I came across one of my favorite prayers a few days ago when I bought the book "Day by Day with the Catechism" at a Catholic Church run rummage sale. It's a very well known and valued prayer among Catholics who look for thoughtful prayers, and I was happy to see it included in this booklet. As I reread it, I thought of my recent blog posting about getting out of deep trouble, where I provide commentary and advice through the wisdom contained in Psalm 1 of the Book of Psalms. I realized that I could do something similar with this prayer, so here it is.
This prayer is entitled "A Prayer for All Things Necessary to Salvation" and it was written by Pope Clement XI (1649-1721). As you read through this prayer, written by a Roman Catholic Pope, and thus heir to St. Peter, who Catholics consider the first pope, recognize that this scholarly and spiritual man has developed a virtual checklist of the correct things to ask God for. This is why I had the idea that if any of you are in deep trouble, you can take this prayer and thoughtfully use it to attune yourself more to the desires expressing within the prayer, and less to the worldly things and temptations that may be the cause of or contributing to your suffering as you attempt to handle the deep trouble that you may be in. Just a note, remember that I explained that to be "sanctified" means that one is focused on serving God first and foremost.
PRAYER FOR ALL THINGS NECESSARY TO SALVATION
I believe, Lord, but may I believe more firmly.
I hope, but may I hope more securely.
I love, but may I love more ardently.
I grieve, but may I grieve more deeply.
I adore you as my first beginning.
I aspire after you as my last end.
I praise you as my perpetual benefactor.
I invoke you as my merciful protector.
Direct me by your wisdom.
Keep me in your grace.
Console me with your mercy.
Protect me with your power.
I offer you, O Lord,
my thoughts, that they may be about you;
my words, that they may be spoken for your glory;
my actions, that they may accord with your will;
my sufferings, that they may be accepted for your sake.
I desire whatever you desire.
I desire it because you desire it.
I desire it insofar as you desire it.
I desire it for as long as you desire it.
I pray, O Lord, that you will enlighten my mind,
inflame my will,
cleanse my heart,
and sanctify my soul.
May I repent of past sins,
repel future temptations,
correct wicked tendencies,
and cultivate virtuous ideals.
Good Lord, grant that I may love you,
renounce myself,
and do good to my neighbor,
and be detached toward the world.
May I strive to obey my superiors,
support my inferiors,
aid my friends,
and spare my enemies.
Help me to overcome sensuality by self-denial,
avarice by liberality,
anger by meekness,
and tepidity by devotion.
Make me prudent in counsel,
steadfast in danger,
patient in adversity,
and humble in prosperity.
Grant, Lord, that I may be attentive at prayer,
temperate at meals,
diligent at work,
and constant in resolutions.
Let my conscience be upright,
my outward appearance be modest,
my conversation edifying,
and my whole life be ordered.
Help me to labor to overcome nature,
to cooperate with your grace,
to keep your commandments,
and to further my salvation.
Teach me the futility of earthly things,
the greatness of Divine things,
the shortness of temporal things,
and the length of eternal things.
Grant that I may be prepared for death,
fear judgment,
avoid hell,
and obtain paradise-
through Christ our Lord.
Clement XI (1649-1721), Pope and Scholar
Now that you have read this prayer, marvel along with me at each and every line, how each one could be the topic of a prayer request. Yet, how many people ask God through prayer to "desire whatever you desire," to "hope more securely," to "cultivate virtuous ideals," to "spare my enemies," to "overcome avarice by liberality," to "overcome tepidity by devotion," to be "constant in resolutions," or to "cooperate with your grace?" People, even true believers, tend to pray to God when they "want something," and that is fine, if only what you want are the qualities and devotion to God that are listed here! When one prays to God for any or all of these qualities, one sets one's self on a different path, one where one recognizes more clearly the blessings that one has received (and answered prayers), and understanding of why and where a specific aspect of life that is not going as hoped is still not a total loss.
So a great exercise for everyone who wants to become closer to God would be to regularly pray this prayer and, as a way to promote one's spiritual development, why not select one or two specific lines of request in this prayer as the focus of your "prayer request to God." I think this is the type of prayer one should read and reflect upon at the beginning of each day.
I hope that you have found this helpful!
