flickerbulb

assume you live alone, and are home alone, in your apartment, asleep in bed, when you realize that your apartment is being broken into, downstairs.

what is the proper course of action for a follower of christ?

don’t assume you have, or don’t have, a gun, a bat, a tazer, or any other weapon: all of those choices that are made ahead of time play into your answer.

so?

the protection of one’s “belongings” are never worth violence.

we are warned, by jesus, against anger — let alone acting in anger against one who seeks to impose their will upon us.

we are instructed to treasure heavenly things (people, god, love) and not earthly things (dvds, tvs).

further, we are instructed to give to anyone who asks of us.

we are instructed to greet evil with kindness.

we are instructed to consider others as more important than ourselves.

i see no room in the scripture for “exceptions” to these instructions.

trying to improve one’s life through the accumulation of (let alone the violent protection of) “stuff” is antithetical to the very existence of one who follows christ.

if we are truly treasuring heavenly things, we will care more for the burglar than we will for our “things”.

it seems responsible, at first blush, to look out for our own safety.

but what is “safe”, really?

who holds our safety?

i can’t imagine the christ cowering in his bedroom, praying to god to help him stay alive.

rather, i imagine he’d call out, in some way that makes known that no harm is intended:

“hello there?

i have no plans to call the police. is there something you need?

i usually offer my guests something. can i get you a drink of water?”

we are told never to fear.

surely this isn’t just “pretty worlds”?

could jesus really mean to never, under any circumstances, fear anything, other than god?

i believe that is exactly what he means.

i think that jesus means, quite literally, that we are to greet a burglar in our home with kindness, not vengeful anger, or even the hope of retribution.

that if i am truly following christ, my thoughts will be on loving this person into the kingdom, somehow.

we are told explicitly to turn the other cheek.

are we to act out in a first-strike manner when our cheek has not even been struck?

we are simply instructed to turn our cheeks. this, i beleive, means to remain vulnerable to any and all attacks, not just physical, to our person, be they attacks on our ego, or on our our pride, or on our sensitive feelings, or, yes, even on our cheeks.

i don’t see room for exception to this, and, if you study the sermon on the mount as a whole, and look at “turning the other cheek” in its proper context, you’ll see that it is a major component of living a life in the kingdom.

we who follow jesus are, simply, to make it a habit of not meeting spite with spite, or sarcasm with sarcasm, or hate with hate, or force with force, but instead we are to treat all comers with love.

it is up to you whether you own a weapon, and it is up to you whether you think it is best to use that weapon against a human being.

my take is that the situations calling for violence against another human being (weapons or no) must be exceedingly rare.

i would think, perhaps, there’s been 1, ever. (when jesus himself drove people from the temple area)

like i said, i trust him with such acts, but never myself.

i do not believe i could ever be trusted to do it lovingly. i’m sure there’d always be some amount of selfishness driving my behavior.

of course, the idea of complete safety is absurd — if you are only considering what we can see.

but if you are living in the kingdom of god that jesus preached, the one where the father who created the universe and knows how many hairs are on your head, and who gives good gifts, and takes perfectly good care of the birds…

well, if you truly trust and serve such a god, and live in such a kingdom, then you can always walk unafraid.

for you are serving and laying up treasures where moth and rust do NOT destroy, and where thieves do NOT break in an steal.

fear god only. serve god only.

lord knows i could do better at this.

a friend of mine recently wrote:

This is the very reason I stopped attending my youth group. It was so unwelcoming.

And, there’s something else, too. It seems to me, that rejection from the church crowd holds a bigger emotional consequence than rejection from other crowds. These are, after all, the people with whom you are supposed to be sharing God, a very intimate experience. It’s like rejection from a lover, in a way. Not to mention the fact, that church crowds are so darn good at rejection, and doing it group-wide. I have found that many churches are like giant rumor mills. If you get rejected at all, you get rejected ALL THE WAY.

no disciple of jesus’ could agree that the above statement about “our people” is the way it should be.

rather, all would say it would be best not to be this way.

so, what is it that prevents us from being the grace-filled, friendly, welcoming crowd that jesus himself clearly was?

plankeye

Matthew 7:1:

Judge not, that you be not judged. 2 For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. 3 Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? 4 Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.

