Taming God? - Week Five Part Two

 Part Two: Taming God?

While we can not tame God, God is not elusive. He wants to give us understanding. We know we can not control God's favor on us by what we do or do not do but can we know and understand what is happening to us?

Taming God? - Week Five: Part One

Chapter 5 is part of a really large story so I am going break into two parts.  Part One: Taming God

Brent Curtis shares in Chapter Five that there is ,"No direct correlation between the way we live our lives and the fate God has in store for us." Pondering that I conclude, why try? But isn't this life a test that we can gain rewards in heaven for running a good race. Doesn't God want us to do good things, love others, and try to pursue his will for our lives. If there is no correlation
between our attempts to do so and the fate of our lives, do we give up trying?

Week Five- Read Chapter Five "The Wildness of God"

Have you tried to domesticate God? Do you think of him as a loving lap dog or a wild cougar that you let loose in your house?


Does faith in God always translate to peace and security? What does the author of your story have written for you on the next page? Do you live in a predictable plot or has God written you into a page turning suspence?

Week Five- Feb 22-26 Read Chapter Five, The Wildness of God from "The Sacred Romance: Drawing Closer to the Heart of God." by John Eldredge and Brent Curtis. If you haven't done so already, read the February 9, 2010 Post and think about what kind of story you are living in. Do you know the author/director of your life's story?

CONNECT WITH OTHERS seeking after God's own heart at Ransomed Heart Ministries.



Embedded links:
A thought-provoking article by Matthew Gunter - Are you trying to house-break God? http://handiworksconstruction.blogspot.com/2008/03/wildness-of-god.html

Christian online discussion groups-
http://www.ransomedheart.net/groups

Think About Such Things

cited from A Quiet Voice Heard Loudly, June 23, 2008

When God speaks to you write it on your heart, remind yourself of it often, share it with others boldly, do not let Satan take from you the Holy Spirit's Quiet, Still Voice You Once Heard Loudly - - - think on those great moments often.

"Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.(Philipians 4:4-9)"

A Story Big Enough to Live In - Week Four

I remember as a child growing up I would look in the mirror and contemplate if I was really real. Everyone else I saw was real as far as I could tell, but I wasn't sure at times if I was. I remember thinking since I couldn't see myself that maybe I was not real. I used to stare in the mirror and try to make myself seem more real. There was also a time in my life where I walked through the motions of each day wondering if others were real or if by chance I was the only one real, did I somehow make them up? 

I  pondered these things and eventually I came to the conclusion, more of an acceptance, that I was as real as everyone else and that the people I met shared this reality with me. Some of you may have not had to spend so much effort contemplating this reality but it doesn't mean that you, at some level, did not wonder about it.

I believe that when Adam ate that apple that God opened our eyes to the experience of questioning of our reality for the first time. Before we had no other reason to doubt our place and purpose in the world. I have studied my neighbor's cows and I think how amazing it is that they don't sit around comtemplating their reality. They don't know that their destiny is to become steak and burgers. Maybe they have just accepted their plot. They do like to move to greener pastures but they aren't trying to break out of their pens and escape or seek freedom from containment. They just graze without contemplating their own survival.

God put something in our hearts greater than survival.  In chapter four of the Sacred Romance, John Eldredge introduces us to  "a Reality that corresponds to the deepest desires of our heart.'' Only we don't know exactly what it is we are searching for. "We were born into a movie that is already started and we are still trying to figure out the plot and make sense of the action (Eldredge)." Life was easy when we thought our parents had the answers and we thought we would eventually be in their shoes. Then we, some of us earlier than others, discovered our parents were as clueless as we were. Now we had lost our compass and were adrift on an open sea with no direction. No references. Our guides were just as blind as we are.

At first you think you lost something, I remember going back to my old neighborhood trying to find it. One year we even drove through an icestorm with a newborn baby just so I could go to a New Year's day gathering at a neighbor's house in the old neighborhood. We had gathered there every year I can remember growing up and having been away from home for four years, I had a desparate need to reconnect with it. What it was exactly I didn't know nor did I find it there.

Even the greatest and closest loves of our lives "could not be there with the strength, tenderness, and consistency that we long for." We live in a larger story than the one that we try to create for ourselves out of the peices that we hang together. According to Eldredge, "We are desparate to find something larger to give our lives transcendence. We get caught up in sports, politics, soap operas, rock bands," anything that will help tie one day, one season, one year with the next, in some sort of higher purpose. Here are some of the stories people choose to live in. These are listed in chapter 4 of the Sacred Romance:

1. I am the victim: Why does everything go wrong for me?
2. I am a survivor: I will hunker down and survive the cruel, cold world.
3. The romantic: Somewhere out there someone or something will sweep me off my feet and make my life complete.
4. The sportsmen: the pursuit of adventure through their own recreational activities or losing themselves in the accomplishments of their favorite players and teams.
5. The Religious one: making a contract with God to be excempt from the arrows by accomplishing good deeds.

