality of intimacy with God to exist.

Joy in Jesus

As I was praising the Lord this morning during my shower I began to have a realization about life, God, the devil and man. I realized who my greatest enemy in life is. The devil, demons and forces of darkness sound horrible and frightening and they are, but they are not my greatest enemy. The greatest enemy has always been myself. I used to often wonder why God put us here on this world. God wanted relationship with man, an awesome indescribable relationship of love between God and man. However, in order for this to happen man would have to choose to want God and God would have to choose to want man. Without these two voluntary elements the relationship is contrived and cannot truly exist. So, God made the world and setup this thing we know as life for man to have. Life and the things that transpire during it happen according to cold, hard, rigid laws. There is room for great joys and peace as well as great tragedies and torment. The purpose of this hostile environment is for man to meet God and for a relationship between them to be fostered. The kind of man that rejects God and desires to be wicked has made his choice and God will respect it, because any other relationship with that man would be contrived and not real. But this wicked man is evil and must be apart from God forever. But the man who hopes in the Lord and clings to him has found the purpose of his existence and has fulfilled God's highest hopes for him. To him the trials and burdens of this life are nothing but minor troubles. In other words they are "light and momentary troubles which are achieving an eternal glory that far outweighs them all". Because these very troubles that we generally consider bad are actually being used to present us with situations where we must choose whether to cling more tightly to God through them or not. This is why James writes "Consider it pure joy when you encounter trials of many kinds because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance and perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete not lacking anything". In Isaiah it says, "Those who hope in the Lord will soar on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not be faint". This is because our strength and our joy is in our hope in the Lord who is able to meet all our needs and carry us through to the end. God has such a powerful furious love for man that we can hardly comprehend it. He even sent his son on the cross to pay for our wicked mistakes and ways that we might still have a chance at being with him! God always loves us, even the lost ones that have chosen the way of wickedness, but not their wicked ways. If you begin to express love toward God that is genuine and set your focus on him in this way he will reciprocate and you will have a revelation of his love for you as well. This is why the scriptures say "You will seek me and find me if you seek me with all your heart" (Jeremiah 29:13).

I have never really liked rain at all. It is just so dark and melancholy and wet. :) I like sunshine much better, for it is like joy and fun. This morning there is a heavy dark rain. I realize though that even when there is heavy dark rain in life, when I cling to Christ, there will always be a bright warm sunshine in my heart. (I know that sounds kind of cheesy, but it really is so true.) This is in fact the key to making it through life. This is the highest hope God has for us is to cling to him through the darkness trusting that he will see us through. The process of going through it strengthens our ability to hold on to Him and results in growth of our relationship with Him.

The most dangerous enemy we have is our own neglect of God over time. No matter how intense the fire of an enemy that is brought to our door, our God is able and willing to fight it back for us on one condition. That is that we cling to him through it and trust him for the help. This very trial achieves for us a closer bond with God which is worth more than silver or gold. Jesus is our high priest, our friend, our King and the sacrifice for our sins. He is the author and perfecter of our faith. No one comes to the father, but through him. He is our light and our salvation in this dark world. Sometimes we forget God until there is pain in our lives and then we try to ask for his help and be buddy buddy with him. He still loves us and will use that to draw us, but how much better when we have already been hoping in him and loving him before the trial. In some ways it seems that all of life is a trial. There is no drug, no friendship, no relationship, no food, time of sleep, television show/movie or amusement park roller coaster ride that can ever fulfill my heart like I deeply long for it to be filled. There is only one satisfaction for my soul and it is through the love of God and intimacy of his Holy Spirit living in me made possible by Christ and his sacrifice for me on the cross! My hope is always and forever in Him. Our doubt is really and always has been the only true enemy for us. When we doubt his love, his ability to deliver us, his big plan that is in place for the world, his existence or anything that is true about him we lose our connection with him. For connection in relationships is built on trust. And that is what we must have... a relationship with the living God. That is what our souls long for and will never be truly satisfied until they find. This connection to Jesus we have is our strength, our authority, our power, our love and our joy.

