A re-New Hope

Writing straight theology is easy for me, but returning to my personal walk is a challenge. Sometimes I get overwhelmed, sometimes I have to be honest about where I am. These words from the Cure's song Maybe Someday sometimes haunt me.

No I won't do it again, I don't want to pretend
If it can't be like before, I've got to let it end
I don't want what I want, I've had a change of head

I got to let it go and leave it gone,
just walk away, stop it going on
Get to scared to jump if I want too long

Being hopeless is not a place that a Christian should be, but I have to admit sometimes I feel this temptation. I have been tired of being without hope for awhile. So I have to come back and ask God where is the hope? I read 1 Corinthians 2 where it says:

 

“What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,

nor the heart of man imagined,

what God has prepared for those who love him”

I read this and I say "well my eye has certainly not seen nor has my ear heard."  But Paul reminds the Corinthians that he came to them and he decided to know nothing among them except Christ and him crucified. I can write good theology but it means nothing if I can't stop resting my faith in the wisdom of men and instead find solace in the power of God. The power of God. What power of God? 

We don't always experience the power of God the way the disciples did. I know that God gives different gifts to different people. I don't have to worry about not having the gift of healing or of the prophetic. This is not about answering the why's of those questions but instead reflecting on the power that is readily available to us. There is power in simply knowing God. As much as we may want Jesus to be present with us, he said that it was to our benefit for him to go away. He said this because he would send the comforter, the counselor, the companion, the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit seems to impart the power for our gifts, but for this discussion he grants access to the very person of God. Jesus was the human God with us, and the Spirit is God with us now. Until we stand in his presence physically again.

The power that is readily available to us is in his resurrection. The other is the power of prayer. He rose from the dead. That means his words are true. Two powers available to me. He is near and he listens. He has risen and my sins are forgiven, not just forgiven but the power of sin that used to enslave my soul has been broken. My soul is free from the bondage that made sin not only my master but my only option. I was an enemy of God condemned to live apart from him. My life was on a track with a one way ticket to hell where I would experience some form of wrath from a Holy God.

The power of God however broke those chains and now I can draw near to him. I am a new creature. I am a new person. I need to learn how to live as this new being, with plenty of old baggage to still sift through. But he has broken my shackles. Because I am no longer a slave to the sin, I am now a son of God. The writer of Hebrews reminds us:

Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Because Jesus came as a man and experienced temptations and yet remained without sin he is able to sympathize with us even in our weakness. He understands...

Dear God I need your mercy and grace, help me in my time of need. I am failing in my challenge of belief.

I think of the song from the Cure and how often my thoughts are similar and then I think of a bit of Psalm 42.

 I say to God, my rock:

“Why have you forgotten me?

Why do I go mourning

because of the oppression of the enemy?”

10  As with a deadly wound in my bones,

my adversaries taunt me,

while they say to me all the day long,

“Where is your God?”

11  Why are you cast down, O my soul,

and why are you in turmoil within me?

Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,

my salvation and my God.

There is real power in God, but then I realize where my eyes have been looking.

And then I remember another Cure song, Trust, and I can hear God's voice echo.

Still the hardest part for you, to put your trust in me

I love you more than I can say, why won't you just believe?

I know that I no longer want to just say that maybe someday it will be different. I know that it won't happen if I leave my hope to my feelings. I have to renew it.

thanks  

A Return to Innocence

A new year. Time for a. C.S. Lewis quote.

“Faith, in the sense in which I am here using the word, is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods ... That is why Faith is such a necessary virtue: unless you teach your moods ‘where they get off,’ you can never be either a sound Christian or even a sound atheist.”

Things my reason has once accepted. In spite of changing moods.  This is so fantastic, who doesn't have changing moods? Sometimes I get distracted by my moods. Sometimes that distraction can temporarily make me forget my previously accepted reasons.

However somtimes my moods may be informing me that my held reasonsings may need adjusting. For example, perhaps I struggle with bad moods caused from my always needing to be right. This becomes overwhelming and causes my relationships to suffer. Maybe I need to alter my reasoning.

This is how we grow. 

But, as C.S.Lewis points out this does not carry over to faith in God or even in struggles with the Word. There are certain certainties that need to be established. You don't tamper with anchors or cornerstones. Certain weights are meant to weigh us down and that is a good thing.

Now having these weights are great, but Lewis also reminds us that moods need to be trained. We need to train ourselves to come back from changing moods, to not dwell on them, especially on matters of faith.

This is what renewing our minds is about, I have to renew my mind when it falls out of faith. Romans 12:2
Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Giving into my changing moods based on my rocky experiences is what the world does.  Training our minds to respond to God's truth is what a disciple does, it is what a Christian does.

With a New Year here many of us are taking resolutions looking for fresh starts or hitting reset.  This year I want to reset my thinking.  I have been bogged down with what wasn't and what failed to come to pass. 
I have to remember that:
“In his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps.”  Proverbs 16:9

I need to reset and return to a time when my thinking was more innocent. A time when my thinking wasn't overwhelmed with the many ways one can feel disappointment in a year. I say overwhelmed and not informed because I would not want to lose the actual experiences. If I did then I would not be where I am today and I would not have grown.  This is how we change.    

It is very easy to stay where we are but I want to move forward into 2015 with new vision and new hope. A new vision of Christ draws us after him.  So I want to remember this:

“Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, ¹⁴ I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”  Philippians 3:13-14

As God determines our steps let's renew our minds and return to the innocence of trusting him. This should always take us back to our accepted reasons and if reasonable those things should hold in the face of our shifting emotions.  So this year read your bible, find your anchors (It's Christ), and hold on for the storms that may come. 

thanks