Showing posts with label goodness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label goodness. Show all posts
Saturday, August 8, 2009
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
How to get out of deep trouble
Many people have, in their personal lives, their work, or in their "beliefs," have gotten themselves into a lot of trouble, and wonder how to extricate themselves. They also worry about their children, particularly to protect them from making the same mistakes or, as is also true in many cases, how to help extricate the children from the same mistakes the adults had made.
One can receive no better advice for this problem than consulting the first Psalm. Here it is and I will comment on specifics.
Psalm 1
1 Happy the man who follows not the counsel of the wicked, nor walks in the way of sinners, nor sits in the company of the insolent,
2 but delights in the law of the Lord and meditates on his law day and night.
3 He is like a tree planted near running water, that yields its fruit in due season and whose leaves never fade. [Whatever he does prospers.]
4 Not so the wicked, not so; they are like chaff which the wind drives away.
5 Therefore in judgment the wicked shall not stand, nor shall sinners, in the assembly of the just.
6 For the Lord watches over the way of the just, but the way of the wicked vanishes.
This is one of my favorites psalms, even though it is not full of beautiful song and imagery, even though it is only six lines long, and even though it seems obvious on the surface. It is one of my favorite psalms because I can point to it to advise people who are in serious messes how to get themselves out, in a very practical step by step way. You can also think of this psalm as being like an abstract, a summary of what is in the rest of the psalms. It is also like a prescription for an ailment.
If you and/or your children are enmeshed in a bad situation, here is how to follow the "prescription" of Psalm 1, step by step.
1. "Follow not the counsel of the wicked"- no longer take the advice of the troublemakers and that includes stopping both conversations and also your reading of their writings.
2. "Nor walk in the way of sinners"- no longer emulate any part of the behavior of those who you had been either associating with or looking up toward.
3. "Nor sit(s) in the company of the insolent"-no longer hang around with not only the troublemakers listed above, but also anyone who has a sneering, irreverent attitude toward ANYTHING, since insolence is contagious and a barrier to further development and understanding.
4. "Delight in the law of the Lord"-this means to start to understand how God's unmeasurable love for each human being is the source of all of his instruction, even the "don'ts" that people do not easily understand. So read scripture and other (authentic) religious writings and practice understanding that the source of all the "law" of God is founded in his love for each person.
5. "Meditate on his law day and night"-This does not mean give up your job or your activities and just sit around thinking about God. It means that your awareness of God and his sayings and instructions should be like a constant companion who is valued, not something brought out of the closet only once a week during worship service.
6. "He is like a tree planted near running water"-Recognize that if you are to be a good tree, you need to be near constantly running, new refreshed water. Thus "plant" yourself where you can receive this type of constant encouragement in goodness and renewal. This may mean transferring from a low morals school to one of higher spiritual goodness, for example, as a practical step. This could mean changing jobs or co-workers, so that you are surrounded by those who constantly refresh with positive attitude toward each other and life, and not the negative. New friends who bring constant refreshed goodness into even the small parts of life (like shopping, sports activities, etc) should be cultivated and surround yourself with them, rather than those who recycle the same stale water of depressiveness and negativity.
7. "The wicked...are like chaff which the wind drives away"-To explain the image, when one harvests wheat for making bread, the outer layer must be removed from the grain, and this paper thin coating is called the chaff. Wind (from hand held fans) is one way that people in Bible times separated the heavy good grain on the ground from the light chaff which blows away and is discarded. So goodness is "heavy weight" while the wicked are "light weight," even though it may not seem that way because of the power of the assets and persuasiveness of the wicked. Thus this advice means to start withdrawing any assets you have invested in the wicked, whether it be actual assets (money and time) or virtual assets (the attention that you pay to them and their messages). When you withdraw your money, your time and your attention from supporting the wicked, you move your assets to the good and "lighten" the wicked, so they can be blown away, by removing their base of operation. So do not donate your money or time to "causes" that the wicked advocate (even those that are supposed or even legitimate charities) because your good intended donations keep the wicked weighed down in place. As you pull away you and your children's involvement with even "good" activities that the wicked pursue, you will start to lighten the anchor of the wicked, and they will more easily topple when it is their time.
8. "The Lord watches over the way of the just"-You must remember EVERY DAY and also teach your children that God knows absolutely everything you have ever thought, to say nothing of what you have actually done, whether in secret or open, whether openly aggressive or passively aggressive: God knows ALL of it, even before you do it. It is important that your children and YOU understand that, because that will give you the knowledge and strength to pull away from wickedness NOW and not "later." God's knowledge is not delayed.