Lies and Camping

I've been thinking about the tree of knowledge of good and evil and about John 8:32. John 8:32 says you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. I am perplexed by sin. You would think if Adam and the human race gained this knowledge then we would know more truth and therefore be more free. Yet it seems that things became much worse after more knowledge came. It also seems ironic to me that the serpent was trying so desperately to use deception on Adam and Eve into gaining the knowledge of good and evil. Deception seems to be our enemy's most famous tactic yet the father of lies was trying to trick Adam and Eve into knowing truth. Because with knowledge comes truth. However, then I realized the devil was showing them the law. The wicked beauty of the thing to him was that not only was he tricking them into disobeying God and into following the evil desires forming in their hearts, but also the moment they bit into the forbidden fruit they would simultaneously know the law and already have broken it beyond repair. Knowledge of the law is a kind of truth, but there is more truth that needs to be known to be truly free. Knowing the law for Adam and Eve as well as for us now means being aware of your own wickedness. I believe I was thinking about John 8:32 out of context at first though. If you consider John 8:31 with it Jesus said, "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free." Jesus' truth was that the only way out of the devious trap laid by our enemy and that we ensnared ourselves in from the beginning was from God. More precisely, that the culmination of God's plan for our freedom was realized in Christ himself and his sacrifice for us. Only when we hold to his teaching will we live in an awareness of the truth that frees us. Old Testament heroes of the faith didn't know about Jesus yet, but they did realize this truth that their only hope from the condemnation in the law hanging over them was in God.

I find Jesus' statement interesting that the way to really know the truth is to hold to his teaching. So, if you hold to his teaching you will know truth which will set you free thereby giving you more strength and ability to hold to his teaching. The more ability to hold to his teaching you have the more you will be able to know truth. This describes the process of faith. It grows in degree incrementally. But ironically you must take hold of one (or both) to get a grip on the other and start the cycle of faith growing. Either you believe the truth and begin holding to his teaching or you begin holding to his teaching to see if it yields knowledge of the truth. Either way at some point you must have some faith to get more.

Lies are downright mean. In fact quite often they are more than mean, they can be cruel. The cruelty lies in the fact that a liar tricks the deceived into a false hope. He leads them into a faith based on ideas that simply aren't true. In a way it is a betrayal of the deceived's trust in the deceiver. Betrayal is at the heart of every lie and I believe is the real core of wickedness and treachery. I suppose that is why Judas' sin was so intense. He betrayed the savior from betrayal as well as all sin. You could say betrayal is fueled by selfishness, but really I don't think it is wrong to want good things for your self. The real evil is to trust a deceiver that leads you to think you can get good things for yourself by viewing everything in life through a self-centric lens and giving in to a lifestyle of selfishness. Our enemy the devil specializes in raw deals a.k.a. lies. He is also often stealthy enough to make us think his proposals were really our own thoughts and ideas. Granted we do have evil desires living in our fleshly bodies and these desires are sometimes the culprit behind sin, but you can bet that anytime we even remotely begin to toy with an evil desire the enemy or an agent of his is there trying to foster it and sometimes encourage it into existence. Imagination is the part of us that dreams about things that may or may not be true. It is the seed of hope and faith or worry and fear. You begin to believe what you imagine either is true and/or possible or very likely will be. Any sin begins with an imagination that dreams of what things will be like when the sinful thing is done and the dream is always a lie. What makes the dream and sin so deviously cruel and treacherous though, is that often times even after the sin has been committed we fail to see the lie and go on believing that the pleasure we found in the act of disobedience was a fulfillment of the dream we held in our imagination enabling us to want to do it again. Yet what we don't realize, the truth our enemy craftily shades us from, is that with each consecutive sin we slowly destroy our very hearts piece by piece until at some point we can't even recognize the wickedness and death it is so disgustingly full of. His highest hope for us is that we will go to our graves completely deceived having lost sight of the truth of the wickedness, pain, death and eternal condemnation that goes along with disobedience to God.