(most people stop quoting this little section there, but jesus didn’t stop there….)

“Do not give dogs what is holy, and do not throw your pearls before pigs, lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you.

i see a few things in there that, by and large, are missed, through lack of sheer studying, as far as i can tell.

first: judgment IS the plank in our own eye.

as soon as we stop trying to correct other people’s behavior, we are freed, by grace, to love them.

as soon as we stop trying to force them into doing what they can’t, they’ll stop feeling (and being!) judged.

as soon as we stop trying to “force feed” our “pearls of heavenly knowledge” to pigs…

you know that pigs can’t eat pearls, right?

…they’ll stop trying to bite us.

judgment is something that only ONLY only god can do.

but, we want people to change, right?

we want them to come to the place we are, where pearls are appreciated, and treasured, not rejected?

how do we do that, if not by judging?

Matthew 7:7:

Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. 9 Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? 11 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!

asking for things is the key to obtaining what you want, in the kingdom of god.

you ask the father for things, so ask his kids.

simply turning your attitude from “demanding/shoving” to “asking” will make all the difference.

of course, to get rid of this judging and contemptive attitude, really, you need to go back to the passages of the sermon on the mount that lead up to it — the things where jesus teaches us how to be of his mind:

in reverse order:

do not be anxious
lay up treasures in heaven
fasting
how to pray
giving to the needy
loving your enemies
retaliation
oaths
divorce
lust
anger

…in all these little passages are deep deep mysteries of kingdom life — and the one follows the other: he put them in order for a reason.

once you have “worked out your salvation” in this order, and have (all with christ’s help) managed to lose judging, you are then, spiritually able to move on to:

the golden rule

the golden rule simply can’t be “done” apart from living out the sermon on the mount’s teachings.

but, through the spirit, if you seek to obey christ’s teachings in the sermon on the mount, by the time you’re ready to give up judging, you’re nature has changed so much that you are more than ready and willing to start doing to people — really and truly — what you wish they would do to you.

i could talk for hours about this, but i must get going on my day’s work.

remember, it is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.

i can’t stress enough: love, love, love, love, love, love, love,
love, love, love, love, love,
love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love,
love, love, love, love,
love, love, love, love, love,
love, love,
love

it is the holy spirit’s job to convict — it is your job to love and shine god’s love through that love.

finish this sentence:

this is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you…

no, really… read it and try to finish it in yer head, knowing that this is the first half of a verse from john, how do you think he’s going to finish this sentence?

how would one of jesus’s best friends, one who wrote one of his gospels finish that sentence?

what is THE message that jesus taught his disciples?

what is THE message that they proclaim to us?

don’t be in a hurry, really think about it.

then, once you’ve arrived at your decision, click the link below, and see how it REALLY ends.

click here

many of you have probably heard that there are other people groups, besides the ancient hebrews that have flood stories.

i went looking and found a web page that lists everyone the editor could find

some of them are amazing:

Inca:

Pictorial records of ancient Incan rulers show that a flood rose above the highest mountains. All created things perished, except for a man and woman who floated in a box. When the flood subsided, the floating box was driven by the wind to Tiahuanacu, about 200 miles from Cuzco, where the Creator told them to dwell. The Creator molded new people from clay at Tiahuanacu. On each figure, the Creator painted dress and hair style, and he gave each nation distinctive language, songs, and seeds to plant. When he had brought them to life, he ordered them into the earth to travel underground and emerge from caves, springs, tree trunks, etc. in their various homes. He then created the sun, moon, and stars.

Arawak (Guyana):

Since its creation, the world has been destroyed twice, once by fire and once by flood, by the great god Aiomun Kondi because of the wickedness of mankind. The pious and wise chief Marerewana was informed of the coming of the flood and saved himself and his family in a large canoe.