9. "But the way of the wicked vanishes"-When support for wickedness is withdrawn, it vanishes. Think of all the evil people who have existed in history whose names don't even exist in history books, etc. Life is good and forward looking, and if left alone, wickedness dries up on the vine, blows away, and vanishes for good. HOWEVER, humans have a temptation, which is to do "research" and record the deeds of the wicked (and write "suspense" fiction novels about wicked people, both real and fictional) which hinders the natural drying up and disappearing of evil. You must wean yourself and your children away from documentation, either fictional or non fiction, of wickedness. Stop producing such works and stop consuming them.
Now, more about point 9. I'm not an old party pooper who is trying to censor. I enjoy a good murder mystery novel, such as by Agatha Christie, as much as anyone. But it is the dosage that is the problem. Normal human beings living during normal times are not supposed to be immersed in the constant awareness, study and entertainment that are created based on wickedness! It's like the debate about TV. In a normal life, unless there is war, most humans never saw except maybe once in their life the criminal killing of a human. Yet within a few years after TV was developed children have seen dozens of killings, both real and imagined, a DAY on TV. It is a matter of dosage, whether in reality or entertainment.
Understand that humans have short memories for a reason: that is part of God's plan to allow wickedness to dry up on the vine and blow away in the wind. People hinder their own health and God's plan when they chase the evil "chaff" in the wind, capture it, put it on film or laminate it, so that people can be "entertained" or "never forget" or "learn about history." You must wean your children-and your selves-away from contemplation of the works, either fictional or real, of wickedness, so that in the natural cycle of things they dry up and vanish. Water yourselves with the constant flow of goodness (or at least reality based normalcy!) Do not chase after or feed the works of the wicked, and let them vanish as their support does. Do not succumb to the hubris and temptation (like Saruman in the "Lord of the Rings") of "studying" or, worse, as people do today, are "entertained" by rehashing and recycling wicked deeds in the past, the present news, and certainly not the flood of "entertainment." It is like judicious salt, once in a while, sure, read such a book or produce such a movie, but in the way it is now, the wheat is trampled underfoot while the chaff is glorified, put on digital or other media, and floods the lungs and the air of everyone who is trying to follow the way of good, but is saturated by echoes of wickedness.
I hope that this helps! It will if you just do it!
One can receive no better advice for this problem than consulting the first Psalm. Here it is and I will comment on specifics.
Psalm 1
1 Happy the man who follows not the counsel of the wicked, nor walks in the way of sinners, nor sits in the company of the insolent,
2 but delights in the law of the Lord and meditates on his law day and night.
3 He is like a tree planted near running water, that yields its fruit in due season and whose leaves never fade. [Whatever he does prospers.]
4 Not so the wicked, not so; they are like chaff which the wind drives away.
5 Therefore in judgment the wicked shall not stand, nor shall sinners, in the assembly of the just.
6 For the Lord watches over the way of the just, but the way of the wicked vanishes.
This is one of my favorites psalms, even though it is not full of beautiful song and imagery, even though it is only six lines long, and even though it seems obvious on the surface. It is one of my favorite psalms because I can point to it to advise people who are in serious messes how to get themselves out, in a very practical step by step way. You can also think of this psalm as being like an abstract, a summary of what is in the rest of the psalms. It is also like a prescription for an ailment.
If you and/or your children are enmeshed in a bad situation, here is how to follow the "prescription" of Psalm 1, step by step.
1. "Follow not the counsel of the wicked"- no longer take the advice of the troublemakers and that includes stopping both conversations and also your reading of their writings.
2. "Nor walk in the way of sinners"- no longer emulate any part of the behavior of those who you had been either associating with or looking up toward.
3. "Nor sit(s) in the company of the insolent"-no longer hang around with not only the troublemakers listed above, but also anyone who has a sneering, irreverent attitude toward ANYTHING, since insolence is contagious and a barrier to further development and understanding.
4. "Delight in the law of the Lord"-this means to start to understand how God's unmeasurable love for each human being is the source of all of his instruction, even the "don'ts" that people do not easily understand. So read scripture and other (authentic) religious writings and practice understanding that the source of all the "law" of God is founded in his love for each person.
