How do we know what God's rules are?

This topic has always been a confusing one for me. As a teacher I am often asked 'How can we prove God is real?' My usual answer is that we can't but also, how can we prove that God doesn't exist? I find it hard to get some atheist pupils to understand that once you have experienced God's love and direction in your life it is hard not to believe. But when I am asked by some pupils how I know, as a Christian, what God's rules are I stumble because of two reasons:
1) The answer is obviously that the Bible is like the 'rule book' given to us by God through people in different times and places. This I believe to be part of the truth, but I have issues with the Bible as a complete piece of scripture. I will expand on this below
2) I am inclined to think, that although the Bible was God-breathed, that is, inspired by God (I do not, and have never, considered that God dictated the Bible word by word - again I will expand on this later) and is therefore very important, that God's word and direction through prayer should be considered as showing God's rules. If I need guidance, I pray, as I have been taught and advised by 'older' Christians in the past, and then I listen. It might take me to a place in the Bible, it may be that God answers through another person, or it may be that God answers in His silence. Either way when I think I have an answer, I pray about it again for reassurance. I think that sometimes people get too caught up in relying on the Bible and forgetting that God is alive and can be addressed personally. As far as I am concerned...that is what God wants, a living relationship with His people, not one based solely in the past.

Issues with the Bible as a piece of scripture
I am not going to pull the Bible apart here, as I believe that it is a very important document and as I have said above, I rely on it in many areas of my life.
My problem comes when I think of how the Bible as we know it today, was put together and how some books were included and some were left out by two Councils of men who decided what was 'Godly' and what was not. I am sure that they had stringent rules of what to look for and what not to look for and I am hopeful that there was a lot of prayer involved in the decisions that were finally made. However, a part of me worries that an important part may have been left out or that the men that were a part of the council had an agenda in what they chose to include, consciously or subconsciously.

Obviously, these doubts say more about me than they do about anything but they are there nonetheless. For example, I believe that Paul was a godly man who gave good advice, but it has always worried me that much of the Roman Catholic (amongst others) doctrine about leadership in the church, that is men can lead, women can't, is based on him and essentially his opinion. After all, he is just one man who, whether he meant to or not, wrote from his context. It is doubtful that he considered his words to have such exacting longevity and they would still be being applied today in a totally different time, place and culture. Or that his letters would make up a majority of the New Testament.

My second point about the Bible follows from the previous point. It is that someone, sometime decided to close the book; decided that enough had been written about God and Jesus. When they did this they were stopping God's word in a moment in history. They were leaving the application of those words in the early part of the first century and, for those who believe that the Bible is the infallible word of God to be taken as written, condemning them to try and fit the advice for a particular context into theirs.

*Please do not misunderstand me, I am not suggesting that the Bible is outdated and simply a history book, the point I am trying to make is that it should be open to the changing contexts in which it finds itself. Simply because God is fluid. Therefore, returning to the women in leadership argument, I think Christians should be aware of the context in which Paul was writing when he said that women should not be teachers, should be silent in church etc because there are a plethora of reasons that he may have said it, (including the fact that he may have actually meant women forever, in every context - I am open to that). The thing that concerns me most about religion as opposed to faith is that people do not question, they are told what to believe and what certain passages mean, blind acceptance is never good. I believe that there instead should be a culture of people learning to ask God for His guidance when reading the Bible. (This is one of the reasons that I am in favour of Alpha courses and the like, where people are actively encouraged to ask hard questions of God and the Bible)*

Why is this bothering me so much at the moment? I am not sure, I suppose I am readdressing a lot of things in my life. I am looking at what is most key and am aware that my faith is the most important thing to me. I feel closer to God now than I ever have. I am now at the point of understanding the idea of a constant companion, I now do not feel that I am alone. If I'm honest, I feel that I have opened my eyes for the first time and really seen the world in all it's glory. I now WANT to sing at the top of my voice during worship not because I think God will hear the loudest, but because I want Him to know how much I love Him and how thankful I am to Him. Bearing this in mind...I think I need to know that the thing that I am basing so much of my life on, is real to me...not that it says something because another person tells me it does, I want to be in charge of my relationship with God, strike that...I want God to be in charge of our relationship, not anyone else.