Transylvanian Gypsy wrote:

Men once lived forever and knew no troubles. The earth brought forth fine fruits, flesh grew on trees, and milk and wine flowed in many rivers. One day, and old man came to the country and asked for a night’s lodging, which a couple gave him in their cottage. When he departed the next day, he said he would return in nine days. He gave his host a small fish in a vessel and said he would reward the host if he did not eat the fish but returned it then. The wife thought the fish must be exceptionally good to eat, but the husband said he had promised the old man to keep it and made the woman swear not to eat it. After two days of thinking about it, though, the wife yielded to temptation and threw the fish on the hot coals. Immediately, she was struck dead by lightning, and it began to rain. The rivers started overflowing the country. On the ninth day, the old man returned and told his host that all living things would be drowned, but since he had kept his oath, he would be saved. The old man told the host to take a wife, gather his kinfolk, and build a boat on which to save them, animals, and seeds of trees and herbs. The man did all this. It rained a year, and the waters covered everything. After a year, the waters sank, and the people and animals disembarked. They now had to labor to gain a living, and sickness and death came also. They multiplied slowly so that many thousands of years passed before people were again as numerous as they were before the flood.

there are many more flood stories here

my question is: what does it mean to you?

also: i like this article on the subject:

http://www.reasons.org/resources/apologetics/flood.shtml

first off: i like the ESV.

bad NIV translation has spawned the phrase “weaker brother”, which implies that the person must be somehow “under” you, by the -er suffix.

the phrase, though, is simply “one who is weak in faith” — regardless of how they’re faith “stacks up” to yours.

anyway, on with the scripture:

Romans 14:1-3

Do Not Pass Judgment on One Another

1 As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions. 2 One person believes he may eat anything, while the weak person eats only vegetables. 3 Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains, and let not the one who abstains pass judgment on the one who eats, for God has welcomed him.

if someone, weak in the faith or not, is hounding you on an issue that the bible is vague (or silent) on: they are not living a life of love.

perhaps this person is weak in faith, but the instructions from paul are to be a two-way street: it is clear that we are simply to avoid judging one another on matters of opinion.

it is possible that they are otherwise quite strong in their faith, but simply have a hang-up in this one area… ?

either way, i think romans is fairly clear that you are to, as a matter of love, avoid “flaunting” your freedom.

this does not mean, in my opinion, that you are to avoid the activity in question altogether, but simply to do what seems best to avoid inflaming the issue with this person.

always in love, though, it is also clear that you are to “not allow what you regard as good be spoken of as evil.”

this may be where that terrible phrase, “agree to disagree” actually applies.

if it truly is a matter of opinion, then it is likely not a crucial matter, and you can likely serve the lord by dropping it humbly if the person is tryingto pick a fight.

if, however, they really are in need of restoration, keep this in mind:

Galations 6:1-3

Bear One Another’s Burdens

1 Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted. 2 Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. 3 For if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself.

i believe this warning to be sure you are not tempted to sin is aimed at thinking you are “better” than them, and will give them a “piece of your mind”, or whatnaught.

notice, too that the idea is to restore — NOT to correct, or punish, or condemn or judge.

restore, and gently.

if there’s any chance you will be unlikely to restore this person in total gentleness and love, it’s probably best left to a matter of prayer — let god sort them out. (he’s better at it anyway)

let us supposed we have 2 people: billy and franklin

(i just pulled those names out of thin air )

i’ll give away the ending of this story first:

franklin goes to heaven, and billy goes to hell.

now, let us also suppose that billy and franklin are twin brothers: born within minutes of one another.

both are raised by the same christian parents, and go to the same bible-teaching congregation, where spiritual growth is encouraged, and the spirit’s work is evident by the fruit the congregation produces: caring for the poor in their neighborhood and other charitable acts.

both boys are looked up to all through high school and college, and marry christian women, who love them very much.

both young men turned out to church leaders — gifted by god in leading others to the lord, and in teaching them the deeper meanings of life in the kingdom.

when they are 43 years old, however, billy’s wife was raped, murdered, and left to die — by a supposed “preacher”, who was caught, arrested, and set to go to court.

well, billy did not take this well. (would you? would i?)

billy took it out on the preacher.

he was so angry that he murdered the man even before he’d had a chance to go to trial.

billy, still angry, but in shock at his own brutality, turned himself into the authorities, and went to prison for 30 years.

