Risk Love

"Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to be sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully around with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket–safe, dark, motionless, airless–it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable."
-C.S. Lewis

God of Power

The God of Power is another primitive approach to God, but one that at least leads to a moral life. He is almighty and sovereign; he establishes the Law of Right and Wrong and judges everyone by it. There is a simple cause and effect relationship: good leads to reward, bad leads to punishment. With this view of God, we live "good" lives to get what we want. However, this leads to guilt as egocentric desires conflict with the real purpose of God's Law. When our perceived goodness isn't rewarded or when evil isn't punished, we question God's justice and/or his power to act. When we view God like this, we are quick to point out our own morality at the same time thinking we deserve good things like wealth, influence, and power. While God is the Lawgiver, the purpose behind it isn't to provide a set of rules we have to follow to get what we want, because our desires often conflict with other's desires. God's Law should act as a guideline for love which ultimately involves self-sacrifice.

God’s Heroes

"God is preparing His heroes. And when the opportunity comes, He can fit them in their places in a moment. And the world will wonder where they came from."
-A.B. Simpson

This Momentous Day

An excerpt from a book I recently read. Quite inspiring.

Not one day in anyone’s life…is an uneventful day, no day without profound meaning, no matter how dull and boring it might seem, no matter whether you are a seamstress or a queen, a shoeshine boy or a movie star, a renowned philosopher or a Down’s-syndrome child. Because in every day of your life, there are opportunities to perform little kindnesses for others, both by conscious acts of will and unconscious example. Each smallest act of kindness–even just words of hope when they are needed, the remembrance of a birthday, a compliment that engenders a smile–reverberates across great distances and spans of time, affecting lives unknown to the one whose generous spirit was the source of this good echo, because kindness is passed on and grows each time it’s passed, until a simple courtesy becomes an act of selfless courage years later and far away. Likewise, each small meanness, each thoughtless expression of hatred, each envious and bitter act, regardless of how petty, can inspire others, and is therefore the seed that ultimately produces evil fruit, poisoning people whom you have never met and never will. All human lives are so profoundly and intricately entwined–those dead, those living, those generations yet to come–that the fate of all is the fate of each, and the hope of humanity rests in every heart and in every pair of hands. Therefore, after every failure, we are obliged to strive again for success, and when faced with the end of one thing, we must build something new and better in the ashes, just as from pain and grief, we must weave hope, for each of us is a thread critical to the strength–to the very survival–of the human tapestry. Every hour in every life contains such often-unrecognized potential to affect the world that the great days for which we, in our dissatisfaction, so often yearn are already with us; all great days and thrilling possibilities are combined always in this momentous day.

From the Corner of His Eye

Dean Koontz

God of Survival

The God of Survival is the most primitive approach to God. He is sought to meet our basic survival needs such as health, sustenance, and security. These three needs are the focus, God only comes in when necessary. In this limited way God is approached with fear and any devotion is only because we need him to survive. When basic needs are absent, the accusation is that God is absent, uncaring, and capricious. We live life to survive, nothing more. Care is taken to avoid want, illness, and danger. Although this is the most primitive view of God, it is surprisingly common even in our modern society. When we view God like this we will say we believe in him and may even give him thanks for what we have, but when something threatens our lives or we are without our basic needs we abandon God. While God does meet our basic needs, he has much greater plans for us then mere survival. Times of need, illness, and even death have a purpose and we must trust God’s plan in allowing these things to happen to us.