Psychological Elements

"It's All Just Psychology"

It seems to me that if we’re to love and worship the Lord our God with all the catalogue of heart, mind, soul and strength and love our neighbours as ourselves I seems to me that makes psychological elements mandatory. 

For a start, which is more healing – going away from a healing meeting with no more sore joints to a cold empty house to watch tv alone all week again and the apin come back just as before or going away knowing that someone cares about you and will pop round to see if you need anything and give you lots of oxytonin hormones simply by being a human presence ? Why can't we do both, pray for healing and visit the lonely, help the needy ? Why do we offer just one or the other, that's if we offer either of course. 

Why can’t singing in church give emotional experiences AND help me feel more disinhibited so that I’m more open to God and to others AND memorise scripture AND state eternal truths AND send shivers up my spine by hearing human voices in harmony AND give me the feeling of being united in faith with other believers AND hear God speaking to me AND God give messages and reminders to others etc … all within one service or over the period of worship life together. ? 

And if all those good things are allowed for and encouraged in the Bible surely we can get those things wrong too and be open to manipulation, try to get these things by getting drunk, be ill informed about what to expect so limiting what we ‘allow’ God to do, being ill informed so trying to enforce things that God doesn’t enforce etc etc If the High priest Zerrubabel needed an elbow shove reminder from God to not try to get things by force of will (manipulation or pressure) or by physical force then surely any leader or would be leader might be tempted to look for success using alternative methods too. Doesn’t mean they’re the wrong leader doing the wrong thing at the wrong time necessarily, and it doesn’t mean that we write off everything that leader did because they didn’t finish as well as they started. Rant over. Knee jerk reaction. Sorry.

Sin

sin

some thoughts following reading this blog post from Tanya Marlow

thank you tanya for this great post. i've moved into a new phase of thinking about sin. not that i disagree with how i saw it before, it's just i didn't see big enough.

i went through a very difficult time a few years ago where i was praying about having to take action in a relationship where someone close was being particularly unkind to me. as i started to pray about it what came home more and more was my own sinfulness and my own need of God. it took a whole year of this before i could deal with the thing, but when the time came everything lined up so that it all went remarkably smoothly and peacefully even tho it was terribly sad. the big thing was me being utterly secure in God. the thing is you see is that in that extended period of repentance, what came up more and more was not my "naughtiness" but the whole much much bigger thing of "falling short of the glory of God". i was more and more thinking not so much about individual sins, as it becoming a craving for more of God's beautiful purity. a combination of seeing holiness not as things i don't do, just making myself sterile - hospitals are sterile, and that's good, they're not contaminated. but that's not enough.

to ache for the holiness like where is says your sins were as scarlet but they shall be white as snow - that sound of perfect stillness and the extra brightness before you even open the curtains, and then there it is, the fresh, clean, sparkling beauty of the new snow that makes even my tired old adult heart skip a beat and my eyes twinkle.

holiness is a something, not a nothing.

for all have sinned and fallen short. i looked up the word sin. the old english word synn is apparently the translation for a word used in archery meaning when the arrow doesn't even get as far as the target. i can imagine being lined up to take my turn at a local competition, and it's my turn to make the bow sing and send the arrow winging and hear it thud into the target. my sweaty fingers slip slightly and instead of pinging, the bowstring does a kind of thwup and the arrow gets into the air but then plops pathetically on the grass in front of the target. i want to die on the inside. everyone laughs or boos. the judges signal a synn.

the word would have been just as common in Elizabethan times when it was put into english as it was in Jesus' day. just as common as football or cricket terms now. perhaps we should change it to "own goal" "off side", a failed free kick that instead of thudding off the boot, swooping through the air to hurtle past the goalie's fingertips and slam into the net, no the foot clips the ball, it dribbles forward and doesn't even get past the wall. or "lbw", or the ball slipping off the willow and with a limp, anemic curve drops sweetly into the wicket keepers waiting hands, or a slip or a gully.

the net result is to feel like kicking myself for not being more alert to my own weaknesses, not being up to my strengths, not being more aware of Jesus, much much more aware of Jesus. "the evil we have done and the good we have left undone".  the good we have left undone. that's the thing. that's the biggie. that's the key. not to make us feel guilty, but to drive us to spending days on end in the nets working at getting it right, with a positive aim in mind, the goal, the target - the glory of God. what ever you do, do it in love, do it for me. what ever. when ever you did it for one of these you did it for me ....

