Archive for the ‘Faith’ Category
February 13th, 2006
There’s a song by one of my favorite bands Switchfoot called ‘On Fire’. It’s about God.
And you’re on fire
When He’s near you
You’re on fire
When He speaks
You’re on fire
Burning at these mysteries
I never really knew what this song was about. I understood that the guy was quite excited about being close to God, but really couldn’t relate to it. Yeah, I’d had some experience with God, the odd encounter, but not any kind of burning passion. Not being on fire. The thing is, I kind of half expected to feel different being a Christian, that I’d suddenly become holy, that I’d receive the answers to all of life’s questions. But, of course, I didn’t. In fact, I really didn’t fell any different at all.
I’ve got to admit, I thought it would be easy, and life as a Christian would just involve a bit of singing and praying on a Sunday morning. There would be no real effort, but I could still reap the rewards at the end. I really wasn’t expecting it to be this tough. I really wasn’t expecting to feel embarrassed of telling people about my faith, or the whole new world of questions it opened up. I wanted answers, not more questions. I guess that’s why a lot of people go to God, looking for answers. I guess that’s why a lot of people turn to other things; Drugs, money, sex, new age therapies. Looking for answers, looking for validation, looking for that most valuable yet fleeting of commodities: Happiness.
The thing is, God never promises answers or happiness. In fact, the only unconditional promise in the Bible is that there will be suffering while we’re on the earth. Well, no disputing that.
So why bother? I suppose the obvious answer is the “big reward” at the end. But it’s not really about that. I can’t conceive of heaven or the after life at the moment, it’s just something I don’t really spend a lot of my time thinking about. To be honest, I still spend a lot of my time thinking about how I’m feeling: happy, sad, hungry, messy, tired, ill, depressed, joyous, horney, in love. Whatever. You know, I’m sure you feel all this stuff (and more) too. So really, why bother? It says in the Bible that all you have to do is believe in Jesus, and you’ll be saved. Couldn’t I just spend a few more years of doing whatever I wanted, making me happy, then believe at the end? Best of both worlds, right?
Well, yeah, I suppose you could, I wouldn’t want to, but this is what some people choose to do. I’m starting to understand being on fire. The knowledge that God is with me. It’s not that He’s gonna protect me from any shit that happens to fly my way, but He’ll always be there to teach me something through it, to bring good from the bad. I’m slowly starting to understand that God is for me not against me. And I’m slowly starting to feel on fire that little bit more.
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February 6th, 2006
Lets forget religion for a moment. Forget what the world tells you about faith or science and ask yourself the question: Do you honestly believe that we are no more than a bag of bones and other assorted stuff that all fits together to make us human? Can you conceive that there is absolutely no more beyond what we can smell, touch, taste, see and hear? If the answer is an absolute genuine ‘yes’ to this, then stop reading. You’re excused. Go off and play somewhere.
For the rest of us, I want to explore why we think this. Is it inbuilt by a creator to lead us on a life long search for him? Or is it a result of evolution, that this longing to believe in something bigger than us, something after death is somehow an essential survival tool that gave out ancient ancestors the edge of the people who didn’t believe.
It’s arguable that the worlds oldest “religion” was Animism. This is a general term to describe the belief in spirits, ghosts, gods call them what you will. Essentially other beings that have a hand in the affairs of man, and by extension a belief in the human soul which survives the body after death. It’s everywhere throughout history, I can’t think of any historical cultures where faith or a belief in something, anything, wasn’t a central feature. It seams to me that throughout the whole of human history we have been seeking “god” in some form or another.
So on the one hand we have a creator. The maker of heaven and earth, that gave us life, free will and an inbuilt desire to find him. If indeed god is the God of the Bible, then an overwhelming theme of life is love. Free will gives rise to the potential for evil. So God takes a risk, he creates these beings that He can love and then sets them free. If they come back to Him then He’ll have love in return, not obedience out of fear. But He also gives them a fighting chance, He plants the seeds of faith, the inbuilt idea that there is indeed “something more”.
On the other hand we have evolution. Darwin tells us that all life on Earth evolved from some simpler form of life over a period of millions of years, certain traits dying out and others surviving based on how well those things equipped a creature to not to get killed. (I know this is a massively simplified version, but for the purposes of this post please bear with me.) So what of things like faith? Could we have evolved a need to believe in things because it gives us an edge over the other guys? I suppose it gives us hope, and hope is a powerful thing.
It’s a bit of a weird one this. I’m now not 100% sure of the point I was trying to make, if indeed I had one in the first place. All I know is that the search for the human soul is not an easy thing, and I don’t think I’ll ever have any kind of an answer until I die.
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February 2nd, 2006
Yesterday our church started a 28 day period of prayer and fasting. Not that all of us will be fasting food the whole 28 days, but it’s a time of giving things up that we would normally enjoy as a sign that we’re serious about hearing God in this time. For example, one guy in the church is giving up sport for February, because he knows he has to put God first, before his passionate love of watching and playing sports. Yes, even though England are playing Wales.
So why is this so important to us? Well, maybe I should ask another question as I can only give you this from my point of view: Why is this so important to me? The answer is simple, I just want to get closer to God, have him guide me as to where I’m going in this merry-go-round we call life this year. I have questions to ask, and people are always telling me to invest serious prayer time, so that’s what I’m intending to do.
As a church were hoping to see some real movement on things like long term sickness and our work in Coalpool to shift up a gear. We should be people on the move, living the adventure that God has set out for us.