5. "Meditate on his law day and night"-This does not mean give up your job or your activities and just sit around thinking about God. It means that your awareness of God and his sayings and instructions should be like a constant companion who is valued, not something brought out of the closet only once a week during worship service.
6. "He is like a tree planted near running water"-Recognize that if you are to be a good tree, you need to be near constantly running, new refreshed water. Thus "plant" yourself where you can receive this type of constant encouragement in goodness and renewal. This may mean transferring from a low morals school to one of higher spiritual goodness, for example, as a practical step. This could mean changing jobs or co-workers, so that you are surrounded by those who constantly refresh with positive attitude toward each other and life, and not the negative. New friends who bring constant refreshed goodness into even the small parts of life (like shopping, sports activities, etc) should be cultivated and surround yourself with them, rather than those who recycle the same stale water of depressiveness and negativity.
7. "The wicked...are like chaff which the wind drives away"-To explain the image, when one harvests wheat for making bread, the outer layer must be removed from the grain, and this paper thin coating is called the chaff. Wind (from hand held fans) is one way that people in Bible times separated the heavy good grain on the ground from the light chaff which blows away and is discarded. So goodness is "heavy weight" while the wicked are "light weight," even though it may not seem that way because of the power of the assets and persuasiveness of the wicked. Thus this advice means to start withdrawing any assets you have invested in the wicked, whether it be actual assets (money and time) or virtual assets (the attention that you pay to them and their messages). When you withdraw your money, your time and your attention from supporting the wicked, you move your assets to the good and "lighten" the wicked, so they can be blown away, by removing their base of operation. So do not donate your money or time to "causes" that the wicked advocate (even those that are supposed or even legitimate charities) because your good intended donations keep the wicked weighed down in place. As you pull away you and your children's involvement with even "good" activities that the wicked pursue, you will start to lighten the anchor of the wicked, and they will more easily topple when it is their time.
8. "The Lord watches over the way of the just"-You must remember EVERY DAY and also teach your children that God knows absolutely everything you have ever thought, to say nothing of what you have actually done, whether in secret or open, whether openly aggressive or passively aggressive: God knows ALL of it, even before you do it. It is important that your children and YOU understand that, because that will give you the knowledge and strength to pull away from wickedness NOW and not "later." God's knowledge is not delayed.
9. "But the way of the wicked vanishes"-When support for wickedness is withdrawn, it vanishes. Think of all the evil people who have existed in history whose names don't even exist in history books, etc. Life is good and forward looking, and if left alone, wickedness dries up on the vine, blows away, and vanishes for good. HOWEVER, humans have a temptation, which is to do "research" and record the deeds of the wicked (and write "suspense" fiction novels about wicked people, both real and fictional) which hinders the natural drying up and disappearing of evil. You must wean yourself and your children away from documentation, either fictional or non fiction, of wickedness. Stop producing such works and stop consuming them.
Now, more about point 9. I'm not an old party pooper who is trying to censor. I enjoy a good murder mystery novel, such as by Agatha Christie, as much as anyone. But it is the dosage that is the problem. Normal human beings living during normal times are not supposed to be immersed in the constant awareness, study and entertainment that are created based on wickedness! It's like the debate about TV. In a normal life, unless there is war, most humans never saw except maybe once in their life the criminal killing of a human. Yet within a few years after TV was developed children have seen dozens of killings, both real and imagined, a DAY on TV. It is a matter of dosage, whether in reality or entertainment.
Understand that humans have short memories for a reason: that is part of God's plan to allow wickedness to dry up on the vine and blow away in the wind. People hinder their own health and God's plan when they chase the evil "chaff" in the wind, capture it, put it on film or laminate it, so that people can be "entertained" or "never forget" or "learn about history." You must wean your children-and your selves-away from contemplation of the works, either fictional or real, of wickedness, so that in the natural cycle of things they dry up and vanish. Water yourselves with the constant flow of goodness (or at least reality based normalcy!) Do not chase after or feed the works of the wicked, and let them vanish as their support does. Do not succumb to the hubris and temptation (like Saruman in the "Lord of the Rings") of "studying" or, worse, as people do today, are "entertained" by rehashing and recycling wicked deeds in the past, the present news, and certainly not the flood of "entertainment." It is like judicious salt, once in a while, sure, read such a book or produce such a movie, but in the way it is now, the wheat is trampled underfoot while the chaff is glorified, put on digital or other media, and floods the lungs and the air of everyone who is trying to follow the way of good, but is saturated by echoes of wickedness.
