Inside an Unwillingness to Believe--Day 2

The clutter of the world's messaging is overwhelming.

For any subject I research, an array of opinions and supposed facts emerge.

Over the past years, I have made a slow transformation to vegan, meaning I make a consistent effort to omit animal protein from my diet.

I made my decision from actual clinical research results, but I could find opinions and supposed facts that support the opposite stance as well.

Hard to navigate.

I protect my turf of belief in this position by going back to the facts I believe are most authentic and dependable.

Have I chosen the right messaging?

In an unbeliever's world, he or she has concluded that God either lacks or is nonexistent, as we summarized yesterday.

To protect this turf of unbelief (or belief in messaging that has driven these conclusions), the unbeliever must ignore research that conclusively shows we are too complex to have evolved.

Every design project on earth has embedded within the precision of the inventor/designer/creator.

We are one of those design projects. And since it is ludicrous to think we designed ourselves, the conclusion is we have a creator. He/It must be somehow smarter and greater than we are. If we are natural, it follows this creator could be supernatural.

It is reasonable to think a supernatural He/It exists because we know the Bible (with its remarkable unwavering stay across history) presents such an entity, but more importantly, the universe itself announces the precision of an inventor/designer/creator.

The precision of the universe is messaging that is not clutter. It is authentic and dependable because it is everywhere we look: the march of seasons, our DNA, the rhythm of our emotions and relationships, the miracle of birth itself.

A supernatural entity that can design us and this universe appears to have the capacity for care and attention to detail. If we go there, we take a first step into wondering is He/It is enough for our process of faith.

To isolate ourselves from this process of wonder is to ignore messaging that speaks for itself.

Unbelievers: are you locked inside messaging that is driving wrong conclusions?

Tomorrow: Maybe you hope there isn't a God.

Inside an Unwillingness to Believe--Day 1

What separates an unbeliever from a believer?

That presumably talks about God but let's start with something simpler.

Let's say, you don't believe in homeschooling.

Because homeschooling exists, the gap is in your view of its merits. You don't believe in homeschooling as an adequate choice for the process of schooling. It lacks something that you equate with right schooling.

Can you precisely argue that something?

Back to God.

If you believe He exists but He's not for you, the gap is in your view of His merits. You don't believe God as an adequate choice for the process of your faith. He lacks something that you equate with right faith.

Can you precisely argue what He lacks?

If you believe He doesn't exist, the gap is in your view of Him as Creator. You don't believe God as Creator is an adequate choice for the process of explaining our origins. God as Creator lacks something that you equate with right explanation of origin.

Can you precisely argue how He is surely not our Creator?

In an unbeliever's argument, God is either lacking or nonexistent.

Tomorrow: Protecting the turf of the unbeliever.

Fighting God's Fight or Fighting God?

Sometimes we hop on our sanctimonious religious horse and gallop away on our cause, sure we are fighting for God.

Paul would say that is exactly what he was doing when he held the clothing of those stoning Stephen (Acts 22).

Then Paul met God.

The True and Living God is always up to something more unconventional, more unexpected, and more powerful than our minds first see. When we bring sanctimony or religious guidelines to the table, we see even less.

When you are assessing something in someone's life or organization, use caution. Ask God for His opinion.

I think this caution is best expressed in Acts 5:38-39:

Leave him/them alone. If his/their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail. But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop him/them; you will only find yourselves fighting against God.

Paul might say, Meet God. Gallop away on a horse of true cause.

Becoming Coherent for God

Wonder what it looks like to become coherent for God.

As in, I wonder what it would take from us for Him to consider that we are becoming coherent for Him.

Asking to fall in love with Him?

Lending ourselves to serve in ways that are inconvenient for us?

Loving others hard to love?

Speaking with kindness when we don't feel it?

Giving up time and effort to learn more about God as a Coherent Whole?

Is it worth what looks like more effort, more time, more inconvenience and doing some of what we don't want to do?

I'm reminded that Jesus gave more effort, more time, ultimate inconvenience, and doing what none of us could even imagine doing. His agony on the Cross must have begun with the march of time that got Him there--anticipating the event even years in advance.

So if my coherence for God stretches me, I pray I allow it.

I am positive it will feed my strength in this new year.

What To Change

We have swirling thoughts about what to change.

Do you have trouble with this equation like I do?

Saying we love God = Serving those hard to love and serve

It is easier to serve those we already somehow like or admire.

Those so different from us are more easily put off of our radar.

The grief to God is the same. A rejection is a rejection. We shouldn't think we are fooling Him.

So perhaps "what to change" is our success with the equation. Then,

When we say we love God,

He won't have to say,

Then why didn't you serve __________?

Lord, please forgive our trouble with the equation. Let that be our what to change. Then we know Your new year will be happier.

Investigating God as a Coherent Whole

Have you thought much about the whole of God?

Do you find yourself wanting to be known for who you are--with at least one person wanting to know you deeply and intimately, that person sharing your secrets and laughter and pain?

What if, in investigating God as a Coherent Whole, you find Him to be that very person for whom you long?

The one with whom you laugh and cry and share the most intimate secrets of your soul.

He is that Very One.

Religion has often tried to narrow God into a rule or fear monger. Our past experiences have often painted Him as ruthless and emotionless, the arbiter of pain, injustice, or worse, indifference.

The truth of the whole of God lies in the entirety of the Bible--your incredible entry into that relationship for which your soul yearns.

You need only listen or read, and the very God of the Universe will reveal Himself to you in a way no one else gets to hear. God is so creative and so infinite that your relationship with Him will be unique to whom He made you to be.

You want to feel special? God is the Gatekeeper of Special and He is calling you to enter.

It would make 2013 a year to remember.

(YouVersion.com is one of many ways to investigate the Bible online and/or using an app.)

Are You and God in a Real Relationship?

You pray. A lot.

You go to church. Often.

You feel reasonably good about your relationship with God.

Have you asked Him how He feels?

Does He feel neglected because you haven't found time to enter into His largest conversation piece?

He gathered 66 books, inspired their dozens of literary genres through nearly as many authors, expressing it in multiple languages over a span of several thousand years.

That is a lot of effort. You think He means for us to enter into it by seriously reading the whole thing?

Entirely possible.

God is a Coherent Whole, vastly beyond our understanding. However, I know He wants us to enter into this conversation piece. The Bible in its entirety is the revelation of God through history and in the person of Jesus Christ. In Matthew 11, Jesus says:

"The Father has given me all these things to do and say. This is a unique Father-Son operation, coming out of Father and Son intimacies and knowledge. No one knows the Son the way the Father does, nor the Father the way the Son does. But I'm not keeping it to myself; I'm ready to go over it line by line with anyone willing to listen."

Does that describe you--willing to listen?

Tomorrow:  Investigating God as a Coherent Whole.

(Description of Bible from Shane Hipps: Selling Water by the River: A Book About the Life Jesus Promises and the Religion That Gets in the Way)