I have spent the last couple of weeks in limbo regarding my faith and my life and feel that I am coming out of the smoke, I am starting to see things clearer than I ever have, and I am excited and completely and utterly scared by it all.

*As a footnote...I am aware that the position that I am taking has it's flaws in that our own interpretation means that the Bible can be used for our own means and not God's. However, I am not proposing that we just read the Bible and think, what does that mean to me. I am asking that people give some air space to God in their reading and deliberation of the Bible and act on His advice. In the past I have prayed to God about something and really disliked the answer that I have been given but have had to follow it (albeit eventually in some cases!!) because God is a God that prods us when we need it.
Second footnote...The reason I do not like the 'God dictated it approach' is because my experience of it has been that people do not follow it properly, they interpret as much as the next one , only they try to make out that they don't. Everyone that reads a text, be it the Bible, or a novel, brings their own context to it, it is impossible not to. The problem comes when people do not realise this.*

Misplaced Ownership...

I joined another church for a Bible Study this week, partly because I was invited and partly because I was curious as to what a Bible Study entailed as I have never been to one per se. The passage we were looking at was Luke 4:14-30 which isn't one that I haven't really given much thought to but one that has a lot of meaning within it.
There was much discussion on areas such as why Jesus chose to quote from the book of Isaiah, why he missed out the part about destroying enemies and why the crowd suddenly became very angry with Jesus after He talked about the Gentiles that had been helped and healed by the prophets Elijah and Elisha. On all of these points I had many thoughts (which will not shock those of you who know me) but I kept quiet as it was the first time I had met most of the people and I didn't want to talk them to death!

Of the thoughts one has stayed with me and I am starting to feel that there is a message from God in it. A message about a part of my life that I am currently struggling with.

The vicar asked us why the crowd became angry at Jesus when he said that the prophecy was fulfilled in Him and when He chastised them, reminding them that God loves all people and heals Gentiles over Jews in some instances. My first reaction was to say that it was because they felt they had ownership of Jesus and it was totally misplaced. Let me explain...
Jesus had returned to His childhood home, where people knew Him as a little boy 'Joseph, the Carpenter's son'. They felt that they knew Him and now that He was a 'Celebrity' due to all of His healings and sermons, they wanted a little bit of the action, and with it a little bit of the glory. So they felt that they had ownership of Him because they had been 'instrumental' in His journey.

An everyday example would be the X-Factor Finalists going home in the last week to see the people who are supporting them and finding people who are best friends with them...having known them at school...who are three years below them...and said hi in the corridor...once! These people often to profess to know the person and when asked 'How do you think X will react if they win?', explain in detail how they will react saying, 'that's so them!'. The truth of the matter is they have no idea and if person X was to say 'actually, you don't know me and I would never react that way', the other person would likely become angry and defensive and judgmental...just as the people who were listening to Jesus did.

Returning to the crowds...they became so angry that they 'drove Jesus out' and to the edge of a cliff. Jesus' reaction was not to fight but to stand tall and then simply walk through the crowds.
Firstly, the reason I think the crowds became so incensed (I think it is right to use such a strong word) is because they felt they had the right to say how Jesus should react and what He should say and when He did something that they didn't like, they felt disappointed in Him and let down and were reminded that in fact they had no special ownership of Him.
We were also asked what this passage might be teaching and what our three points would be if we were giving a sermon on it. One point I thought of was 'Not to base your decisions and actions on fear'. This is a two-fold point.
First part - That the reaction of the crowds was a collective one, it was fear of the unknown and the power of Jesus' words of fulfilled prophecy. They fed upon each others' fear and became a 'mob'.
Second part - This decision to drive Jesus out wasn't a sound one because the basis was fear. Jesus showed no fear (at least it isn't mentioned here in the passage). He stood there and chose the simple act of walking to show that He would not be intimidated and that His word 'A prophet is never accepted by His people' had in fact come true. The passage doesn't say that why the crowd didn't stop Him, but my guess is that they didn't trust their decision because it wasn't built on a firm foundation. It was built on summation and opinion, Jesus' was built on God.

