Moving With God

Baby steps of faith, hope and love

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Details: Written by: Alyssa; Category: Life; Published: 06 February 2011

My house is so clean when I have big homework assignments!!

And my toenails are painted!

This is a picture I took part way through scrubbing my bathroom floor a couple weeks ago.... Ah the dirt you didn't know was there until it was gone!!

Details: Written by: Alyssa; Category: Scripture; Published: 01 February 2011

I read this longish psalm today and thought I'd share up the verses I like best!! Then back to my New Atheism paper... let it be known that my other means of procrastination have included doing almost my entire biology presentation (it's due the night after my paper), finding a new radio station to listen to, watching this unbelievable video, cleaning out my closet, eating crackers and cream cheese, mounting a picture on the wall, changing my bedding, flipping my calendars, making this list... everything but a load of laundry!! Maybe for my next break... maybe.

Anyways - Psalm 37

¹Do not be preoccupied with evildoers.
Do not envy those who do wicked things.
²They will quickly dry up like grass
and wither away like green plants.
³Trust the Lord, and do good things.
Live in the land, and practice being faithful.
⁴Be happy with the Lord,
and he will give you the desires of your heart.
⁵Entrust your ways to the Lord.
Trust him, and he will act on your behalf.
⁶He will make your righteousness shine like a light,
your just cause like the noonday sun.
⁷Surrender yourself to the Lord, and wait patiently for him.
Do not be preoccupied with an evildoer who succeeds in his way
when he carries out his schemes.
⁸Let go of anger, and leave rage behind.
Do not fret.
It only leads to evil.

²³A person’s steps are directed by the Lord,
and the Lord delights in his way.
²⁴When he falls, he will not be thrown down headfirst
because the Lord holds on to his hand.

³⁰The mouth of the righteous person reflects on wisdom.
His tongue speaks what is fair.
³¹The teachings of his God are in his heart.
His feet do not slip.
³²The wicked person watches the righteous person
and seeks to kill him.
³³But the Lord will not abandon him to the wicked person’s power
or condemn him when he is brought to trial.

³⁹The victory for righteous people comes from the Lord.
He is their fortress in times of trouble.
⁴⁰The Lord helps them and rescues them.
He rescues them from wicked people.
He saves them because they have taken refuge in him.

Details: Written by: Alyssa; Category: Thoughts; Published: 27 January 2011

I am really enjoying my course on Atheism! We are talking about how the roots of most modern atheist beliefs go back to the 13/14th century, with the conceptualization of God as primarily will (as opposed to reason, which was the characteristic most theologians focused on from the time of Augustine to medieval scholasticism). As a result (centuries later, through much history), humans have come to understand themselves also more in terms of will than reason - we identify freedom not as the ability to reason what is right and choose whether or not to do that, but as the ability to decide what is right. This becomes a problem because if we allow that God decides what is right, our human freedom is limited and we're not much better than slaves. God seems arbitrary and mean, and obeying him is humiliating (and sexually repressive). This is pretty much Christopher Hitchens' definition of religion.

This is not what Christianity is to me though, and it's not what the Bible says, and it's not what centuries of Christian theology say. So most atheists are up in arms against ideas about God that Christians don't even believe. The issue of will and freedom is complicated, but the main point is that when God gave us free will it wasn't a trick. We are free to make whatever choices we want. But our will has limits - we control our conduct in the world, but we can't change how the world works.

Science works because we understand that the earth is subject to physical laws - tons of math. Christianity says that the same God who made the world in such a beautiful and rational way (fallen though it may be) is responsible for moral laws as well. We have free will, so we can break these moral laws (knowingly or unknowingly), but we cannot change the fact they exist. And these laws are not arbitrary style-crampers; they are in fact necessary for human life to flourish. Just as the earth needs to be a certain distance from the sun and travel at a certain velocity through space, spouses must be faithful to each other and neighbours cannot kill each other, or everything goes wrong. Okay, so the results are not as immediate and drastic and widespread when a family breaks up as when a meteor strikes the earth off its course (thank you Hollywood for umpteen visuals of that). But God's moral law is designed for the good of human life, just as his laws of physics also sustain life.

In 1 Corinthians 13:11-12, Paul writes, " When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things. Now we see things imperfectly as in a cloudy mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely."