Hell ?

Is there hell ? i think probably so. is it for most of us ? i don't know. possibly not. not that the other options are actually nice. i can't imagine anything worse than sitting outside in the cold, with the gate firmly shut and the sounds of the party going on inside. you don't need to invent torturers and medieval pictures.

if i didn't want to hang with him in this life, his way it seems logical that i might not get into the "do" at the end.  if i left the invitation in the unanswered post rack until dust and stains made it so grubby i put it in the bin; if i thought everything else was more important, however trivial it will look then; it seems logical that i will sit and cry and grind my teeth and kick the gates and then it will be over. i can't believe we would survive very long. and then it will be over. all over.

by that stage, if i'm aware of anything other than my own pig headed stupidity,i might see the fires whatever.  i will probably be glad that there is justice and might feel like just prison or plain extinction simply isn't good enough for what some have done. all it is is justice. i'm absolutely certain that his justice will be just - not excessive, just just.

it's the only way i can live with the world - knowing that there will be justice one day, and working to ensure that as many people as possible access mercy.

Dynamic God, dynamic world

Dynamic God, dynamic world

Some thoughts on Isaiah 45 following on from a lovely blog by Tanya Marlow 
The God who brings storms, based on verses from Isaiah 45.

 “I form the light and create darkness, I make peace and create calamity.”

I was thinking about the creation. Well, plate tectonics to be more precise. Continental drift (or were they pushed?).  The fact that in order to have a world at the right temperature and with all the right ingredients the earth has like fish scales that can move against each other separately plus vents like my pressure cooker, so that the whole thing doesn't smash or explode. Part of that means that we have to cope with earthquakes and volcanoes. They allow growth of continents, rich farm land and even spit out fresh water into the atmosphere amongst other things. If we keep records (which most people's do even if it's oral ones), and take notice of them (which most peoples don't even when they're written down), most natural disasters are predictable - tho maybe not the actual precise date or magnitude. We can learn how to deal with things. We could avoid class dictated architecture - safe buildings for the rich, precarious ones for the poor; safe arable land for the rich, volcano slopes for the poor ....

How come, knowing that we have a dynamic, very dynamic God, did we let ourselves drift into the Aristotelian view of a static earth and static societies ?  We're designed to cope with comfort and adversity, both as individuals and as communities. How did we let ourselves drift into the easy peasy no more needy theologies so we can cop out of looking after each other, it's just lack of faith of course, isn't it ... ?


“Rain down, you heavens, from above,
And let the skies pour down righteousness;
Let the earth open, let them bring forth salvation,
And let righteousness spring up together.
I, The Lord have created it.” (Is 45:8)


I find these verses particularly exciting cos after the appalling naughtiness and ultimate expulsion from their homes of those people, (despite clear guidelines and after centuries of warnings) God is not turning his back on them. It's a parental punishment that is for correction not rejection. He's saying :

"Look folks, I still have the map even though you feel lost. I'm bigger than all this. I made it. I make it work. I send good and bad. I can still talk even though you've not got a temple. I will eventually get you out of this desert parched cracked bit of Babylonia back to your nice green hills and rain off the Med. Until then, however, know that what really waters and nourishes you is my righteousness, the green shoots I want to see are salvation. ie no more being mean to the poor and needy and foreigners, no more leeching the fields of their fallow years, no more hanging with fake deities and copying their rituals of appeasement and orgies rather than thanks and repentance."