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...

Psalm 23 is a well-known psalm that is often quoted for giving comfort to those who are dying. Here it is: The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside still waters; he restores my soul. He leads me in right paths for his name’s sake. Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil; for you are with me; your rod and your staff— they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord my whole life long. Psalm 23 This psalm was written by King David at the time when he was beset by many enemies. He did not write this to comfort him in case he died. Instead he wrote this psalm as a prayer for guidance during difficult military campaigns. In other words, this psalm is very much for the living, not the dying. It...

In Biblical times, it was considered by society to be a very negative thing to not have children. Back then, a couple who did not have children was most likely due to infertility than out of a choice not to have children. In those days it made a lot of practical sense to have kids since children could help with some of the tasks of the family business.  So there was a societal stigma to not having children. Even in modern times today, some people view not having kids as a negative thing, although it's seen as less of an issue now than back in Biblical times. Certainly it is more emotionally difficult for the couple who want to have kids but have not yet been able to have them, than for a couple who is childless by choice. I realize this is an emotionally charged topic. The good news is that you do not need to have kids to be a fully functional human being according to God . Your ability to be with God is independent of whether or not you have children. There is a verse in the Bible...

I was reading Isaiah recently and was struck by a particular section. In it, King Hezekiah of the Jews prays to God to spare his nation from being invaded by Assyria, at the time a strong and mighty nation: Truly, O Lord, the kings of Assyria have laid waste all the nations and their lands, and have hurled their gods into the fire, though they were no gods, but the work of human hands—wood and stone—and so they were destroyed. So now, O Lord our God, save us from his hand, so that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you alone are the Lord.’ Isaiah 37: 18-20 The part that struck me as so important is the part where the Assyrian kings " have hurled their gods into the fire, though they were no gods, but the work of human hands—wood and stone—and so they were destroyed ." King Hezekiah recognized clearly that the things that the Assyrian kings destroyed were not significant - those things were never gods at all, but simply the work of human hands. In other words, it wa...

It may seem a bit odd to draw parallels between the programming language Lisp and effective prayer, but this was a revelation that struck me recently. No prior knowledge of Lisp, or of prayer, is necessary to understand this post. A brief look at Lisp - specification and implementation First let's take a very quick look at Lisp. Lisp is a programming language that has a specification , meaning that each command (or function, to use Lisp terminology) is defined to produce a certain result. As a concrete example, the + function must take in as many numbers as desired and must provide the result of adding those numbers. For example (+ 4 5 10) should result in 19.  Exactly HOW the nuts and bolts work for producing the result (i.e. the steps of adding up all the numbers in the + function) is up to the implementation of Lisp.   The programmer doesn't need to know or care how the implementation works , the programmer just needs to know that if they call the + function, they will get...

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...

I was reading the book of Proverbs ( read here why I think it is the most subversive book of the Bible ). Much of the book of Proverbs is thought to be written by King Solomon. While I was reading this, several of the proverbs leaped out at me as being relevant to today's online misinformation. In these proverbs, Solomon promotes a thinking approach and cautions against carelessness. Let's take a look: A scoffer seeks wisdom in vain, but knowledge is easy for a man of understanding Proverbs 14:6     The simple believes everything, but the prudent looks where he is going. A wise man is cautious and turns away from evil, but a fool throws off restraint and is careless. Proverbs 14:15-16   The mind of him who has understanding seeks knowledge, but the mouths of fools feed on folly. Proverbs 15:14   A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing his opinion. Proverbs 18:2    All of the above proverbs can be well applied to tod...