Month: February 2010

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Are we God’s weakness?

God's weak link?

It’s liberating not to be an expert. Great to admit that there’s a million things that I simply don’t know. All I’m sure about is that I’m still curious.

For example, I don’t know for sure if the Earth is warming up or that the Poles are thawing at a faster rate than the oceans can absorb the water. I don’t know what the weather will do next week. I’m in the dark about the amount of electricity we need to save before the energy stocks dim. I’m swinging either way over the question of a hung Parliament. I’m poleaxed over the polls and dithering over the political debates raging daily.

I’m not sure whether we should be in Europe or whether Europe should be in us. I’m fairly easy about Quantitative Easing.  I could be convinced that the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street is really a canny old man. I’m unsure over whether if you laid all the economists end to end they still wouldn’t reach a conclusion. Neither would I. I’m curious. Open to persuasion. The more I know, the more I don’t know.

I sense that God exists, yet I can’t prove it. I know that a lot of people don’t believe in him, yet he believes in them. If he’s omnipotent and omniscient then he is powerful enough to know everything and yet on the other hand if God is Love then he must hurt a lot when people he loves don’t reciprocate.

He could command them to love him – but lovers don’t command anyone to love them. It happens naturally. So that makes him vulnerable. He’s standing at the door and knocking and if we hear him and open the door then he comes in. That’s not a door-crashing God, it’s a meek, exposed Dad who loves his child knocking at the bedroom door hoping that the teenager will let him in so they can talk.

So what I thought I knew about God isn’t true. He doesn’t make us do anything.  He asks, politely.

He woos us gently and he died in the process of proving his love. It doesn’t seem fair – and probably isn’t. I guess I don’t know the truth. I can only feel. That’s human and yet strangely God-like.

Luke 15:20 (New International Version)

But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.

Hebrews 5:2 (New International Version)

He is able to deal gently with those who are ignorant and are going astray, since he himself is subject to weakness.

Maybe we are his weakness.

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Stalemate. Who made the rules for your life?

No move? Change the rules..

 

We often get to a place of stasis or resignation in our lives.

Stalemate is the endgame in Chess where the King is safe, but is cornered and trapped by his opponent’s pieces. It’s his turn to move but he is not permitted to move into a place of danger. When neither player is in a position to win, the game moves backwards and forwards – endlessly repeating the same behaviour, but with neither side able to win. On the basis that there can be no winner, stalemate is called. The rules state that the game is a draw. The players can then start a new game.

Who made up the rules that you live by?

If you are in a position of stalemate, are the rules governing the game useful or helpful to you? Is it time to play the game by a new set of rules? Especially if we cannot choose between two equally powerful options. Is it time for a new game? If the old rules are not doing their job, maybe it’s time for some new ones?

MPs are being asked to vote on a new set of rules on electing MPs with  greater emphasis on Proportional Representation (AV). However, the MPs will vote in favour only if they think that they are personally safe under the new rules. Turkeys voting for Christmas? Of course not. Stalemate. Unless, of course, there is a revolution in thinking, or practice. A new set of rules.

SHAPE. After Stalemate, comes Honesty – hiding the truth may be less painful, but ultimately if we do then nothing changes. If we could be honest without hurting, what would happen?  Would anyone suffer and if we told people what was really going on would they think any the less of us for it?

After honesty, Allies – who or what internally and externally can we enlist to help? If our friends are real they will support us through the trauma, through the honest admissions and replace the false reflections in our mirror with their honesty – and love.

Then Progress and Peace – finding both in places where happiness has been experienced. We can take a phial of it from the past and apply it to the present. After  all, it happened then, it can happen now. Remember the conditions necessary to get Peace. Recreate them. Who were you with? Where did you go? What was your higher purpose back then. Is it time for a comeback?

Finally,  Ending Well – take yourself to the end of your life and look back at the decisions made today – and their outcomes. It’s a matter of degree. There is a difference between excitement and enjoyment – one short term and the other long term. It is good to see projects through with integrity rather than continually starting and stopping things. That diet, that addiction, that New Year resolution. That marriage. Those children.

Ultimately, we have a Moment of Truth – a point at which we say ‘from now on I want to live a life that I’m proud to own’. New rules. Your rules. New life. Your life.