Questions...and answers
So, lately my mind has mostly been bogged wth questions that I don't share with anyone. I don't share them because...well, actually I'm not sure. I think it relates to how others I know have been answered when they ask questions like these. Maybe because I don't trust any of the people around me to know where I'm coming from. Maybe I just don't feel like getting answers because despite being a little hopeless, where I am lately has become a fair shot more comfortable than fighting anything and everything (which is usually how things go when I'm anywhere else but here).
But it occurred to me as I was reading a snippet of Captivating today, that despite my fervor in questioning various things, I haven't actually made any effort whatsoever to find answers. I think that's one of the major differences between myself and Mike. I ask. He challenges, and then answers. I've always envied that about him. Among a few other things.
At any rate...the question that drags on my heart most these days is approximately as follows.
Why, God, did you create us?
The concept behind it is not a "meaning of life" rephrasing, though it sort of looks that way. To understand the question you have to know the context.
These days, the awareness in my mind of my own incapability is staggering. I can't seem to do just about anything good on my own, and all my efforts to improve myself end up going nowhere. I've heard it said that without God, we can do nothing good.
THAT is the context. If we are entirely dependent on Him, what's the point? Why make people when the only good they can possibly do comes from Him?
I think it's time I got an answer to that question. Or at least, put some effort into finding one.
There are a number of factors involved here, but in the end they all seem to boil down to one thesis...one foundational idea...that we can do nothing good on our own. Is this true?
How do I quantify that? The argument could be made that anyone doing something good could be doing it for selfish reasons. Or that anyone doing something good counterbalances it through something bad; a man who runs into a burning building to save a stranger (I know it's happened at some point, and I'm not referring to firefighters) maybe balances out cheating on his wife a year ago...or a year from now.
[sighs] Why AM I so concerned with actions all of a sudden?
Simply put, because actions are all I can see. If I'm to judge the value of my heart based on my actions, if I'm to obtain a bearing on the scale, then it is my actions that come under direct inquiry.
Life seems pointless if God is the only source of good, and without Him I'm completely lost and worthless. Because I can't get a grip on God that lasts more than a week, a month maybe if I'm lucky. Then I start slipping, and no approach I take, no books I read, no efforts I make, and no surrender, seems to make it any better. Eventually I always fall again.
If I made stupid little mistakes and "got back on the horse" I'm not sure this would bother me. But no, I have to be bipolar, I have to go almost to each extreme, every time I change sides. I can't just stand in the middle where it's safe, or where I should be; no, I hop over and start warring against my old allies, then hop over again and war against my old enemies, then hop again. Back and forth, extreme to extreme. Never settling on one side, and never staying in the center, finding a happy medium or a balance.
[gets sidetracked by something and loses train of thought...then doubts if there was anything more to say anyway] Mike has observed that "I have a habit of waffling on a topic and not actually saying anything new." I've tried to be better about that since he mentioned it.
I read a bit of Captivating today, and the author (it's not always clear which one is authoring) was talking about creation...about "It is not good for man to be alone." And for some reason I thought to myself, "I wonder if that's why we were created...because it's not good for God to be alone."
It's a strange concept to me. God not wanting to be alone. I mean, I know that He's inherently relational, though that rarely penetrates the years of legalistic, self-abusive thought patterns I've developed. But it rarely occurs to me that He'd create us so that He was no longer alone in the universe. Probably because He isn't (and is) already (what with the whole Trinity thing).
[loses some seriousness]But He is, one must admit, the ultimate psycho boyfriend. His rants about "nobody else" and "the best way to love me is to love everyone" and "don't eat meat on Fridays"...[regains seriousness]
If God created us to be with Him, why create us in corporeal bodies that fade away, with souls that live forever, and then provide us with a choice that would once-and-almost-for-all doom us to choose between Him and ANYTHING else (it's not even a number of other things: we can't have God and ANY other things, or He withdraws. Or so I've learned to believe)? Why make us so temporary...why make us alive at all?
NOW I'm getting into meaning of life stuff. Questions that can't be answered. I don't think.
