5 Comments To This Post

1. Jona Giammalva said:    
   November 23rd, 2006 at 8:51 am

   Oh my!! Favorite line of all:

   “I smell heaven’s bakery cookin’ up something good for you Sistah!”

   I’m guessing it’s not pumpkin pie?
   Happy Thanksgiving!!

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2. LoveMyLab said:    
   November 24th, 2006 at 8:19 am

   After dinner I fell asleep on the couch, my beloved family then proceeded to take pictures of me!
   This is one more reason I love them. They are a hoot with a fantastic sense of humor!

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3. Tom Sparks said:    
   November 24th, 2006 at 12:53 pm

   A Thanksgiving Thought surrounding An Incomprehensible God…

   I know this blog is predicated upon the light hearted teasing of the religious right wing of the institutional Church, and it certainly deserves all the teasing that could be dished out, but if you will endulge me for a moment, I’d like to express something that has come from my short termed experience with this blog.

   It relates to the theme of God’s incomprehensiblenss and how we have all experienced that in the midst of His Church.

   As a result of inviting folks here to contact me, if they so desired, to discuss their impressions of the role of my and other leaders at BT/CBC, in the past, several have come forward, and the similarity of theme has been amazing.

   One prevailing theme has been “How do I comprehend the goodness of God, when He has allowed so me and so many to be hurt by the Church and its leaders? How do I connect to Him in the face of such a jaded history with His people?”

   In my private conversations it has been amazingly interesting to note that while each of them struggle with Him, in light of His having allowed such stupid and hurtful things to have happened at Church, each one still has a vibrant, though jaded, relationship with Him. They’re not unbelievers now. They haven’t given up on God, but their struggles are real, and they are uncomfortable with some of their personal life choices, in light of the pain that has marked their lives from Church. Just this Wednesday revealed that, in a simple time with a former CBC’er, who clearly wondered if she still was connected with God, and so obviously evidenced His hand solidly upon her life.

   When we ponder the incomprehensibleness of God, we think of Peter being released from prison, by the help of angels sent from God, and then we think of John the Baptist who was beheaded. We think of the woman whose son Jesus raised from the dead, and then we think of Bathsheba losing her first child. We think of Jesus opening the ears of the disciples and closing the ears of the Pharisees. And in each of these, and millions more, our rational brains do their best to create a unified concept of God, and we must admit we fail miserably at it.

   With all that God is, He is most especially Incomprehensible, and this upsets us greatly. We want a God we can figure out, whose ways always make sense, and we can reasonably predict His next move. And if we don’t find Him so our rational brains struggle with the sense of walking with Him.

   We aren’t alone in such struggles. In John 6, after Jesus gave His strange teaching on eating His flesh and drinking His blood, many felt this same tension:

   66 From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more. 67 Then Jesus said to the twelve, “Do you also want to go away?” 68 But Simon Peter answered Him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have lthe words of eternal life. 69 Also we have come to believe and know that You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

   What was different about the disciples compared with those who walked away that day? Did they understand what the others didn’t? Nope! Did they like what they heard? It doesn’t seem so. It seems to have struck them strangely too.

   Peter talks of the same key that each of us have found, and it has nothing to do with understanding God. It has everything to do with believing in Jesus, even though we don’t understand His ways, and loving His voice.

   I don’t know about you, but losing my son this last March, and my sister to cancer a couple of years ago, has not been easy for me to comprehend. Many “why” questions have gone up from our home. This is our first Thanksgiving after his death, and if I was only able to be thankful because I understood why He allowed Tyler to take his life, I’d be in a world of hurt. But for me, and I think the same must be for you too, I can’t imagine living life without the hope of hearing His voice to me from time to time. I don’t fully know why I believe but I believe.

   Western civilization is built upon the premise of rational understanding of the things that touch our lives, and even God, but the Hebrews culture wasn’t founded upon Platonic Idealism, the wisdom of Socrates, or Aristotelian logic. For some reason they grew up being able to better handle the incomprehensibleness of God. We all “need” to “understand” everything.

   Well, I don’t understand God, and I hate it that Tyler wasn’t sitting around the table this Thanksgiving, but I believe in Him still, and I love His voice. I don’t understand how your prayers helped Laura and I get through the Thanksgiving meal, without just falling apart with grief, but I know they did. That makes no sense to me, but I believe it made a difference.

   I don’t know why God allowed the inquisition or the bloody crusades to take place in His name. There is so much I don’t understand about Him, but I’m soooo thankful He is in my life, and if He would speak a little word to me today, oh my gosh, what a difference it makes each time He does that.

   So my prayer for each of us this season, is “God help us to hang on to You, even though there is so much about You we don’t understand. Please help the wounded, the hurting, and the jaded, who looked to Church leadership to show them way, and who ended up having more taken from them than was given. One day Lord, in the light of Your glory, when we see You face to face, what our minds cannot comprehend now will be resolved in your incomparable beauty.”

   God bless each of you this Thanksgiving. Join the ranks of the millions who didn’t comprehend Him but loved Him still. Purpose to walk as truly before Him as possible and yet accept the imperfectableness of your nature. Try to say with Peter, “Where else would I go…”

   Happy Thanksgiving!

   Tom

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4. Mag Le Don said:    
   November 24th, 2006 at 6:52 pm

   God help us to hang on to You, even though there is so much about You we don’t understand. Please help the wounded, the hurting, and the jaded, who looked to Church leadership to show them way, and who ended up having more taken from them than was given. One day Lord, in the light of Your glory, when we see You face to face, what our minds cannot comprehend now will be resolved in your incomparable beauty.”

   Thanks Tom!!! You really should think about writing some romantic novels… hot hot hot!!!

   listen tonite if you dare:

   http://www.myspace.com/rationalresponders

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5. North by Northwest said:    
   November 25th, 2006 at 4:37 pm

   Thanks for your thoughts Tom and everyone else. I am very Thankful for
   this community of believers who truly understand what I went through and say its okay to be grappling with things to find a truer - purer form of faith - no longer looking to man - but only straight through to God.

   Tom’s post brought tears to my eyes with my unanswered questions –
   when God when and why God why –but we say yes Lord and thank you.
   As one person said after losing his son ‘God knows something about this
   situation I don’t know.’ How true.

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