Life

Asking the wrong questions is the surest way to get the wrong answers!

And sometimes…

…asking questions is the surest way to get answers that, right or wrong, will distract us from the path of action in front of us.

Remember, “Knowing the path, and walking the path, are not the same thing.”

Our relationship to God is not about answers to questions but about interaction with a super-personal being who fathered the whole of creation. To reduce that interaction to a series of propositional truths is to miss the whole point (not that these too, do not have their time and place as God is immediate as well as transcendent). It is akin to reducing our whole network of pains and pleasures, familiarity, love and sacrifice, that we call “family,” to a genealogical record. It is not the real thing, it is a statement about the real thing (albeit an accurate one).

Or, as someone once wrote, “Faith without works is dead.”

It is a dangerous thing to be consumed with knowledge, it can inhibit action; we can be so consumed with the minutia of theological definition that we fail at loving the individual in front of us or the God who created, MAY THIS NEVER BE!

There is a disconnect between what we know and how we act. We must be wary of this; knowing something about God does not make us close to Him, knowing much about the Bible does not equate to living a life shaped by its pages. We should seek first to live our faith, in that pursuit our faith will grow. If we seek however, to grow our knowledge as an end in itself, it will cause our very selves to whither away.

How wonderful that God is not this way. Who He is and what He does are not inconsistent; when Moses asked God who He was, He answered Moses, “I AM.”

May we also, in this same simple yet transcendent way, BE…

I have always been a great fan of C. S. Lewis. I have said that, “I am at home in his mind.” I have grown up reading his fantasies, and been influenced by his concepts, always, I am amazed at his uncanny ability to approach an issue from an odd angle. I read recently a chapter out of Miracles that spoke to me about the nature of God.

“The Pantheist’s God does nothing, demands nothing. He is there if you wish for Him, like a book on a shelf. He will not pursue you. There is no danger that at any time heaven and earth should flee away at His glance. If He were the truth, then we could really say that all the Christian images of kingship were a historical accident of which our religion ought to be cleansed. It is with a shock that we discover them to be indispensable. You have had a shock like that before, in connection with smaller matters-when the line pulls a your hand, when something breathes beside you in the darkness. So here; the shock comes at the precise moment when the thrill of life is communicated to us along the clue we have been following. It is always shocking to meet life where we thought we were alone. ‘Look out!’ we cry, ‘it’s alive’. And therefore this is the very point at which so many draw back-I would have done so myself if I could-and proceed no further with Christianity. An ‘impersonal God’-well and good. A subjective God of beauty, truth and goodness, inside our own heads-better still. A formless life-force surging through us, a vast power which we can tap-best of all. But God Himself, alive, pulling at the other end of the cord, perhaps approaching at an infinite speed, the hunter, king, husband-that is quite another matter. There comes a moment when the children who have been playing at burglars hush suddenly: was that a real footstep in the hall? There comes a moment when people who have been dabbling in religion (‘Man’s search for God!’) suddenly draw back. Supposing we really found Him? We never meant it to come to that! Worse still, supposing He had found us?

So it is a sort of Rubicon. One goes across: or not. But if one does, there is no manner of security against miracles. One may be in for anything.”

Chapter 11 - Christianity and ‘Religion’

All of us want God to be a ‘tame’ lion… (which is to cease to be a lion)
…none of us are truly comfortable with the ‘good’ lion; who’s very goodness promises us no such security or comfort, only life eternal and infinite and abundant.

“I know deep down there must be an exciting world waiting for us if we would only pull back the curtain or jump to the other side of the ravine – but we're all too afraid to make the leap. My inner being says, ‘Jump!’”

Burlap Bob