Thinking about God, Jesus and The Big Questions

For the longest time, I used to feel jealous of Jesus' apostles or disciples, such as Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.  I felt that they were given a rather "unfair advantage" by actually meeting Jesus in real life, compared to those such as us who live in the current day and age. I used to think "If only I was the fisherman Mark, I could have met Jesus first-hand! Instead I have to deal with the lack of Jesus here on the planet.  This is such an unfair disadvantage!" Today, I found out that actually, we do are not disadvantaged at all nowadays, compared to those who had met Jesus.  My thinking before that was so wrong on so many different levels, as I found out today. 1. If I lived in that day and age, I probably would have been blind enough not to recognize Jesus for who he was anyway.  Honestly, I probably would have thought similarly to the Pharisees, as much as I'd like to think I wouldn't.  Thankfully, I am spared that mistake now that we have t...

It is only relatively recently that I have glimpsed that prayer is powerful, and seen why prayer is powerful. Here I'll share what I have learned. Before this, for the longest time, I used to believe that the quickest and most effective way to bring about positive change to a situation, was to use direct physical action, without necessarily involving any prayer.  Part of this was probably a lack of faith.  Although I believed in God, I felt a need to be useful via direct practical action.  I didn't really question whether my desire to be useful was in order to help the situation/person affected, or whether it was out of a desire of self-worth, or out of a desire to honor and help God (e.g. by doing good works).  I really don't know, and couldn't tell you.  The book of James has always stuck sharply in my head, too, which has tended to make me lean heavily toward works - probably as a way of showing my faith and my love. But I didn't have the balance of p...