So how does all of this apply to me?
It reminded me that no one is owned by another regardless of how 'indebted' they are to them, or what relationship they are in with them. And although we may think we 'know' people we shouldn't project our expectations on them in such a way as to make them feel that they have failed, God knows best.
Secondly, it helped me to realise that I do not need to fear another person's opinion when making decisions (which I am prone to doing), because if I do then I will base what I do on that fear and it will not be a firm foundation. Instead I need to pray about situations and listen for God's voice. If I do that, then surely, whatever the path I take, it will be the right one.

Guilt...

What a topic! I think it is safe to say that I could write about this subject forever but i'll try to keep it to a short snippet for both my sanity and yours!!

When I put the word guilt into a well known search engine these are the answers I got:

1.) The state of having committed an offense
2.) Remorse caused by feeling responsible for some offense
3.) Responsibility for wrongdoing
4.) A term denoting an unpleasant feeling associated with unfulfilled wishes.
5.) Guilt is a higher form of development than shame. Guilt has an internal punitive
voice which operates at the level superego (an internalized punitive harsh
parental figure). There are two kinds of guilt: Valid guilt and invalid guilt.

This in itself is a very long list of different ideas but there is one concurrent theme running through all five and that is wrongdoing...or to put a Christian slant on it...SIN! And all mention the 'unpleasant' feeling associated with guilt.

First point...I'm not sure the word unpleasant really even begins to cover it - my experience of guilt is that it can become all consuming, it is not merely unpleasant - it is an ominous feeling of dread and the knowledge that you are soiled and unclean. My guilt makes me want to scrub my body from the inside out with bleach.

Second point...according to these definitions (apart from number 4, which i will return to in one moment.) guilt is directly linked with a person doing something wrong. So that would mean that all the guilt I feel is because of my action. That makes sense to me - for it is only if you agree to something that you can do it...but surely that is not true of everything. For instance, the people forced to kill their family in the Rwandan atrocities of 1993 - they may have felt guilty but can they really own it? The truth is that as awful as it must have been for both the family shot and the one shooting (I cannot even begin to imagine)the person was forced into the action by another more powerful, so it isn't really their guilt to own. And yet we do. On the other hand, you might argue that just because you are coerced into something that you are not at least at fault a little bit? If you didn't allow it, then surely it wouldn't have happened at all? What a confusing matter...I would say that the people of the example were acting selflessly for the love of their families.

Third point...Returning to definition 4. 'Unfulfilled wishes' Surely not winning the lottery isn't included in this so it must mean wishes that start with 'I wish I hadn't...' Or 'If only I had...' Which illustrates the most frustrating thing about guilt. Once it is there, it seems to be there forever, like soil building layer upon layer until the original guilt is merely a small thing in comparison to the whole. I have found that I may for a fleeting second feel the guilt lifting but I find this more painful because when it comes back (and it always does), it crushes me with despair and then I feel guilty for thinking for a moment that certain actions were not my fault!! It is a vicious circle.

Fourth point...drawing from the last quote, 5, 'Valid guilt and Invalid guilt' ???? what on earth does this mean? And more importantly, how can we tell whether guilt is valid or not? Surely that is just giving us a loophole in order to appease ourselves. If there is an excuse, we as humans will find it and use it.

I have no answers to these questions really...except I guess that God has to be the ultimate judge on the valid and invalid issue, but that doesn't really help in the mean time with the incapacitating feeling that I should have done something differently, or worse...I was the one that caused it. So back to prayer again, I'm not sure I have any words left or that I have any energy. I want to just return to the bank queue of constant manageable feelings where I don't have to deal with all of this............at the minute that feels like all I can do.............but then I will waste all of the 'progress' I am told I am making.............