I hope that this helps! It will if you just do it!
Monday, July 27, 2009
Understanding God and the forces of evil
I was going to blog about something else, but I go where the need is greatest ;-)
People who know me know that I love the Rev Billy Graham, and am a great fan of his. When I used to post links, before I simplified this blog, his daily question column was highlighted. I urge you all to read his daily column; it's just wonderful.
He's limited by the space of the column, but I am not, ha, so I will add things to what he says, as I will today.
Today's questioner asks the Rev Graham if God is strong enough to overcome evil. Billy Graham gave a great answer, which is that yes, of course God is, and that the only thing that God "cannot do" is to lie, be false, do anything imperfect or evil since God is of course the source and thus the purity of all perfection and goodness (my words not his). I'm just doing a summary as lead in to what I want to add.
However, I spotted something that I'm used to looking for, which is any potential error in assumption that is behind the question itself. This is not criticism, as there is no bad or dumb question except for the question that goes unasked. But sometimes, in fact often, a person asks a question assuming something that is false (behind the question itself), and he or she then assumes that if the questioner answers the question that the conscious or unconscious background assumption is also true. This is an urgent case of this phenomenon in today's column.
I am quite certain, since I've heard this background assumption MANY times before, that the questioner is asking "if God is powerful enough to overcome evil" while at the same time assuming that God IS combating evil at this time. Thus the questioner logically wonders why evil seems so strong if God is combating evil, and God is all powerful. Well, here's the rub. God is not combating evil at this time, as he has left THAT to human free choice. Here is the how and the why.
Adam and Eve, through their free choice, selected evil over good. Adam and Eve had perfection of life as provided by God in the Garden of Eden, yet as soon as they were offered "more," (and the only thing that "more" is, really, is power over other humans via evil knowledge and deeds), they accepted the serpent (Satan's) offer.
Likewise, Satan appears to Jesus, offering him power over the world (which Jesus already has, but Satan means that he wants Jesus to "power share" with him, which means to gain presumably "greater power" since evil deeds, which God will not do, would be "OK.") Jesus of course not only turns down the "offer," but corrects Satan's misconception that any additional true "power" can even be offered, since it cannot. There is perfection of "power" only through God, and only in total service and obedience to God, the source of all power, both on earth and in eternity.
Now, here's where modern people are often confused (the truly older generations were not confused about this), so you young people, pay particular attention to this. Yes, Jesus was given by God to humans to redeem them from original sin, the sin of disobedience caused by Adam and Eve. We've discussed many of the "reasons" and gifts that Jesus brought, such as bringing God's face to humanity, fulfilling the role of Messiah and Savior, the New Covenant, etc.
But neither Jesus nor any of the prophets, nor any human alive has done what the questioner and many assume is actually happening, which is to lead or declare combat "against evil."
Understand this difference. There is a huge difference between refuting evil (proving that evil is wrong) and "declaring war 'against' evil.'" Neither God nor any of his holy humans, or any human that ever lived, or ever will live, is actively "combating" evil. Why? Because to combat evil means to erase humanity and bring about the end of all time. Evil is "baked into" the human condition and psyche because of their own brokenness, woundedness and continual evil choices through the generations. If God actually "declared combat 'against evil'" God would simply do what he is going to do one day, as explained in the Book of Revelation (the Apocalypse) and allow the end to all humanity, rendering the Final Judgment.
You young people have grown up with a fantasy and science fiction view of being a "hero" who is "for good and against evil," which is totally wrong headed. It's not your fault, since you were raised that way without understanding. Genuine heroes, including, and especially, the saints, live among evil infested and evil choosing humanity, and REFUTE evil by LIVING goodness as mandated by God. Evil is "combated" only through the myriad of individual and group choices that people make in normal life. It is not some "toon" with skinny superheroes "fighting evil," and with people (or aliens, or 'mutants') conveniently labeled "good or evil," "hero or villain." That's not life, that's not reality, and it's also not how evil and good work.
Remember that Jesus himself, who is all goodness, would not allow an admirer to call him good. Jesus did that to point out that only God is good. What does that mean? That means, as the Bible constantly teaches, that ALL humans carry the capacity and the active accommodation of evil, ever since, and indeed, as a consequence of, Adam and Eve's first choice to do so.
