Thinking about God, Jesus and The Big Questions

Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived, counseled against knee-jerk reactions. Reacting without thinking is not a wise way to live. Here are his sayings on that: Do not be quick to anger, for anger lodges in the bosom of fools. Do not say, ‘Why were the former days better than these?’ For it is not from wisdom that you ask this. Ecclesiastes 7: 9-10  This reminds me to pray, think, and read the Bible when any issue crops up. I'm not good at it - I still get angry quickly when I know that is not the best way. But I am trying, at least. I realize that knee-jerk reactions are literally the enemy of wisdom, as Solomon said. Mental shortcuts like that remove the opportunity to seek God in the middle of this problem. I find it helps me to think "everything is more nuanced than you think it is at first glance", and we do need God's guidance for that. God is the fount of wisdom, so our number one priority should be to seek Him and His solutions, not to give a knee-jer...

In my prayer life, I realize I had been very limiting in what I prayed for. I was praying only for things that could happen in my lifetime. It simply never occurred to me to pray for things beyond that. That is incredibly short-sighted.  When reading the Bible, there are many examples of people's prayers being answered - but this happened after the person passed away, so they never got to see it themselves. Does that mean the prayer wasn't answered? No! The prayer was answered. The answer had nothing to do with whether the person praying was there to observe it or not.  Let's take a look at an example. This occurred in the Old Testament when Abimelech tried to establish a monarchy over Shechem. To do so, he killed all his brothers (who could otherwise challenge his rule) except for one, Jotham, who hid from him. The people of Shechem declared him their ruler, but his brother Jotham spoke out bravely to the crowd. He asks if the crowd if they have honored his father Jerubbaa...

When reading parts of the Bible, it feels like on some occasions God spoke very clearly. Sometimes we can feel discouraged that we don't hear Him so clearly today. As an aside, a huge part of this is that we are not listening, even if we think we are. To listen, we have to take the time to get to know God and to hear His voice, and how many of us do that?  But getting back to the title of this post, there are times in history where the Lord's word was rare and visions were not widely known, as shown in the Bible verse below. Does this resonate with you about the situation we see today? Now the boy Samuel was ministering to the Lord under Eli. The word of the Lord was rare in those days; visions were not widespread. 1 Samuel 3: 1 You may like to read the full verse in the Bible - this is where Samuel receives instruction from God. Yet at first neither he nor the priest Eli realize the voice is from God, because it was rare to hear from God in those days. We don't know precis...

Despite all of the bad things that are happening in the word, we do have the power to choose our own thoughts.  Yes, it's true that it's really hard to choose positive thoughts when we are busy, or have a lot of responsibilities, or deal with a lot of stress daily. But choosing positive thoughts is a habit we need to start if we haven't already.  If we instead decided to wait until the "perfect day" for those thoughts, when we are on vacation with no responsibilities.... hold on, that sort of thing doesn't exist! Exactly. We are responsible for choosing positive thoughts even in situations when it's easier not to . The Holy Spirit dwells within us, and wouldn't it be wonderful to let the Holy Spirit reside in a place that is beautiful on the inside?  If it's a mess of worry (and yes, I've been there, and sometimes keep going there!) then won't it be a little hard for us to hear the Holy Spirit? And wouldn't it be hard for the Holy Spiri...

The question of knowing whether something unusual is God's plan, or is foolhardiness, is not always easy. For those to whom God or an angel spoke directly, it was probably pretty clear. One example of being spoken to by God or an angel is Mary, the mother of Jesus. Another is Moses when he was told to lead the people out of Egypt. But in our lives, it's not always easy to know when we're solidly in God's plan, or if the unusual thing we might be doing is foolhardiness. Even when we have prayed about it, it's not always easy to be 100% certain about it. Did we misunderstand? Did we hear wrongly? Did we only think we heard something a certain way but really it wasn't that? It's not always as easy as hearing a loud voice that we identify clearly as the Lord's. It sure would be great if we could be certain 100% of the time! Of course, many people have heard God's voice incredibly clearly and with certainty - not just in Biblical days, but today too. One...

One illusion that Satan would have you believe is that your past is something you need to dwell on, that it is right there at your heels, dogging your steps. Nothing could be further from the truth. I don't want to make light of the past. Especially in the cases where hurts have been done to us, perhaps big hurts during childhood, the emotional scarring is difficult. I'm not saying it isn't difficult, or that it shouldn't be. Yet, dwelling on the past and ruminating on it is not what God wants us to do . Think what better use of that same amount of time it would be if it were put toward worshiping God. Let's take a look at someone in the Bible who was a man of God and who experienced (through Satan's actions against him), a series of calamities so terrible that I'm sure it caused emotional scarring. This man was called Job. He was of good character and he happened to be wealthy. There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job, and that man was b...

 As Jesus was dying on the cross, he said some important words to the disciple whom he loved, thought to be the youngest disciple John. but standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son!” Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother!” And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home. John 19: 25-27 After Jesus died and rose again, he was later seen by his disciples and he had an important commandment for them: Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Sp...

I am sure I am not the only one that has struggled a lot with worries and negativity (and still do).  I have been reading the devotional of "The Battlefield of the Mind" by Joyce Meyer over the past few weeks. This has helped me a lot. Certainly, reading the Bible is incredibly helpful in a general sense, but I have also felt immensely helped by Joyce Meyer's book for that specific problem of the battlefield of the mind. In that devotional, I learned that it is deceptively easy for us to get tricked by Satan into turning our attention away from God and into the worries of the world. Sometimes this can even happen due to good intentions on our part, e.g. a desire to empathize and be compassionate. However, if we are not careful, we can all too easily become distracted with all of the negative things that are happening around us, without any thought for a) God and Jesus, or b) any of the positive things that are also happening. Now I realize that God never meant for us ...

This is a concept I used to grapple with, and still do: the question of when it's important to pray, and when it's important to do works. Ideally one would do both. Still though, there are times in the Bible where it has been made clear that one or the other is more necessary, depending on what the situation was at the time. One of the clearest examples is when Jesus was arrested in the garden of Gethsemane. Prior to that, he had been praying. He had even asked his disciples to pray, but they were tired and fell asleep. When the soldiers came to arrest Jesus, Peter immediately acted, but not in a way that Jesus wanted. Peter cut off the ear of one of the soldiers with a sword. Although from Peter's point of view he was defending Jesus, it was not something that was necessary. Let's read the passage: Now the betrayer had given them a sign, saying, “The one I will kiss is the man; arrest him.” At once he came up to Jesus and said, “Greetings, Rabbi!” and kissed hi...

I realized that it is easy to be straying from God without even being aware of it, which is why I have called this post "Straying blindly." This is what happened to me for a while. I think in a way, this is a lot more insidious that when we knowingly stray. When we knowingly stray, we might not be going to church for awhile, and/or not be praying or reading the Bible daily - not making the time to have a relationship with God. Or perhaps we might be involved in unethical activities. Either way, when these situations happen, we often feel guilty and are aware this is happening. Sometimes we even feel trapped. In any case, in these situations, we know we're straying. However, it can also happen that we are straying without really being aware of it. Like the sheep who thinks the flock is nearby, we might wander off a little further each time, never really realizing that we are away from the Shepherd. In a sense, that is more dangerous because we don't know we have st...

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...