I'll have confusion with a side order of guilt please...oh......and make sure you supersize that.

Hard Times...

In the tradition of being totally truthful on my blog, if not in real life, I feel that I need to explain something to release it from my head.

Further to my previous blogs on 'voices' there is one statement that I am constantly hearing in my head...at the most inopportune times (driving, teaching, falling to sleep) and it is the statement 'I have had enough of life'. Now this statement makes me a little apprehensive for two reasons...

The first is that it can occur at any time and more to the point, when I am feeling alright. I can be plodding along and I get this overwhelming feeling of sadness and the feeling that I have just had enough. I am not suicidal and would never consider that as an action but it is really overwhelming at times and has made me catch my breath with the intensity of it.

The second reason is that the statement is often accompanied with images that I would rather forget and it takes me away from the reality in which I am and takes me to the past where I am bound. It scares me that I am able to be so out of control with my mind and so governed by something else. I feel like my body is being taken over again and for this reason I feel like I am ceasing to exist.

Apologies for the depressing nature of this post...but sometimes the truth is depressing. I will have to hand it all to God.

The World/the Devil strikes again!!

My Church is considering buying a building as we currently meet in a school and feel that we need to be more visible in our community. In order to do this we as a congregation are having to make big steps in faith as we do not have the monetary resources at the moment. For this reason we are having a gift day at Church where we are going to give our money to God's purposes for us in our area. So far so good...I fully support this - the Church is the people and if we want to see God's love and salvation spreading we have to make some sacrifices, be that time, effort or money. Here comes the issue...

I have been praying to God to ask what He wants me to do, to ask what amount He thinks is possible for me to give away (even if I am not sure that it is - I have decided to trust Him). We had settled on an amount, having looked at my finances etc...and all was good. Until I started to feel that the world was playing against me and trying to make it as hard as possible to give that amount. Since deciding the figure I have had a very minor car prang (there's £100 excess straight away), then my glasses were broken at work (looking at around £50 in the least to be repaired)...followed by my watch falling off my wrist somewhere between my home and Dudley!! Add to this Car Tax and saving for my new place...this giving thing is starting to be hard!!

I caught myself thinking, 'well, maybe I can halve the money that I was going to give, as I have had so many things pulling on the purse strings lately...'
What a dangerous path to go down! That is the path of the devil, of idolatry (money is more important) and simply not God's path for me (I also think that it is a little rude of me to have these long conversations with God, take up His time and then flat out ignore His advice!)So I stopped my wanderings down that way and turned back to God.

He alone knows what is good for me, and yes, the giving will now be a little more sacrificial than first thought but that's the point...going for God isn't easy, or else everyone would do it without a need to address the real issues in their lives and it's not that I think my faith means my life has to be hard or I am not a good Christian...certainly not, that's not what God is about. It's simply that I know that there is little point in storing up earthly goods - as the Bible says, the moths will have them!

In reality, I live a blessed life, I have a roof over my head, clothes on my back, food in my stomach and a soul that has been reclaimed by the Father...the money that I will be giving away is 'disposable income' - rather than dispose of it in worldly things where the economy just looks rocky, I would much prefer to give into the Kingdom of God...not because God tells me I have to, but simply because I want to.

All that said though - the Enemy is a tricky little dude...thank goodness I am now starting to see how little he is compared to God.

The voice that I do not have...to little me

My decision...finally...for real...no turning back...hmmm

An interesting video...(one major flaw)

I was looking on YouTube, as you do, and came across this video made by a guy who is clearly an atheist.

He has gone through his arguments systematically, logically and stated why God DEFINITELY does not exist...however, although I appreciate a good debate and like to hear all sides of an argument, I do not have much time for people who pull apart other beliefs when their argument has a clear major flaw!!

