PROTOCOL

my understanding of this word is based on a READERS' DIGEST article of maybe 10 years ago about a doctor seeking to help hospitals be more successful in healing people and not harming them. the doctor came up with a list of things that each health worker (doctor, nurse, all!) must follow in contact with patients and their records. the list was called a protocol. the fact of having the list in black and white before them, and requirement that they check off items only as they do them or insure that they are done, immensely helped health workers succeed in helping well.

what i am pondering here is the possibility of discovering a list of things that we as Christians must do in order to have our prayers answered.

that statement maybe sounds selfish and naive in its bare-bones form, but let me quickly clarify it by referring first to James' admonition at JAMES 4:3
"When you ask, you do not receive because you ask with wrong motives (that you may spend what you get on pleasure.)"

(i'll write more later.)

STUMBLING

at the theological discussion website THEOLOGICA.NING, some respondents to a question i had emphasized their belief that those who God has destined to be His children, a part of His eternal kingdom, He has predestined from the beginning. The way these folks said it was whatever was or were the means by which God drew and called them, it was God Himself who called them.
This discussion with predestination being a given, was new to me. Wesleyan tradition focuses on "means of grace" , things that help us to draw close to God.
But i read a few scripture references and was convinced that some are destined to accept God's free gift (and some never will, I guess.)Also, what informed my thinking on this was seeing that my experience or reasoning agreed with what they were putting forth. I said , " i can imagine two people experiencing the same things, learning the same things, being hurt by the same things and encouraged by the same thing, but having totally different responses to their life experiences.
So now I have a new perspective on salvation: the one whom God destines to be "saved" will be saved; but their life can be filled with a lot of detours-messy detours- or it can be more direct. I can think of three Bible passages about stumbling that shed light for me on this idea. 1)Where Jesus says, "if anyone causes one of these little ones to stumble it would be better if they had never been born." 2)Where Paul says, "don't do anything -including something that you feel free to do because of Christ's freedom- that could cause others to stumble." and 3)Where Daniel dreamed about the rock that would cause some to stumble; but others would be broken by the same stone.
Thinking of others as already having ( or not having) a predisposion to come to God changes the way I will approach others.

REAR GUARD

JUST GETTING THIS STARTED FOR NOW:
the preacher told about a hiking trip he was on with boy scouts and his dad as a leader.
one day, the son wanted to be at the back cuz' he was feeling slow. every once and a while he would call out to his dad at the front, " i'm still here. i'm doing ok."
that got me to thinking of the special job of being the rear guard. I want to see what the Bible has to say about it; and write about Paul always mentioning his people, the jews that he still is concerned about; and dear former president George W. (whose wife is a teacher at heart always, of course) who at least tried or did lip service to "No Child Left Behind"; and my poem, if I can find it, called WE ARE THE PRODIGAL SON; and, of course, Jesus talking about the lost this and lost that.

OFF THE CUFF. FIX IT UP!

Recently a church leader in England, (Bishop of Canterbury?), when asked about the announced upcoming marriage of one of the princes, said something like "I'll give them seven years." There was an uproar in response. That was a horribly glib answer to give. I hope that the church leader has subsequently said something more helpful about the subject- something like "I am sorry I spoke so lightly about such an important subject. I was voicing my concerns about marriage in general and celebrity marriage in particular. I would be delighted to meet with the young couple to give them some premarital counselling or even refer them to someone whom I esteem as skilled and sincere in such situations."

Making unhelpful comments is something we all do. Just be humble and loving enough to redo.

BACK HERE FOR NOW

Well, today when I tried to access this space, I was able to -with my non-g-mail e-mail address. I guess I'll keep going here while I can. I can at least finish the idea I was working on.

I'm going back to that last post to finish it out and correct some mistakes and write in the referenced passage.

continuation of . . .ARE ATHEISTS RIGHT?

This is a continuation of the post I started previously:

Here are more of the faith-filled (and prophetic) words of Isaiah in ISAIAH 25: ". . . He will destroy the shroud that enfolds all peoples . . . He will swallow up death forever. The Sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears from all faces: He will remove the disgrace of His people from all the Earth . . . . In that day they will say, 'Surely this is our God: We trusted in Him, and He saved us. This is the Lord; we trusted in Him; Let us rejoice and be glad in His salvation.'"

My desire at that moment-driving along that beautiful stretch of Braeswood at dusk-was that I wanted to know how it could be that He is loving and all-powerful and this world is such a mess; and I wanted (and now also want) to be able to tell others how it can be so. I don't know how the Lord has developed in me such a rock solid faith that He "is love" (I JOHN 4:8), and that He can do all things, but this faith I have.

