Musings Concerning Religion

On days like today I set everything aside simply to center myself. With everything being so hectic, reorienting oneself becomes a most necessary endeavor. That much being said, I wonder how these thoughts will actually play out.

Christianity - By far the topic that stirs up the most controversy within my circle of influence. I am not even sure what to think at the current moment.

After such an unsettling dream...seeing people especially children wrapped in chains, trying to run for their lives. Running as fast as they can away from their captors and others who are in power...holding one such child who was wrapped in a spiderweb like chain. As soon as I touched the chain I could feel the horror of being trapped...the emotions of being alone and forgotten.

I began to weep...to wail...finally screaming because the pain was so great.

My screams in the dream jolted me back to the land of the living. My mood has been off ever sense. As I talked with Dad about it he said..., "As you begin to touch people you will feel the things that are holding them captive. Son, do not be afraid of what you feel. Yet, feel you must. Your heart will grow in compassion as you feel them and look at me."

This is my why. This is why I have become what I have become.

Bondage is not the business...

Seeing people hurt is also not the business...

Tied to all of this are the other major issues that seem to really mess with people.

Most would agree that God is good. All would agree that God is loving. Yet, what I have found is that most of these thoughts are accompanied by conditions and qualifications.

WHY???

Why are all of these great qualities of God's character made to be so...well...conditional...while we can see that these qualities are so unconditional and freely given.

It seems that Christians have imposed a morality ladder that must be ascended in order to be considered righteous or holy...

I call bullshit.

This type of thinking reeks of self-righteousness to the highest degree.

For what exactly? To appease our consciences so we feel as if we are accomplishing something?

Can we really add to what Jesus did for us on the cross?

No?

Then why do we try?

This is still a profound mystery to me...the more freedom I stumble into...the more the old way of living makes absolutely no sense.

What exactly have we been doing this whole time?

In my estimation we have spent more time trying to figure out the morality wheel than we have spent time investing in getting to know the God we say we love and adore.

We have have spent more time focused on behaviors more than the hearts that produce those behaviors.

Honestly speaking, in a lot of ways we still have not gotten passed the garden and the knowledge of good and evil.

As I recall there were 2 trees in the garden. The tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

We spend most of our time eating from the wrong tree...learning from the wrong tree...judging from the wrong tree.

Endeavoring on the journey I am taking has been no easy task. It has caused me to have to be reoriented in my entire belief system.

Instead of seeing things in black and white, I have become aware of the varying shades of color that fill the world around us.

Walking with Jesus teaches me just how diverse life really is. He made things so intricate that there is no possible way that one size fits all for anything...well...other than Jesus being a legitimate bad ass in the way he orchestrated EVERYTHING. (Time/Eternity/The Universe/All things seen/All things unseen.)

There are too many gaps to fill that I have no answers for.

The question I leave you will is this...

What does it look like for God to be God?

Just so you know its a trick question...

No one but God has the answer to that...

However, I challenge you to allow Him to challenge your paradigms of what it looks like for Him to be Himself.

Instead locking Him in the  "Christian" box...why not allow Him to just be himself and absolutely BLOW YOUR MIND.

I bet you he is bigger than you ever even suspected or dared even dream.

See the thing about this journey is this...every time I hang out with Jesus...He is bigger than the last time I hung out with Him. I asked Him why it seemed like He was growing all the time...His reply to me was priceless...

"I'm not growing I have always been bigger than you could fathom...your just growing in your understanding of me. The more you hang out with me...the bigger it will seem that I get because you are changing and transforming. Your vision is getting better. Just wait until we start working on how you see yourself. Things are gonna shift dramatically. :)" -- Jesus