(the manner in which billy inflicted his revenge upon the man was based upon the man’s treatment of billy’s wife. the jury, though they understood where such anger came from, had no choice but to convict, and the minimum sentence was 30 years, no parole.)

while in prison, billy himself was mistreated — sometimes very badly, and he grew more and more angry at god for his lot in life until he lashed out at god, and disavowed his very existence.

he finished almost his entire sentence angry at god, and in trouble with the prison authorities, addicted to drugs and eventually murdering 3 of his cellmates over the years.

three years before he was to have originally gotten out of prison, billy was murdered in his cell while he slept, and went to hell.

his brother, franklin, died in a car accident that very minute — and went to heaven.

— the end —

looking back on their lives, we can see clearly that during their teens and twenties, both would have been sure they were going to heaven, and the way they conducted their lives seemed to point that way.

both claimed christ as lord, and had fruit, apparently.

some would say that if billy had died that night with his wife he would have gone to heaven.

but from the perspective of eternity, where hindsight truly is 20/20, we can see that it was never to be so:

who can deny that from the beginning of time, god knew the sad story of billy’s life?

who can deny that god knew he would end up angry, disavowing his existence, a murderer who died by the very violence he bred?

was god “fooled” by billy during his 20′s ?

when billy fell away, was god caught by surprise?

did god think, “oh, wow! billy don’t do it! ooooh, no! — now you’re not going to heaven after all! someone erase his name from the book of life!”

the idea is absurd.

no, it is clear: there was always a 100% chance, since god knew what would happen, that billy was going to hell.

so then: was he ever “saved” ?

was he ever a “christian” ?

so many times i’ve heard people talk about, “if you died right now, do you know where you’d go?”

well, in his 20s billy would have said “yes, i’d go to heaven”

would he be right?

would he be wrong?

can he not know?

if he could be wrong, can you?

i think the bible is vague on this for the same reason jesus didn’t give “rules for living”:

human beings have a way of taking rules and twisting them to their own sinful desires and weak psychological needs.

we always are looking for the easy “what can i get away with?”

when what god desires from us is, “what more can i give? how much more can i love?”

the verses josiah posted are a wonderful example: the bible seems to teach both, and yet not both — at the same time.

and still, somehow, millions of us find wisdom in christ’s words, and in the letters his followers wrote in the decades after his resurrection.

this is because they are deeper than “rules”.

position: the whole bible is the “why” and genesis is a very short answer to man’s age-old question of “where did all of this come from?”

when god revealed the HOW (as he probably did to the first people, who took the story and ran with it, until moses got the “written” version), he did it in a way that could be understood by 8,000 or more worth of human beings — even ones who had not yet figured out how to make fire, or use a wheel.

and, yet, the account fits perfectly with the science:

check out this graphic showing the timeline of the universe, as the science currently says it happend, when compared to what genesis says, from the point of view on the ground, at earth.

amazing similarity, no?

i started to doubt that the earth was 6,000 when i first read stephen hawking’s “a brief history of time”. for those that are unfamiliar with it, it is a “primer” of sorts on current cosmological theory, with things such as gravity, how light works, and more explained in (more or less) everyday terms.

the book made sense, but i was angered that it went against what the bible clearly said.

so i went looking (this was before the internet was in every home!), and was shocked to discover that the bible did not require the “24 hour day” meaning of the word YOHM, as i spoke to in my last post.

armed with this, i went looking even deeper, and discovered that there were, in fact, many christians, some of them quite prominent, who were at least open, if not outright supportive of an “old earth”.

i still questioned, and felt guilty about questioning my faith, but kept looking into the science and the hebrew.

eventually, after a few years of this, i simply faced the facts, as i udnerstood them: the universe was old, and the bible had no problem with it.

once i accepted this, i was free in a way i couldn’t have imagined before.

this was in 1992 – 1994 or so. (ironically, i was in no way living my life in a way that pleased christ at that time, but was living quite selfishly for me.)

in any case, just recently the science has gotten even better: in early summer last year, new views of the universe has proven, beyond any doubt, that the univesrse is roughyly 156 billion lightyears across — which translates, with the inflationary model of expansion — to 13.7 billion years old. more info here

einstein’s theory predicited that the big bang had to have happened, and the bulk of the scientific community balked, because of the theological implications, but the science has proven too good to ignore, and it has become the accepted theory of how the universe was kicked off.