Some things that have helped me along the way are:
-My father always pointed out to us things in nature that are beautiful and wonderful (like Canada geese way up in the sky)
-At one point after years of thinking of the Bible as a dusty, old, out-dated, boring book, I found out it contains some valid advice. I CORINTHIANS 7:9 says, "But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion." Impressive loving level-headed wisdom from the Bible. (I've since learned more common sense things from the Bible.)
-I was always a shy, socially marginalized person. Someone encouraged me to use that aspect of my life to become closer to God.

After I realized the Bible contained some practical helpful, realistic info, I started studying the Bible with others. The more I learned of it, the more it made sense, seemed really connected to reality and seemed like God actually communicating with us.

I think there have been some specific truths I have learned (including the above) that have very much increased my faith in God and Jesus, and my love and understanding.

Let me tell you about the six parables of MATTHEW 13, verses 24 to 52. (All of MATTHEW 13 is important, but these last 6 of the 7 parables are short; and my new understanding of them gave me a new perspective and hope.)
verses 24-30: Jesus teaches that the Church will have good and bad people in it.
verses 31&32: Jesus teaches that the Church will start out tiny and become a giant organization that is so pleasant that some people will become attached to it and profit from it (as the birds in the tree are not part of it) because it is pleasant and profitable, not because they want to be part of God's work.
verse 33: Jesus teaches that since the "kingdom of heaven", the Church, is an institution of mankind and God, combining the substance and purity and perfection of God with the inconsistency, fallibility and corruptibility of mankind (as symbolized by the yeast), the Church must inevitably become a mixture of God's good and mankind's wrongness/imperfection.
(verse 35: After that parable, Matthew, who recorded these words of Jesus and the events of His life, referred to PSALM 78:2 "I will open my mouth in parables. I will utter things hidden since the creation of the world.")
verse 44: (continuing with the parables) Jesus teaches that although the Church, the kingdom of heaven, will be an imperfect thing, it is very precious to God, to the point that He will purchase the field (the whole world?) to save those who would be His followers, this "kingdom of heaven".
verses 45, 46: Jesus teaches that God gives everything to "buy" this thing- this pearl, this combination of God and mankind working together, this thing of beauty brought about by imperfection.
verses 47 to 50: Jesus teaches that although the Church will contain both people who love and put their faith in God and those that are just there 'cuz it's a good place to be, it is not our job to judge the hearts of others; that will be done by God or by His angels at another time. We are freed from that concern. We can judge fruit, maybe, but not heart. Let God do that. That's how I read that parable. I don't know if that is the correct interpretation of that last one, but I can't see anything else for it. God is good. Love to all, Joan.

ARE ATHEISTS RIGHT?

Sorry, but I must start by saying I believe in God; I believe that He made us and all creation and that He loves us, His creation that He made in His image. (I believe God made and loves all creation.)

I also believe that God made us as He did - with free will, the ability to make our own decisions - for His own good reasons and that eventually we will see why God knows that us having free will, the ability to either accept or reject Him, is more important/essential than the pain and suffering and hatred that we people endure and inflict on each other. That last thing I wrote is the hardest to take - the hardest to believe. By faith I say that God is love. I believe that God is love. I have experienced God's love in many ways.

What I'm trying to say is that I can see why someone might come to believe that there is not any god who created us and all things. It is possible that someone believes NOT in God because they don't think that a god who loves and can do all things would allow our world to continue in such a way with people hurting people. Simply put, the state of the world sees inconsistent with a loving and just God.

I remember back in the 1960's hearing about people loudly saying "God is Dead" or carrying signs that said that. I was a child at that time and if I did think about it then, I thought those were just some smart-alecky, sharp, rebellious people who were saying that. It wasn't until years later that I realized that those thoughts were being expressed two decades after the Holocaust. People had endured horrible cruelty and perhaps a sense of their prayers being unanswered. If the jews were God's chosen people, how could He stand aside and let all those horrible things happen? I can see where it would be less painful to believe that there is no God than to believe that God wouldn't help you and save you or your loved ones.


I asked God about this a few years ago. (I was driving along a particularly beautiful stretch of South Braeswood in Houston between Atwell and Hillcroft at dusk.) I was crying. He knew that I love Him and believe He is good and loving and just. I believe He answered me by bringing to my mind a Bible verse I had heard a few times over the years:
"...He will wipe away every tear from their eyes."
I looked the verse up (in a concordance). It is in ISAIAH, the 25th chapter. Here are more of the faith-filled (and prophetic) words of Isaiah there:
. . . I must stop for now. I'll finish this later.