Thinking about God, Jesus and The Big Questions

This past autumn, I was cutting down annual plants which had finished producing and placing them on top of the soil to eventually decompose.  I was rejoicing that this decomposition process would improve the soil. I thought to myself "Decomposition into existing soil improves it so that it is much better than soil that has never been used."  This struck a memory for me of a quote from C.S. Lewis: "For God is not merely mending, not simply restoring a status quo. Redeemed humanity is to be something more glorious than unfallen humanity would have been..." - C.S. Lewis, Miracles 1947, in Chapter 14 "The Grand Miracle". In other words, C.S. Lewis believed that man who is redeemed through the death of Jesus is somehow intrinsically better than unfallen man. I found it a bit easier to see this viewpoint using the gardening analogy. It's not a great analogy, but it was concrete enough to help me. Soil that has never been used is never going to be as good ...

Most people tend to think mainly of the book of Revelation when considering end time prophesies. However, there were also prophesies of end times in the Old Testament which were similar. The prophet Isaiah from the Old Testament had end time prophesies that were consistent with those in the book of Revelation (and in other places of the New Testament). Read Isaiah chapters 19 and 24 for this.  The prophet Daniel, also in the Old Testament, had similar end time prophesies. Read Daniel chapters 7, 8 and 9 for this. Recall that the Bible accurately predicted the fall of Babylon (at the time of its prediction, unthinkable - similar to the idea of a fall of London, Paris or New York). The Bible's predictions are accurate. This consistency between the Old Testament and New Testament means we must take these end time prophesies seriously. I wrote a separate article explaining why at this very moment we are not at the end of days , but this could change suddenly.  When the end times ...

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...