Please don’t expect me to be somber, or change my writing for the next month. I’ll still post the same amount of faith, personal and random crap as ever. I just wanted to share this with you, as I don’t always talk about my life as a Christian, and somehow find it easier to write. I don’t even know if this stuff gets read. OK, maybe that’s not entirely true I know it gets read by my friends, but comments from strangers who have taken the time to read my stuff are always very much appreciated, even if they are to argue with me.
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January 17th, 2006
I really enjoyed the second installment of Richard Dawkin’s “The Root of All Evil” last night (8:00pm Channel4). Starting at the end, his summing up was, and I don’t think I’m being too over-zealous here, nothing short of poetic brilliance.
We are all incredibly privileged to be alive
Yes Richard, yes we are. And thank God for that.
Dawkins’ attack on religion was aimed squarely at “inherited” faith. That is to say that children are automatically labeled with their parents faith, indoctrinated into their views from birth. This was one of my (many) arguments against faith when I was a teenager, admittedly a little less eloquently argued than Prof. Dawkins, but the same essential point. I had a friend when I was younger, lets call him Garry, who was one of the very few Christians I knew. I used to attack his faith all the time, try and back him into a corner, just to score points off him. I was so sure I was right, my arguments made perfect sense to me. “God?” I said, don’t be so ridiculous! Thinking about it now, I’m not sure why I was even bothered, what did it matter to me if he believed in a lie? But I was adamant, I needed to educate him.
One day he snapped. “Do you think I’m stupid?” he said. “Not stupid, just brain washed” I retorted, enjoying the challenge. “Look,” he said, “I’m going to tell you something. Something that I’ve never really told anyone”. And so he preceded to tell me the story of his faith. How it had always been on shaky ground. How, no matter what his parents (who had become Christians in adulthood) had told him about God, he’d never been sure. Well, that wasn’t strictly true, he’d been sure as a small child, the way that he was sure there was a Father Christmas, but as he grew up he began to question. “So, why do you still believe?” I said. And it turned out that it was the doubts, the questioning, that had finally led him to God. His faith before was based on an idea. His parents had given him a good grounding in the bible, but that’s all it was for him. Head knowledge. It wasn’t until he stared to question things that he was able to find out for himself, and meet God.
The point I’m trying to make is this. It’s not just a head thing. Faith can’t be taught. It must start with God. Yes, you can teach a child all there is to know about the Bible, the Koran, or any number of holy books, but without God that foundation will crumble into nothing. I realize that I’m opening myself up for criticism by saying this, but that’s what the comments are for. Please, feel free to disagree with me.
I know this doesn’t nearly address all the issues in last nights program, but needless to say it raised some problems for me. I don’t want to try and tackle things of which I have very little knowledge.
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January 10th, 2006
I watched with interest “The Root of All Evil” last night on Channel 4 (UK). In this series Professor Richard Dawkins investigates the seemingly unbelievable fact that religious faith is gaining ground in the face of evidence based science.
A couple of years ago I would have totally agreed with what Dawkins was saying, and written off the vast majority of people featured in the program as “nutters” or “fundamentalists”. You see I was a devout atheist. Evolution explained everything for me, and the overwhelming evidence for it had convinced me there could be nothing more. That was until I was dragged along to a friends wedding blessing and experienced what can only be described as a revelation of God. The realization that there could be more than the things we measure with Electron Microscopes and Carbon dating.
Life is an adventure of discovery - by our very nature we are inquisitive. God didn’t make things easy for us, what would be the point in that? I’m not saying that I have all the answers, I don’t even think I have any of the answers, but am determined to find out more, eyes open, to ALL the possibilities.
I think as a Christian we need programs like this. We need opposing opinions to keep us on our toes. It’s all too easy to fall into the “Sunday Morning” trap, where you can package your faith into a neat little box and pick it up whenever you need a crutch. Opposition is a good thing! Think about it, the challenges that we face in our lives shape us, they make us who we are, without them we would be empty, devoid of anything but blind faith. My faith is certainly NOT blind.
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January 8th, 2006
Being a Walsall boy by birth, I’m very much inclined to do down my home town. Walsall admittedly could be described as a shit hole, having been done down by such literacy geniuses as chav towns and even Google. But I would like to offer a different point of view.
Walsall isn’t what he buildings look like, or the amount of money spent on some new statue in the middle of town - It’s the people. I’m sure this is true of anywhere you live… In the words of Vic…
People Are Important
So I’d like to stand against all the crap spoken about Walsall, and say if we are to improve our town we should be proud of it! It’s a diverse miss-mash of people who for the most part are brilliant. Yeah, we have our problems and our rough areas, but where doesn’t? Thank God for Walsall, and the people in it. We really could be great!
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January 3rd, 2006
It’s been a strange one this year. Being back at work, freezing my butt off, is given me chance to reflect on everything that’s happened in the last week. A week? Has it really only been a week? It seams like a whole other world
I was upset to learn of the passing of a very cool person just after Christmas. Although I didn’t really know her, the little time I’d spend with her had shown me what strength she had. She’ll be sorely missed.
Christmas also gave me opportunity to reflect on where I am in my life. And that I cannot any longer piss about when It comes to my faith. I’m a Christian, and damn proud to be one! I need to focus my attention on God. Someone amazing helped me realise this, if you’re reading this, you know who you are. Thank you. You rock. You and you’re family.
So this is it, the first post of 2006, with hope for the coming year. God bless you all.
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