Getting To My Gratitude

There is a popular trope going around that the biblical connotation of “fear” is actually a variation on the word meaning respect – that we are to respect God.

While it is true that respect is certainly called for, that’s total missing the entire purpose of the expression.

Likewise, the implication that God wants us to be afraid is also incorrect.

So if we are required to fear God, but God doesn’t want us to feel fear, how is that supposed to work?

This will require some explanation.

Imagine, if you will, that you are diving in the ocean when you are approached by a whale shark.

Forty feet long with a five-foot wide mouth that could swallow you whole – do you feel fear? Even an experienced diver would say yes on a first encounter.

The whale shark doesn’t want you to feel fear, it wants to eat plankton and not swallow you or anything else large that will get caught in it gill slits and cause pain.

For the more cynical or macho divers who simply profess awe at the sight rather than fear, how about this scenario:

You’re diving off the California coast when you look down and spot the nose of a Great White coming straight at you from the murky depths in an ambush attack. Now are you afraid?

We see in Job 41:1-2, 9-10 “Can you pull in Leviathan with a fishhook or tie down its tongue with a rope?  Can you put a cord through its nose or pierce its jaw with a hook? …  Any hope of subduing it is false; the mere sight of it is overpowering. No one is fierce enough to rouse it. Who then is able to stand against me?

So we get our first glimpse of what fear means in context: We are afraid of the presence of a single large fish, and God, who has filled the oceans with creatures far more frightening than these, is Lord and Commander of all of them.

Perhaps you have experienced fear during a hurricane or tornado. Or during an earthquake, or fire, or flood. These are terrifying events to us but insignificant to the hand of God.

But even this falls short in explanation.

We will never truly grasp the truth because the numbers are so astronomical (literally), but for this discussion it should suffice to face the scale of the question itself.

A quick journey to the Astronomy Picture of the Day provides us with extraordinary images such as the The Pillars of Eagle Castle: 

 

where one portion is 90 trillion kilometers long, and the Coma Cluster of Galaxies:

 

in which this photo contains thousands of galaxies, each one containing billions of stars.

Now here is the challenge

We’ve all heard of the Big Bang Theory: The idea that the universe exploded from a single point less than the size of an atom. Of course this directly corresponds to Genesis 1:1 “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”

Imagine the kind of power necessary to compress a single star to the size of an atom.

So take all the matter of the universe, and all the energy of the billion, quintillion stars in all the galaxies and compress all that to smaller than an atom.

As you begin to contemplate that, consider how if the movements of a large fish can cause fear, what the impact of directly experiencing the presence of one who can crush the entire universe must feel like.

Perhaps now you can get an inkling of the enormity of God’s power and the fear that results from feeling it. Not because God wants you to be afraid, but because inherent in the experience is the realization of our minuteness compared to His magnitude.

If you don’t know God, you won’t understand what that fear means. If you do know the Lord then you also know what it means to fear Him.

And to feel the exhilaration of it.

Among my many activities I teach computer classes. Some years ago I had a student, a very smart and successful woman, so I was quite certain she would pick up on the lessons quickly. I was wrong.

Despite having very clear step-by-step written procedures, she was struggling with the assignments. In frustration I sat down with her and read each step out loud while she typed. Pay dirt! She got it instantly.

This was in my early days of studying NeuroLinguistics Programming (NLP), and I recognized in that moment that she was an Auditory-Kinesthetic learner – she learned by hearing, and her internal verification, basically her “gut feel” that she had the right answer required her to write, type, or do something physical.

The First Failing of Christian Teaching

As with my student, many people have different learning modalities. How many of us have read “The bronze capital on top of one pillar was five cubits high and was decorated with a network and pomegranates of bronze all around.” [Jeremiah 52:22] and have absolutely no idea what that means?

We go to our study bibles and thankfully some helpful person has created a drawing of the building. Yea! We now know what the temple looked like, or at least the basic concepts of size, position and relationships of its elements. 

But what about those that aren’t served by either of these two – written or visual. Worse still, what of the vast majority of us who read the scripture and understand it conceptually, but have no idea how to put those words into practice?

The Second Failing

Can we learn from other nations, other cultures, other religions? I consider it extremely prideful of christians to believe that we have a monopoly on God. Yet many christians consider it pure blaspheme to even think of studying another faith. Consider this, though:

First, we know that God created all people – not just Jews and Christians – “Thus says God the LORD, Who created the heavens and stretched them out, Who spread out the earth and its offspring, Who gives breath to the people on it And spirit to those who walk in it” [Isaiah 42:5]

Second, we know that God spoke to man before sending His son Christ “In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways” [Hebrews 1:1].

