Last night I was reading Philip Yancey’s Reaching for the Invisible God, a book that I am thorough enjoying. I read a quote he made by a Quaker, and it was attractive to me:
If a man wishes to avoid the disturbing effects of paradoxes, the best advice is for him to leave the Christian faith alone.
This seems to help me understand that part of the adventure of the Christian faith is that not everything needs to be “figured out” or “settled on.”
I’ve wanted to post my article on salvation in my weblog, rather than just linking it to a PDF file. But I don’t want to take up the whole front page and overwhelm anybody who stumbles along!
So click below for the extended entry, and (hopefully) enjoy. Comments are extremely welcome.
A daughter set out to introduce her elderly mother to the wonders of the Internet. She went to a popular Web site called “Ask Jeeves” and told her mother it could answer any of her questions. Her mother looked skeptical. “It’s true, Mom,” she said. “Think of something to ask it, and it will have the answer.”
They sat there for a few moments, and then her mother responded in a very serious voice, “Okay, how is Aunt Helen feeling?”
~from Eternity Now by Peter Hiett, pg 83
I’ve always approached God in a sort of “gnostic fashion,” in a way that seeks to understand Him, yet doesn’t really help me know Him. I always thought that the more I knew about Him (i.e., all I could do to grasp theological concepts and find the “true meaning” of the biblical data), I would someday know God (or at least be close to Him). God wants to “be known,” yet when we approach Him in our way of knowing Him, it doesn’t work. Yet He continues to make Himself known to us, and it is we who must seek to know Him in the way(s) He wishes to be known.
Yet somehow I feel that this pursuit of the “knowledge of God” rather than the “knowing of God” has killed God…not literally, of course, but has killed Him in my world, my life. It’s at these times when one re-evaluates the approach and methods of understanding and knowing. And knowing our Creator is quite possibly the most imp–what am I saying!?– [start over] Knowing our Creator is the most important “knowing” we could ever encounter.
“Experiencing God” always seemed to me to be only for the Christians who didn’t really know how to do “real Bible study.” And of course experience without Scripture is more fluff than substance. But without experience, our faith will always dwell on the fringes of doubt.
On a more practical note today, I was able to attend two churches, both of which I enjoyed. But the search has only just begun, and I am still seeking the best possible place for me to worship and fit in here in Lancaster.
It’s been a while since I have written, and yet I have thought about many things since. I have now moved to Lancaster, PA, and am looking for a church with which to be involved. The biggest need in my life is a church family that I feel “at home” with.
Over the past few months, I’ve been wondering what it’s like to really see God. Not physically, but really focus on and look for God in our world. Growing up, I’ve been taught that “He’s everywhere” and “He’s in creation,” which is to say, “Look at the beautiful mountains and rivers and snow and animals!” But I wonder if it goes deeper than that.
Experience has been downplayed in my life in regards to theology, in the sense that, if I can’t biblically support it, it cannot be irrefutable. My experience only enlightens my biblical understanding. And that’s probably 99% true. But with that mentality, it becomes increasingly difficult to see God in places when the only place you look for Him is in the pages of Scripture (no offense to the canon).
So what if I actually look for God in places, like when I see people help others in need, or if I see a movie that describes true love and not the Hollywood lust we’ve grown so used to seeing on the big screen, or if I find God’s mercy in places like passing a state trooper and he “let me by” even though I was doing a little over the speed limit? We experience these moments, and we’re thankful, or even happy about them. But do we really worship God during those times?
What would it mean to worship God at a time like that? I suppose thankfulness is worship. But I think the best way can sometimes be the easiest way (pride and selfishness notwithstanding): enjoying those situations as a reflection of God’s grace, glory, majesty, love, or other attribute. If “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him,” then enjoying and being satisfied in those moments for what God has designed them to be should be a way to worship and glorify Him.
Maybe I’m a little off, but today that’s what’s in my head, and what I’ve been musing on lately.
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