(the big bang requires a “starter” for it, where the “steady state” theory that had been popular until then did not)

there are many other signs just in our planet that require an old earth, as well:

- there’s WAY too much fossil fuel: we know where it comes from, and at any given time, there’s not nearly enough plants and animals on the earth to have made it all (even in some planet-covering flood)

- plate tectonics: we know how slowly the continents drift, and we know how far apart they are now, so we can deduce how much time they have needed to get where they are. (again, the flood doesn’t account for this, either: such a huge shift in only a month or so (thousands of miles!) would litterally rip the earth apart, and the surface would be uninhabitable for hundreds or thousands of years. think of the devastation that 1 earthquake that’s “only” a 9 on the richter scale has caused in asia this past couple weeks. and that is NOTHING compared to how much the earth would have shaken to move the contients as far as they have moved. (not to mention that the ark wouldn’t have survived the quaking)

- light appears old: the light that reaches us appears aged, in that it is scattered, and red-shifted in a way that it would not be if it had only been traveling 6,000 – 12,000 years.

some thoughts that i have, too, regarding the nature of god:

everything we encounter in this life, whether WE do it, or we SEE it done, happens through process.

our spiritual growth is a process. the way we are born is a process. the way we learn, the way we create, be it art, music, or writing, or math.

and we are created in god’s image.

i see much evidence in this creation that its creator LOVES process.

i see no evidence that god lies — and much that we see in our universe would be a lie if it is not old: fossils of tiny and large animals, the distance starlight has traveled before we can see it without eyeballs, the wear and tear on rocks that comes from erosion.

these things, and many others, point to this planet, this universe having been here a long time.

why would god fake that stuff?

bottom line is: i have decided he would not fake it. it appears to be old because it is old.

what’s more is: none of this takes away from god’s power, or detracts from the miracle of it all: this universe is a singularly unique place, and it was made that way, prepared specially for mankind, over the course of 13.7 billion years.

there are thousands of things that must be just as they are for us to even be discussing this, from the average distances between galaxies (this is a HUGE deal) to the distance form the earth to the sun (no error for margin here), to the mixture of gasses in our atmosphere.

it’s all simply a miraculous thing, and i love him for it.

i hope this helps.

as i said before: we have no need to be afraid of asking questions. our god is a god of truth! let us always seek it.

position: god doesn’t care a whit about about the grammar rules of whichever particular language you write in.

respect is shown by expressing a kingdom heart in a way that uplifts, rather than tears down.

by truly caring more for your neighbor’s best interests than your own.

this does not mean submitting to the prideful, destructive or downright meaningless traditions of your neighbor — to do so is NOT in their best interest, and only allows them to continue in their mistaken notion of what living in the eternal kingdom is about.

insisting that “god” or “jesus” must be capitalized strikes me as similar to stuff the pharisees pulled.

making a “rule” out of a custom, until it became a “law” — and somehow wormed its way into being enforceable by social pressure to the point that few dare question it.

i mean, seriously, we are talking about grammar here.

i think any reasonable person must conclude that god does not care, at all, whether we press the shift-key when typing the first letter of a pronoun referring to him.

what he cares about is how we live.

how we take care of widows and orphans. how we disciple those who look to us for wisdom.

how our very lives and the way we love on those around us reflect the character of jesus christ so much that they are drawn to him.

now, we humans like rules.

we pretend not to, but we love them.

we are constantly taking what jesus said, and making rules out of them.

we like to see if we have divorced, or looked at a naked chick, or said, “raca!”, and if not, hey! we’re doing okay!

but jesus never meant for any of those things to be “rules for getting into heaven” but rather illustrations of how, in some situations, a kingdom heart is likely to react, sometimes.

there are situations where the trouble of not capitalizing is not worth the rucus it’d cause (like at many of our grandparents’ churches), and times when it is (like here).

all of life is this way.

listening to the spirit, and having a heart that is more interested in the needs of your neighbor than your own selfish wants, we are able to discern how to navigate in this kingdom of god that we live in, and the situations can allow for all kinds of things.

apparently, according to ecclesiastes, there’s even a time to kill, though i plan to error on the side of caution on that one (!)

this capitalization thing is a rule that has been made, as a way to “see if we are OK or not”.

it’s a silly thing, and it has nothing to do with the kingdom, and yet we all know how people are.