The main problem I have with this video is the presumption that God is made of matter - that in order to exist He has to be made of something that we can tangible touch and experience physically.

'Existence is a relatively simple concept -- it is defined as that which consists of either matter or energy. Therefore if a god exists, it must be composed of either matter or energy.' (!!)

This is such a leap in argument and is only in the first two sentences! He is saying that if God is to exist He has to be made of something that we understand to be the building blocks of creation...fine, if God was part of the creation and not the CREATOR! I find that this, as a sentence, is incredibly egotistical; the idea that because we cannot conceive of something above and beyond humanity - then it cannot be real!

'If a god exists, then physical evidence is really the only methodology by which we can ascertain that a god exists. Of course, this does not require direct physical evidence...

Evidence is defined as that which impacts our physical senses in some manner, either directly, or through some translating device such as a spectrograph or an oscilloscope.'

This statement when viewed together is completely contradictory...the author states that physical evidence is needed to PROVE God exists and then says that direct physical evidence isn't needed as proof of existence... he uses the idea of blackholes that he knows to exist although he has never seen them(!!) because of their effect or impact upon matter. Hmmmmm...I am trying not to come over as sarcastic and am failing miserably...surely his belief that blackholes exist has to be taken, in part, on faith, as he has never seen one for himself and yet he states it like they are fact and cannot be disproven. To further back up his claim he then defines evidence...'that which impacts out physical senses in some manner'...HOLD UP!!

Why then are the healings that people have experienced and WITNESSED and the sensory perception of God's presence not in themselves evidence by this definition? It certainly seems to me that they could be. In my limited experience, the presence of God has many impacts upon someone's physical state, they are overcome and feel Him! That seems to me to show that God is able to affect matter by His presence and His 'energy'.

As the author states, we do indeed determine the existence and non-existence of things through the evidence of our senses, this is the only way we can after all. So I think that it is a little unfair for the author (referring to God) to then go on to say,

'If I argue that something exists, but then claim there is no way to detect it, my argument contradicts itself'

Christianity does not say that there is no way to detect God, for God is always present, we are able to feel Him and experience Him through prayer, through asking Him into our lives and troubles and through the Holy Spirit.

'If a god exists, then sensual evidence of some sort is required to determine the existence of that god. If a god is not made up of matter or energy, then that god does not exist, since that which is not composed of matter or energy -- does not exist.'

Here is the major flaw in the argument...to think of God within our own meager experience, within human terms is to miss the majesty of the creator completely. Of course we try to understand God on our own terms...referring to 'Him', His 'hands' working the potter's wheel, His 'eyes' as a way of showing that He sees and is aware of us...none of these things really mean that He looks like a human and is in fact a being in any sense that we have seen or understood before. It is merely our very basic way of trying to understand that which is in part inconceivable and would remain so if not for experiencing God!

Overall, there is much to say about this author and I could go on... but I will finish here and state instead that although he believes that he has offered a tight, logical argument for the non-existence of God, he has in fact produced a weak one because of the major flaw of believing that God is anything but the awesome, higher lifeforce that He is. Instead, trying to belittle Him by confining Him to our own very narrow understanding of creation from a human point of view proves nothing except that the author is too caught up in his own self importance, unable to think that something could be 'above' him.

Despite the last post...

I now actually think I may be going mad.

Further to the topic I discussed in the last post, it may be because I have actually focused on what I am hearing instead of ignoring it, or maybe I am just not a nice person...

For a few weeks now I have had the almost overwhelming urge to shout obscenities aloud at myself - not others - to tell the voices from the past and now of the present, to just remove themselves (the less polite version.) It is strange because it comes from nowhere - I can be driving, thinking of my day, what I need to do, all the mundane things that a person might think about and suddenly I will be shouting obscenities at myself and the voice that hasn't even been allowed to speak. I find myself just wishing that I could leave my head and my body for a while - just float free, away from this fight.