But it's the core of my issues. My problem with God. He creates us in these physical bodies that are so easily tempted, with the potential to make the choice for Him rather than anything else. And only by making that choice for Him are we worth anything.
Somehow that just doesn't make sense. Doesn't seem right. But it's all I can see right now.
But it occurred to me as I was reading a snippet of Captivating today, that despite my fervor in questioning various things, I haven't actually made any effort whatsoever to find answers. I think that's one of the major differences between myself and Mike. I ask. He challenges, and then answers. I've always envied that about him. Among a few other things.
At any rate...the question that drags on my heart most these days is approximately as follows.
Why, God, did you create us?
The concept behind it is not a "meaning of life" rephrasing, though it sort of looks that way. To understand the question you have to know the context.
These days, the awareness in my mind of my own incapability is staggering. I can't seem to do just about anything good on my own, and all my efforts to improve myself end up going nowhere. I've heard it said that without God, we can do nothing good.
THAT is the context. If we are entirely dependent on Him, what's the point? Why make people when the only good they can possibly do comes from Him?
I think it's time I got an answer to that question. Or at least, put some effort into finding one.
There are a number of factors involved here, but in the end they all seem to boil down to one thesis...one foundational idea...that we can do nothing good on our own. Is this true?
How do I quantify that? The argument could be made that anyone doing something good could be doing it for selfish reasons. Or that anyone doing something good counterbalances it through something bad; a man who runs into a burning building to save a stranger (I know it's happened at some point, and I'm not referring to firefighters) maybe balances out cheating on his wife a year ago...or a year from now.
[sighs] Why AM I so concerned with actions all of a sudden?
Simply put, because actions are all I can see. If I'm to judge the value of my heart based on my actions, if I'm to obtain a bearing on the scale, then it is my actions that come under direct inquiry.
Life seems pointless if God is the only source of good, and without Him I'm completely lost and worthless. Because I can't get a grip on God that lasts more than a week, a month maybe if I'm lucky. Then I start slipping, and no approach I take, no books I read, no efforts I make, and no surrender, seems to make it any better. Eventually I always fall again.
If I made stupid little mistakes and "got back on the horse" I'm not sure this would bother me. But no, I have to be bipolar, I have to go almost to each extreme, every time I change sides. I can't just stand in the middle where it's safe, or where I should be; no, I hop over and start warring against my old allies, then hop over again and war against my old enemies, then hop again. Back and forth, extreme to extreme. Never settling on one side, and never staying in the center, finding a happy medium or a balance.
[gets sidetracked by something and loses train of thought...then doubts if there was anything more to say anyway] Mike has observed that "I have a habit of waffling on a topic and not actually saying anything new." I've tried to be better about that since he mentioned it.
I read a bit of Captivating today, and the author (it's not always clear which one is authoring) was talking about creation...about "It is not good for man to be alone." And for some reason I thought to myself, "I wonder if that's why we were created...because it's not good for God to be alone."
It's a strange concept to me. God not wanting to be alone. I mean, I know that He's inherently relational, though that rarely penetrates the years of legalistic, self-abusive thought patterns I've developed. But it rarely occurs to me that He'd create us so that He was no longer alone in the universe. Probably because He isn't (and is) already (what with the whole Trinity thing).
[loses some seriousness]But He is, one must admit, the ultimate psycho boyfriend. His rants about "nobody else" and "the best way to love me is to love everyone" and "don't eat meat on Fridays"...[regains seriousness]
If God created us to be with Him, why create us in corporeal bodies that fade away, with souls that live forever, and then provide us with a choice that would once-and-almost-for-all doom us to choose between Him and ANYTHING else (it's not even a number of other things: we can't have God and ANY other things, or He withdraws. Or so I've learned to believe)? Why make us so temporary...why make us alive at all?
NOW I'm getting into meaning of life stuff. Questions that can't be answered. I don't think.
But it's the core of my issues. My problem with God. He creates us in these physical bodies that are so easily tempted, with the potential to make the choice for Him rather than anything else. And only by making that choice for Him are we worth anything.
Somehow that just doesn't make sense. Doesn't seem right. But it's all I can see right now.