We search desparately for a larger story to live in and find our role in. When we don't find it, we bury ourselves in a theme similiar to the ones listed above. Most of us would agree that our story is bigger than we can conceive and yet we try to put a book binding on it so that it will fit neatly into our daily reality. Having accepted the story is out there, having attempted to find our place in it and pull together the plot from the action and  scenes we can remember, we try to make sense of it. But are we living as Curtis and Eldredge mentioned, are we living out "Random Days of our lives" hidden by a cover-up story.

Or do you agree with Chesterton who said, "I always believed that the world contained magic, now I thought that perhaps it involves a magician. I always felt life was a story, now I know if there is a story there has to be a storyteller."

Week Four: A Story Big Enough to Live In

A Story Big Enough to Live In- Week Four


Feb. 7th-Feb 13th Read Chapter 4 of the Sacred Romance: Drawing Closer to the Heart of God, by John Eldredge and Brent Curtis. If you haven't done so yet, go back and answer the discussion questions for Chapter 3 by commenting to the  Saturday, February 6th, 2010 Post: "Week Three Discussion Questions: Arrows."


For those of you following along on Facebook, you can take part in the discussion by posting comments to the threads at http://r4c-ridersforchrist.blogspot.com

Week Three Discussion Questions: Arrows

Think about the messages you have heard along the way, the arrows that have peirced your heart:
What messages have you or do you still fight with?
What kinds of messages do these arrows send to you?
How do they fight with or win over the message of Beauty?
How do they try to drown out the hope of finding that ultimate connection to our soul?
 

The Arrows that Harden Our Hearts

According to John Eldredge and Brent Curtis in the Sacred Romance, "Two things that pierce the human heart are beauty and affliction." They claim that arrows are shot at our heart that try to steal the romance that the beauty brings to us. Do you remember the first time you figured out adults did not know how to handle the arrows? Do you remember when you realized that you are truly alone in a cold indifferent world?
When I first began to understand that I could not  bring others along on my journey with me, I started writing poetry to immortalize the impact the romance and arrows were having on my heart:

"Like a cloud a life forms, like a cloud a life floats by, like a cloud a life disappears.
Few know, few notice, few care."

When no one understood my poetry, I began to fill the emptiness with other solutions: parties, spontaneous adventures, money or the seeking of money. I never realized what a work-a-holic I was until I re-read my senior year book the other day and the only people who signed  it were people I worked with, "Great working with you Kim. Thanks for helping me with the 'claims.'" I did not have one signature from friends I went to high school with. I started working when I was 14, 13 if  you count babysitting. I graduated from High School and took off on a trip to California. After that, I ran, and ran, and ran. . . looking for something but didn't know what. I didn't find it in California, didn't find it at parties, didn't find it at work, . . .
I did find glimpses of Beauty that eluded to it. . . and many arrows that tried to destroy my hope of finding it.

I knew I would need help finding it so I started searching. . . I was involved with all kinds of spiritual quests and heavily into New Age and Native American spirituality. Glimpses of Hope but always something missing.
Aching and longing for something and someone I couldn't quite define. When arrows came, I had inadequate defenses. Beauty and wonder seemed at war with the powerful arrows that tried to destroy my soul. I knew clearly I was on an earthly trip no one could fully share with me and it seemed like everyone else around me was sharing their trip with each other and I couldn't quite find my way into their story. It seemed like I was continually going through challenges, through loss, and being lost while others seemed to have everything together.

What kinds of messages do the arrows send? Do they win over the message of Beauty? Can they drown out the hope of finding that ultimate connection to our soul? Think about the messages  you have heard along the way: I shared one you may have heard: "Everyone else has it together but you." What other arrows have you heard? Maybe you have been a Christian your whole life and have dutifully lead a life of Service.  The arrows that attack may make you feel like you are not living up to God's expectations of you. Service becomes a series of "shoulds" instead of a passion for those you serve. "Arrows strike at the most vital places in our hearts, the things we care the most about." They come to try to kill our very soul and  harden our hearts so we become indifferent to the beauty and even lose our hope of finding it.