I can't figure out if I like camping or not. I know my wife really loves it and I have found enjoyment in it too at times. But there are also times when I don't enjoy it as much. It occurs to me that when we go camping we are no longer at home and we no longer have the comforts of home. I have to sleep on a bed that is less desirable than the one at home and I have to eat food that is different from the kind I would have at home. But at the same time I find that in that new environment I am a little closer to God's creation and often things are a bit quieter. It is more secluded which sometimes seems undesirable, but after a time of being there can seem desirable. The hypnotic dance of the flames in the campfire often lure my mind into a meditative state and sometimes I will begin to sing praises to my God there and remember who I am. I realize that in this world we are camping. Our home is in heaven and the comforts of that heavenly home will be great. They will be much greater than this world we camp out in for now. Paul refers to our earthly bodies as tents. Sometimes we forget that this world is just a campground and that the comforts our hearts long for are at home. Sometimes appreciating comforts of home only comes when we leave them and we never really have a comfort until we truly appreciate it.

Hope

Sometimes I get so discouraged. I find myself longing for something better. I had high hopes for this new year... I still do I suppose. But, I just seem to have no self-discipline. I realize spending time with the Lord, seeking, praying to and worshiping him is something that has the greatest affect cumulatively and when practiced consistently. It is like exercising. Working out once in a while and hoping to become buff is futile. It's like sporadically dieting every now and then when the thought occurs to you that you're fat rather than consistently following a plan and sticking to it. So it is with one's walk with the Lord through life. A man's focus defines the man. As a man thinks in his heart so is he. (Prov. 23:7) Focus is so powerful and sometimes so hard to control. Like the grip of emotion in a sad song, a man's focus can be latched to negativity or despair. Each previous thought or note leads into the next. We are creatures with moods and associative minds. Each idea somehow leading to the next. Randomness in a discussion is often thought odd or funny and seldom is it truly random. Our thoughts flow like a river through mud, creating gullies over time that become harder and harder to escape. Part of being a Christian is having a new way of thinking. Do everything without complaining or arguing. (Phil. 2:14) Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things (Phil. 4:8) Negativity, hopelessness, despair and faithlessness are all wicked and from the evil one. Following these gullies in the mud is a way of darkness and ultimately death. But fixing our minds and hearts on whatever is true, lovely and pure as Phil. 4:8 says is a way of joy and life and light. I remember when I was first taking cello lessons, my cello teacher used to get upset with me for practicing something he hadn't shown me how to do yet. The problem was I would try it, but do it all wrong and then practice it that way. The more I practiced it the deeper ingrained it would become in me to play the song the wrong way. So it is with life and God. We need him to teach us how to play the songs we face when living in various situations. We need to learn how to play them right and once we know, practice them correctly and daily. "We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ." 2 Cor. 10:5 Our thoughts are precious and our enemy knows this. If he controls or sways our thinking he controls us and possibly even our destiny. (This is why television programs exhibiting the worldly culture and way of thinking often even only on a subconscious level are so powerful and dangerous.) Learning to recognize a negative, faithless, hopeless, worried or despairing thought and rebuke it replacing it with a faithful thought rooted in our commitment to believing in God, his love and saving power is vital to walking in the Spirit as Christians. Trying to do this on your own is dangerous as well. Though God does not magically change us and our lifestyles when we become Christians, he offers us all the tools and help we need to do it. As long as I am pressing on and trying to be His and live His way trusting him for the rest, he will cover the rest for me. Because he is faithful and he is love.

Predestination

I came across an article recently by William Lane Craig presenting the idea of Molinism which I found interesting. Basically, Molinism is the idea that given all the possible realities that might have existed if various choices and circumstances had been put into place and set into motion with man's free-will in full operation, God examined all these and chose the best one to be the actual reality.

I think Molinism is a nice way to approach the idea of how God might have decided to make things the way they are, but still doesn't address what I have always seen as the most pressing issue which is the relationship of God's and man's responsibility to choice. If God is sovereign or does any kind of predestination at all on what men will choose which the Bible clearly indicates that he does (even if he chooses a particular set of choices that I might have chosen to be the ones that I actually choose as Molinism indicates) then isn't God really the one doing the choosing and not man? How can we escape the idea of being robotic drones with only an illusion of choice in our lives?