Third, God created all people and blessed them with His grace “No longer will you be called Abram; your name will be Abraham, for I have made you a father of many nations.” [Genesis 17:5], “May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face shine on us so that your ways may be known on earth, your salvation among all nations.” [Psalm 67:1-2], “For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people.” [Titus 2:11]

Forth, that God asks only that we hear and obey His word, “Opening his mouth, Peter said: I most certainly understand now that God is not one to show partiality, but in every nation the man who fears Him and does what is right is welcome to Him.” [Acts 10:34-35]

Finally, that we know that God sends the Holy Spirit to inspire and those who will prepare their land to receive the Good News of Christ, “as it is written in Isaiah the prophet: “I will send my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way” [Mark 1:2]

Thus we see that God created all people, blessed us with His grace, asks only our obedience, and speaks to those who will listen, in order to prepare the way.

In light of this, can we truly assume that the teachings of people and other lands are devoid of His Word? Remember, it was magi from the orient who divined the importance of the star of Bethlehem [Matthew 2:1]

The Third Failing

For many of us, the study of scripture is an intellectual exercise. For others, its an emotional one. For very, very few of us, scripture provides the guiding principle for every moment of our lives. And even, then, are we doing it right?

Here’s a test. We have all heard or read “But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you” [Matthew 5:44] So, how well are you doing?

This tenet is fundamental to the teachings of Jesus, but in a world filled with hatred, violence, bigotry, corruption, dishonesty, idolatry and every imaginable sin, this simple commandment seems impossible.

This leaves us in a quandary: Do we stay firm in our reliance on scripture – reading and re-reading this passage, hoping and praying that the wisdom of it will find its way into our hearts, or do we look outside to see if others have found a way to better put this into practice?

How, then, are we to use other teachings to better understand scripture?

The answer to this is more that a life’s study, but for this example I will restrict myself to our difficult passage in Matthew 5:44.

I was introduced to the story of Dr. Stanley Hew Len by Dr Joe Vitale. Dr. Len was the clinical psychologist at the state hospital for the criminally insane in Hawaii. Upon taking the position he employed a Hawaiian teaching. Without medicine or therapy he healed the sick and twisted minds of the most violent and dangerous criminals in the state. Many called it a miracle. Dr. Len called it Ho’oponopono.

How many of us have held anger toward someone understanding all the while that anger only poisons our own hearts and distances us from God? How often have we embraced a slight or an injustice because of how the righteous indignation make us feel? How desperately have we wanted someone to fail, or “get caught”, or to suffer in some way that proves they were wrong, and we were right?

Ho’oponopono is very simple and very easy: Whenever something or someone troubling comes into mind, you address the Divine within yourself. All you have to do is say: I love you, I’m sorry, please forgive me, Thank you. Periodically mix it up, such as: “I’m sorry, please forgive me. Thank you. I love you”. Or “Thank you. I love you. I’m sorry, please forgive me.”

Certainly for me as I began this practice I found it nearly impossible to honestly make these proclamations toward the many people in my life I had not forgiven – whether family, associates, politicians or evil-doers at the farthest reaches of the world.

Joe Vitale counseled loving and forgiving myself, as I thought about the actions of those I was angry with. He suggested there is that dark place within us where each of the actions and evils of others finds a home. By loving and forgiving ourselves as we face these things, we release them from our inner being. As we purge the anger from our own hearts, we are free to see others, even the vilest of all humans, with the eyes of Jesus.

In an old Hawaiian teaching we find an answer to one of the most difficult christian challenges:

I love you.
I’m sorry, please forgive me.
Thank you.

By the simple repetition of three short sentences while thinking of those whom we have not forgiven, we fulfill one of Jesus’ most important commandments – we love our enemies, bless them, and we do good to them.

What else might we be able to learn about God through the Spirit in the hearts of others?

Aloha au ia ‘oe (I love you)
Mahalo (Thank you)
‘A‘ole pilikia (you’re welcome)

I was pondering the course of my life. I looked at choices I’d made, and was making, and wondered about my purpose, my raison d’etre.

It seemed like events in my life had taken me in many different directions, interests and inclinations down many seeming dead-ends, and an accident that reset whole parts of my life.

You Call This a Plan?

Forgive me, but there are times I’ve felt angry about life.

Christian teachings hold to the idea of a master plan, although great controversy swirls over how that reconciles with free will, which apparently is also an immutable law.

Being stuck in traffic is sometimes a good opportunity to cogitate on the nature of the Universe.

And sometime not. I missed my turn.

Despite having a GPS flashing a little blue arrow at me indicating a turn, my attention was on the bumper of the car in front of me, and on my thoughts.

Once the GPS realized I’d missed my turn, it zoomed in, zoomed out, rotated a little, panned over, then conveniently displayed a new route that would get me to where I needed to go.

That’s when it hit me.

Free Will means that I can make as many wrong turns as I want. I can ignore all directions and forge off on my own. Yet the Divine Synchronicity of God carefully plots a course back to my goal, my purpose, my place in the Universe, in the Plan.

I asked for inspiration, and I got the vision of God as a GPS.

Wisdom and understanding can come from some very unexpected sources.

Sometimes a little blue arrow.