people are funny about this stuff!

again, it all boils down to love for god, and love for people.

how did jesus do it?

he told stories that made points about heaven, and let people draw thier own conclusions.

he had a small group (120) that he encouraged to follow him around, learning how he lived, and an even smaller (12) that he went out of his way to teach deeper meanings to, and a very (3) small group whom he shared his deepest secrets with.

he forgave, and healed, and loved.

we have 1 story where he flipped some tables over — but we see almost no condemnation of individuals in that story.

the group of people who incurred most of his “wrath” were the religious leaders of the day who were holding the people hostage to rules that god doesn’t care about.

he walked around from town to town, encouraging people to simply love god, and teaching them, through stories and illustrations, how much god loves them, and what a person who lives in the kingdom might behave like.

for me, this is instructive.

i try to encourage my friends when they say things that are True, and i try to tell stories that make points about god and his kingdom.

i share what god’s doing in my life, saying what i have found to be exciting or helpful.

i know i didn’t get “saved” because of people condemning “bad behavior”, but the holy sprit has, over the years that i’ve been learning from it/him/her slowly been weeding bad habits out of my life.

you’ll never find me asking friends “not to cuss in front of me”, or telling them “you really shouldn’t smoke pot, dood”, or “you’re gay? did you know you were going to hell?” other such things.

i simply don’t think that will get them into the kingdom that i love living in.

instead, i try simply to get people to fall in love with god, and i figure once they do that, he can help them overcome any sin issues they have — so i simply don’t bother condemning or debating such things.

i have heard, many times, something along these lines:

“your life is your best witness”

it is simply not true.

your words are your best witness.

your life, and the way you live, will prove out what’s really in your heart, but no one gets “saved” without hearing — and sitting there not sinning, but not loving and not sharing that love is NOT witnessing.

remember what “witness” means: it means you are testifying that jesus is alive.

you are a witness of his resurrection, and its power to transform your heart.

so get out there and testify!

that is witnessing.

on that note:

be honest about it all.

it is amazing how being open and honest about my failings, doubts, and the disappointment i have with myself at times, but god’s willingness to love me, mess and all, opens WAY more doors to meaningful conversation about kingdom things than simply “living a life that witnesses”.

some random waitress at a bar, if i’m not smoking, is not going to be impressed with my stand for christ.

some random waitress at a bar may well have her heart opened up to christ just a bit more if i am honest about my occasional cravings for cigarettes (still, after SO many years of not smoking), but how i am thankful i serve a god who has grace enough for even me.

living a “good”, but quiet life in front of the “sinners” at your school or workplace is simply NOT a witness — odds are it may even be destructive.

they probably know you are a christian, unless you are simply living a “dual life” — and they may well think you simply don’t care to mix with the likes of “them”.

(they are probably right, if you are like a lot of christians i know )

but that’s the point: we should care, and we should love, and we should be out there, in the thick of humanity, doing what they do, with them.

if they’re going to a movie, or a game, or the the club (all within limits — there’s a time and place to do and not to do), we’d better be there, being thier friends, so that when they get themselves into trouble, we can the ones with a real hope for them to cling to.

if the only time you talk to your co-workers or school mates is to tell them to please stop using the lord’s name in vain…

well, that’s not going to get them to fall in love with jesus.

i remember, back when i liked to take the label “calvinist” for myself, how i had so little understanding of what it means, really.

i imagine there are lots of people like i was.

i also know, now that i’m several years older (and hopefully wiser!), that all the discussions i had, thinking it mattered had so very little to do with what jesus taught on how to be happy, or what he taught on what it means to love god.

i remember being so angry at “armenians” who would say calvinism is just an excuse to not have to evangelize (that still, er, ticks me off, actually), and i remember thinking that anyone who isn’t a calvinist must not think god is truly sovereign.

but, somewhere along the line, i realized that i simply am not smart enough to understand god, nor his ways.

i came to the conclusion that perhaps him knowing who goes to hell ahead of time does not automagically mean he also hand-picked who goes to heaven, because his ways are above ours.

i have decided not to get into these debates, because i have never seen a mind changed, nor a life improved.

one thing we can’t do
about the goodness of god:
overestimate