After thinking about this I came up with a way of understanding simultaneous predestination and free-will that I think makes sense. I believe to comprehend predestination, free-will and who the Bible says God is in relation to this we must rid ourselves of the idea of singular ownership of choice. God and man have shared ownership of choice with moral statuses attributed independently not to the choice, but to the choosers. So, a choice exists that was made by person X and is owned by person X as well as by God. There is no moral status that can be attributed to the choice in and of itself, but rather a moral status regarding the choice is attributed to the choosers of it. The moral status attributed to God is always good, but the one attributed to the person is sometimes good and sometimes evil. God's act of ordaining the choice does not mean the person loses responsibility for the moral status attributed to him or her in relation to it. This is precisely because of the existence of a dual ownership of the choice. While the choice can be attributed to two owners the moral status of the owners is in relation to their motives for the choice. This idea of dual ownership of choice is made possible because of two different perspectives of reality that are involved here.

God and man have different perceptions of reality and in a sense can be said to live in two different realities, although I think more accurately we might say that their is one reality which God has a perfect ultimate and infinite perception of and which we only have a limited perception of. From now on however, I will refer to God's reality meaning his unique infinitely perfect and all-knowing perspective of it and our reality as man's limited view of it. Though we can come to somewhat of an understanding regarding the shape of God's reality we can never actually enter into it ourselves. One of the things that defines God's reality as it is, is his ability to perceive the particulars of fates which he has predestined for men and all things. Though we in our human reality can understand that he knows these particulars, we can never ourselves know them until they have actually occurred for us. It is precisely our lack of knowledge that enables the reality we live in to have the shape that it has. So, in other words the existence of free-will for us is dependent on our lack of knowledge regarding the particulars of our ultimate fate.

I can become consumed with the idea that all actions are futile, because of a false perception that I understand my fate. However, because I don't know my fate I can pray for God to change some circumstance I see in the world or in my life and then in my reality I can perceive God answering that prayer as though my original perception of the fate of this circumstance had been altered, however in God's reality the overall fate of that situation remained the same from beginning to end outside of time despite my lack of knowledge concerning the particulars of it. It is this lack of knowledge in us that makes our free-will possible. Granted we have a perception of free-will, but this perception is more than just a simpleton's deception it is an actual inescapable reality for us that God intended for us to live in. We know this because we are told that we will be held responsible for the choices we make according to this perception of free-will that we have and live in. If God is solely responsible for choices we make then punishing or rewarding us for them contradicts the justice attributed to him in the Bible. Christ sacrificed himself for the world. God wouldn't ordain this to happen for something that is a mere illusion. Clearly, our choices are real and the consequences for our choices are very real. So, the moral status attributed to us and judgement due us because of it in regards to the choices we've made are dependent and directly related to our motives and perception in the reality we live in made possible by our lack of knowledge regarding the particulars of fate. God is responsible for our choices in relation to his reality and motives which are ultimately good. Nothing I do can change what God has fated to happen to me. My choices in life are decided by God in one sense and by me in another. One choice, with two choosers. Although it may be difficult to see immediately how a clearly evil choice that I choose to make could ever have been chosen by God we know that all things work together for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose. (Our ability to judge the over-all goodness or evilness of a choice especially with respect to God in his infinite all-knowing perspective from our own limited one is clearly prone to the possibility of error.) So, we have individual choices with two choosers in relation to them.

There is a danger in thinking about predestination that we will begin to believe it does not matter what you or I do because it is fated. If I knew precisely what my fate was then I would agree any attempts to circumvent it would be futile, but I don't. The fact that it exists as disconcerting as that may sometimes seem is not enough to bring about the loss of my free-will to me in my reality because I don't know the particulars of what that fate actually is. The moment I know that I know the particulars of my destiny regarding something, any choice I have in that matter is forfeit. It is important I think to realize that there are some elements of our destiny that we do know by faith and therefore have lost choice in. But this is a good thing. For example, I know by faith that when I accepted Christ in baptism and chose him to be my Lord and Saviour that my fate as one of God's elect was sealed and my choices no longer affect this matter with one condition. The condition exists because this is true only as long as my choices in life don't lead me to a loss of my foundational faith that is saving me. Notice that when my belief is completely lost, my knowledge of my fate of salvation is freed and in effect my fate of salvation may never have really existed in the first place, but only God in his reality can know the truth regarding that.