The more scary thing for me at the moment is something that has only happened a couple of times and although it has been only a thought and would never be an action, it's really bothering me. I have found myself thinking really very unkind things about people I see (and don't know) and imagining how much I could hurt them by saying it to them. I have found myself wanting to make these strangers HURT, really hurt. I want them to feel the pain that I will not let myself feel. I am disgusted with myself for these thoughts and the only thing that it seems to prove to me is that I am not a nice person, and the statements about me that I am hearing seem to be more truth than fiction.

So I have consequently spent much of my time in prayer asking for forgiveness, but then I am now at the point of thinking that if I keep asking for forgiveness and then the thoughts continue to pop into my head then God has to at some point consider me to be insincere, when I really am not.

This post doesn't make any sense - sorry I just need to put these thoughts out there so that they are not just in my head...

Voices in my head...

I'm not mad - I promise...well at least I don't think I'm mental. Recently, I have been having a tough time, more so than I ever have before, mainly because I have never allowed myself to get this far down the road less traveled. Life is good, many positive things are afoot and I am making progress in many areas of life, but equally life is very hard and sometimes feels like it is too hard to face. It is times like this that I am thankful for my job which means I have to get out of bed and thankful for friends and family that spend time with me (even though they don't know how much I need it at the moment.) Sorry to be blunt but you need all of this 'heart-warming' information so that the next bit makes a little more sense.

I have heard much said about the enemy; the devil, and how he tries to put you off your path with God and lives, in order that you will not. And up to a point I thought it was a little sci-fi until now. At church, people have prayed with me at various times and in their prayers they have asked God to protect me from the devil and the voices that are speaking lies to me and I just accepted that sometimes people pray relevant things and sometimes they don't. But more so than ever those are the prayers that I am clinging to now. The voices that I am battling, the voices from the past and the things that they are saying are tearing me apart, they are like knives into my very soul and the weird thing is that until yesterday when I prayed aloud at my Life Group meeting for God to make His voice the loudest in my mind, that I realised that there were so many negative voices whirling around in there.

It's funny but if you have been hearing something for long enough, you don't hear it anymore, not like an outside thought, you feel it. It becomes a part of you. The words that I hear the most, many of which are highly unpleasant, feel like they are who I am. As if they are so a part of my core that if you sliced me in two they would appear there like in a piece of seaside rock.

The realisation that there are these voices that have been with me for many years has had a two fold effect. Firstly, it has annoyed me. I feel like I have been stupidly duped into believing these things and that I have been weak enough to accept them. I am now more angry at the injustice of it, and at myself for allowing it.

Secondly, I am scared. I am scared that now I am aware of these voices that they are louder. That although I know them to be the work of the enemy and his accomplices in my life, they are all struggling for space at the same time. (This is hard to explain so i'll used an analogy...it feels like the difference between a bank queue and the stock market floor...before this realisation the bad thoughts were in a nice neat little queue, biding their time, waiting for their slot of airpace in my head. Nice and neat, one at a time, constant but simple.
Now it is like a crush of thoughts and voices grappling for attention, like the people trying to get the attention of the sellers and buyers, trying to make their voice the loudest and no one is taking their turn anymore - it is a free-for-all.)

With this image in mind, I am now trying to listen to God's voice, which would be the one voice that I want, and need, to hear. The one voice that speaks the truth and the only voice that can lead me out of this. The problem is that I can hear nothing but babble, too many voices all at once, I can't process which are good or bad until I listen to them and at the moment the ones I have allowed have been so cutting that I am scared to allow any more though - I am tired of this inner battle already.

So, I am back to wishing I had never started down this road, that I had just stayed where the voices, although bad, were in a manageable queue. On some of my worst days I hear the one voice that hurts the most, the one that tells me that God doesn't love me or He wouldn't have left me all those years ago. That one is the hardest to hear because I have no answer to why God would have let things go on as they did. Instead, all I can cling on to is the fact that God loves all of creation, even little me.