Yes, there are still unanswered questions in science and ethics... but that doesn't mean the answers don't exist. Faith is required to believe that perfect clarity will one day come, but it is not an irrational, brainwashing faith. It is a hope based in the love and goodness of a God who has brought us this far and who responds when we seek him. The rational basis for morality isn't always clear, but faith tells us it is there even when our rationality cannot prove it. As Christians, we don't give up our free will, but we submit it to God and ask for his help. Maybe atheists would say it's the same thing, but it's really not.

Details: Written by: Alyssa; Category: Thoughts; Published: 27 January 2011

At my church we pray the Lord's prayer every week, so I have probably said it more in the last year than the previous 10. I don't feel extra spiritual about it or anything - sometimes I catch myself zoning out part way through despite my best intentions - but saying it regularly gives me time to think about it regularly, and different parts of the prayer stand out different times. Sometimes at the very end of a kickboxing class we have to hold a plank (basically just chill in the push-up position) for 30 or 45 seconds, and more often than not I mutter the Lord's prayer or some Scripture passage I've memorized, and that tends to be enough of a distraction that I don't give up. Those aren't usually very spiritual moments either lol, mostly they are painful and sweaty, BUT again, different things stand out in my mind and I like to notice that.

Read more: Will Pt. 1

Details: Written by: Alyssa; Category: Thoughts; Published: 23 January 2011

Ah marriage- I suspect that this feeling of learning more about myself and awkwardly transforming into an adult may continue until... death.

Matt was away last weekend at a junior high retreat, so I was without him from Thursday to Sunday. I had exciting (kickboxing!) and noble (cleaning) plans for all the time I thought would be free with Matt not there to cuddle or entertain or listen to play music. Instead, I spent most of Thursday in traffic (still thankful for a car, don't get me wrong!), and Friday went to youth group. Thursday night as I lay sprawled out in bed, I thought about my plans vs. reality, and I felt my brain creeping towards a sulk. But then I thought (in a way that usually means God has a hand in my thoughts) that there is more to life than cleaning and exercise, that nothing was left undone that couldn't be done later, and that the reasons I wasn't able to do EVERYTHING I wished for myself made it possible for Matt to do things he needed to do; my short thought was that wifehood was getting in the way of selfishness, and I think that's the way God made it.

People who don't know me are often surprised to learn that I'm married ("how old are you!? WHY????"), but I think it makes so much sense that having found someone to have and hold who wants to have and hold me back, we have started our life together at this point in our lives rather than waiting for our "youth"/"prime" to pass by and trying to merge whatever lifestyles and habits we created independently based on our own wants and needs.

I am happy and privileged to be a wife - most of the time. Because my husband is phenomenal, the other times are usually due to growing (up) pains, when I have to set my priorities aside, or when I catch myself holding Matt to a higher standard than I keep myself. Sometimes I do have a legitimate complaint or hurt feelings because Matt's last name is not Christ and we both make mistakes. But marriage holds and shapes us together because we are doing it not only for ourselves.

We do it for our future children, that they will have parents who love and cherish each other; we do it for our friends and people around us, that they will see love in action as patience, kindness, self-sacrifice; most of all, we do it for God because we trust that he has called us into a life together and that he will use it for our good and his glory. We like it, don't get me wrong, but we also think the picture is much bigger than us, and that's an important perspective to keep when it's not all fun times :)

Side note: Sometimes it's really fun times though! We went on a random adventure to Scarborough bluffs this week and pretended to feed some birds. That is to say, some birds swam by, we pretended we were throwing bread, more birds came by, we threw some snow. There were probably 60 ducks and 10 sawans all clambering and fighting over nothing. (It was nighttime, so I took no pictures. Thanks again, internet!!) Hopefully they did not die from expending all kinds of energy for no food. I'm sure they all felt shafted and just thought other birds kept getting the bread before them. Except the bird that got hit by a chunk of snow, he might have clued in to the situation. Matt and I were dying with laughter. Next time we'll try to take some bread, promise. PETA hates me.

Details: Written by: Alyssa; Category: Scripture; Published: 21 January 2011

I never really think of myself as a judgmental person... until I stop to think about it. Then I remember that judgment is pretty much central to a lot of my relationships. I tend to have a pretty black-and-white outlook on other people - they are good people or bad people, useful or useless, kind or douche-y. Occasionally people change categories on me, and that is when I catch myself categorizing them in the first place.

I was reminded of this while reading a Christian book this afternoon that quoted Matthew 7:1-5. It says, "Judge not, that you not be judged... Why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye?... Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye."

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