Worship

This morning I began to sing a hymn. I really don't sing to myself very often, but as I did this morning I realized I meant what I was saying. I remembered the verse that says his Spirit testifies with our spirit that we are his children and as I worshiped God in song I realized this is how Christians commune with the Spirit of God. I also realized that before I was worshiping the Lord I had almost subconscious troubled feelings. If we live in the Spirit and walk in step with the Spirit, the Kingdom of God is now for us as Christians and we can experience the fruits of his Spirit now. This is how we should live daily. So, my point here is we never have to be worried, or anxious, or afraid because of the Spirit of God living in us. Worship helps us connect with God and be able to live constantly with the fruits of the Spirit in our lives. Worship is an expression of faith. It is faith put into action. The action may not be as great as we might imagine some acts of faith, but it is possibly the most important act of faith we should make. I say it is an action because I not only intelectually affirm a theological idea in my mind, but I profess it aloud and when I do this in song I can express precisely how I feel about my statements. Worship in song is not the only kind of worship, but I've found it to be an incredibly bonding one. Eph. 5:19 says "Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord" Whatever music you make to God it should be sincere and from your heart. The reason I say worship is possibly the most important act of faith is because it is something I am realizing I should be doing every day and even every moment if possible. (Remember the verse that says pray continually.) It not only is a way to express love to my savior, but it also affirms my faith in His love and solidifies/strengthens my bond with God. I know we can worship without singing and I believe that is important too. If I speak a psalm or hymn or Bible verse of encouragement in faith I am worshiping. Whenever we speak something whether good or bad it has great power over our own perception and the perception of others around us. (Remember the verse that says do everything without complaining or arguing.) This is because it directs the focus of those who listen. Focus is simply attention or in more general terms putting your eyes on something. Have you ever noticed if you are driving and you start looking at something on the side of the road sometimes it is really hard to not start driving off the road towards what you are looking at! This is because we naturally start following what we focus on. Someone said, you become like what you worship. This is very true. Take a look at people who idolize skate boarders, certain kinds of rock stars or people in a club that they want to be a member of. Appearances of these people change and their minds are quite frequently on becoming more like what they are focusing on all the time. Their characteristics sometimes even subconsciously become like those of the ones they idolize. The awesome thing about becoming more like Christ is that it is more fulfilling than any drug, more satisfying than any vice and it is in fact precisely what God planned for us when he created us. It's side effects are all good things unlike things of the world that we try to satisfy ourselves with sometimes. Being like Christ, knowing him and living in him is what we were created for. Our lives will continually be void and we will always feel as though some huge gaping invisible whole is secretly in us somewhere until we find him and live in his Spirt. He completes us. Worship helps us solidify our bond with him.

"It is in the process of being worshipped that God communicates His presence to men." --C.S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms

Purpose

My next door neighbor passed away last week. He would come into my house and help us fix things. We had him and his wife over for dinner once. I've only had a few limited experiences with death, but when I do it always makes me stop and think about life. I remember writing a poem called "The Blur of Life" when I was in high school. It was after I got home from riding on the bus one day and it was about being on a train and watching all the scenery go by being like watching events go by in life. Often times I tend to feel like an observer riding on a one way train that doesn't stop and eventually though it seems far off is destined to roll off the edge of a cliff. A lot of times I have this underlying urge even passion that I'm supposed to do something meet some purpose yet I don't know what and so I sit there on my train car looking out the window. Sometimes I feel guilty because I want to change the world, but I'm not doing it and then someone says you can't change the world but only the things around you that you encounter in your daily life. I thought wow that's a great thought. It helps me relax a bit realizing I'm not responsible for the whole world, but I only need to try and influence those in my immediate circle that I come into contact with. Then I sit back in my train car chair more relaxed and continue to stare out the window. My point here is that it's really easy to do a whole lot of nothing. It's even possible to start to feel okay about it, sort of... There was a book that came out not long ago called "The Purpose Driven Life" that was very popular for a while. It was written to answer a deep question in the hearts of all men and women. Why am I really here? What is this existence, this life, really for? I mean it seems so futile like somebody put me in a rat race to see what I would do in it, but it's a timed race and before long its game over. A timed deadline is a great motivator. Many games have time limits. Have you ever played a game where you weren't perfectly sure what the rules were or how you could win, but there was most definitely a time limit? This is how one can look at life at times. Sometimes I feel like people get so apauled at death and murder and wars, yet sit idly by hardly giving it a thought as who knows how many millions of people inevitably die each day. Its like the whole world has a terminal illness and no one can live more than 80 to 100 years, yet people just accept it and go on. But then, what else can you do... Well, for starters you can devote what little time you have to figuring out why you're here and what if anything you should spend the time you have doing. Because one thing is for sure... death is coming. People look to something classified as "religion" to answer questions like these. Some people have one idea of what the answers are and others have totally different ideas. This is called faith. Some look at faith and its effects from a scientific approach... i.e. "I'll accept only what I see or can observe and classify scientifically and is commonly accepted in the scientific community" and others look at it from an anti-scientific approach... i.e. focus on one hand clapping, when you understand that, then you will reach nirvana or whatever. Belief is a powerful powerful force. It's like a dark room full of people with various paths they can walk on that have steep drop offs. You grope around trying to find which path to take, but only the one you believe in will you follow. Belief inspires action. Just because one believes in something however, doesn't mean it is the truth. If one is following the path they believe in and it fails them and they fall. It alters their faith in some way if they survive it. If it happens to alter their faith enough they may choose to trust in an entirely different path or maybe to not trust any paths at all. How can one in this situation know how to trust anything? If the person running the dark maze were to turn on all the lights everyone would trust in themselves walk out of the maze and it would be over. But what if the purpose of the maze is to teach the people not to trust in themselves, but rather in the one running the maze. In the Bible God promised Abraham a son which is something he desparately wanted. He promised him a myriad of descendents which was highly prized in that time. Yet God waited until Abraham was very old and Abraham as well as his wife Sarah had some doubts at times, but finally gave them a son. Then in their great joyous moment of receiving their long awaited child, God asks Abraham to sacrifice him! He asks him to kill his son. Why in the world did God do this? To teach the person in the dark dark maze to trust in the person running it. Abraham did trust God and was ready to sacrifice his beloved son reasoning that maybe God would raise him from the dead. The point is not that Abraham understood how it would work out, but rather that he trusted God was able to do all things and could work it out ultimately for Abraham's benefit. He trusted that God had his best interests at heart. When Goliath was belittling the armies of Israel David wanted to face him. His brothers and others mocked him. When he ran to face Goliath a massive giant with a huge sword and helmet and shield and he with only five small stones and a sling the point was not that David thought he was more powerful than Goliath, but rather that he knew he came against Goliath in the authority of the living God. His belief was powerful and his faith moved him to action. He trusted in the one running the maze. Not that he understood or knew the way out, but that he knew the one who did and had a relationship with Him. I say all this to say that I believe the purpose of our lives is to learn to trust the one running the maze. To grow in our strength of belief. To learn how to believe well. David believed well. Abraham believed well. The book of Hebrews teaches us that the most dangerous sin is unbelief. All other sins are offshoots of unbelief. Because when we believe in the power of Christ and the freedom we have in him from sin the sins can fall away.
I can choose to believe in many things and even change those beliefs over time, but in reading the Bible I've seen a picture of faith. I've seen a picture of courageous men putting it all on the line to stand on something they believe in, in the face of ridicule and even seemingly impossible odds and yet make it through victoriously... and it was beautiful to me. It is inspiring, beautiful and has powerful meaning that resonates deep in my soul like a low bass note resonates in a water pipe. It makes me think this is what life is for. To trust deeply in the maker and find that he is trustworthy despite all ridicule. To live courageously and be inspired to action through my faith in Him and find that he is worthy of my trust. This is my life-purpose.

Has it ever occurred to you that almost all movies feature some good courageous hero facing impossible odds, yet somehow triumphing over evil. Many feature a savior and some emphasize the faith of the hero which moved him to action. People throughout time and in our culture today have resonated with ideas presented in the Bible. The Heavens declare His glory. I am fearfully and wonderfully made. I've watched the Bethlehem Star movie (get it from http://www.bethlehemstar.net/) recently and it amazes me that the planets and stars were set in motion before time to align at just the right position to mark the coming of our savior Jesus Christ and that we can verify it today with software! :) There are many subtle indicators and many not so subtle ones, but the point is God does not want us to trust in ourselves or our own ability to see, but rather in Him. Believe well.

My hope is built on nothing less, than Jesus blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus name.