Previous generations were never under the delusion, that moderns are today, that humans are running around all full of goodness and sugar and 'light,' but fall astray due to that bad old evil. No.... not exactly. As Jesus has stated, no humans are good, only God is good, in the absolute sense. So it's not like perfectly good humans are running around then being tripped up by some 'agent of evil.' Evil is carried and nurtured and accommodated within each and every human, and all societies, generation after generation. Understand there is evil on a grand scale (such as Nazism) but also on the day to day accommodating of evil in the mendacity of the ordinary lives of average people, as they accumulated knowledge of evil, accept evil and indeed even re-label evil (fool themselves that what they are doing is normal and not evil), as regular tools in their lives. There is also the enormous evil of 'missed opportunity,' where people allow evil to happen and deny the choice of goodness and sanctity.
Remember that Adam and Eve did not help the serpent run out and do an evil deed. Adam and Eve chose to accommodate evil, by accepting its knowledge.
All humans enable evil and all generations accumulate knowledge of evil, and expand their accommodation of it, lately of an alarming degree.
So you must understand that God is not 'combating evil' because that would assume that there are "two sides" in a conflict, those who are 'good' and those who are 'evil.' Humans are not good (in the sense of being comprised entirely of goodness, or the potential for being all good), and all humans have at the very least a widespread daily accommodation of evil. For God to 'combat evil' he will allow humanity to destroy itself (under the Antichrist) and then he will send Michael to "officially" 'combat evil,' which means Satan is chained, sure, but um duh, that's because all humans are dead so it's moot whether he walks among them supposedly "causing evil," or not, since the vessels of the potential for evil, humanity, will have all perished and been judged.
So sure, God can "combat evil" with a nanosecond of his tiniest amount of will power, and he will do so, and that means the end of all things human, with the entire world where humans chose evil in the first place passing away out of existence. The resurrected who occupy the world to come, the New Jerusalem, will not have even a speck or particle of temptation to elect evil, so evil will not exist at all, since it will never be given an opportunity for 'birth,' in the world to come after this one is destroyed.
People need to stop thinking about "combating evil," and instead, combat personal and group sin and temptation, so that you can hope to be saved and achieve heaven, and the resurrected world to come, and not go, as MANY, so very many have and will go, to hell.
I hope this helps.
People who know me know that I love the Rev Billy Graham, and am a great fan of his. When I used to post links, before I simplified this blog, his daily question column was highlighted. I urge you all to read his daily column; it's just wonderful.
He's limited by the space of the column, but I am not, ha, so I will add things to what he says, as I will today.
Today's questioner asks the Rev Graham if God is strong enough to overcome evil. Billy Graham gave a great answer, which is that yes, of course God is, and that the only thing that God "cannot do" is to lie, be false, do anything imperfect or evil since God is of course the source and thus the purity of all perfection and goodness (my words not his). I'm just doing a summary as lead in to what I want to add.
However, I spotted something that I'm used to looking for, which is any potential error in assumption that is behind the question itself. This is not criticism, as there is no bad or dumb question except for the question that goes unasked. But sometimes, in fact often, a person asks a question assuming something that is false (behind the question itself), and he or she then assumes that if the questioner answers the question that the conscious or unconscious background assumption is also true. This is an urgent case of this phenomenon in today's column.
I am quite certain, since I've heard this background assumption MANY times before, that the questioner is asking "if God is powerful enough to overcome evil" while at the same time assuming that God IS combating evil at this time. Thus the questioner logically wonders why evil seems so strong if God is combating evil, and God is all powerful. Well, here's the rub. God is not combating evil at this time, as he has left THAT to human free choice. Here is the how and the why.
Adam and Eve, through their free choice, selected evil over good. Adam and Eve had perfection of life as provided by God in the Garden of Eden, yet as soon as they were offered "more," (and the only thing that "more" is, really, is power over other humans via evil knowledge and deeds), they accepted the serpent (Satan's) offer.
Likewise, Satan appears to Jesus, offering him power over the world (which Jesus already has, but Satan means that he wants Jesus to "power share" with him, which means to gain presumably "greater power" since evil deeds, which God will not do, would be "OK.") Jesus of course not only turns down the "offer," but corrects Satan's misconception that any additional true "power" can even be offered, since it cannot. There is perfection of "power" only through God, and only in total service and obedience to God, the source of all power, both on earth and in eternity.
Now, here's where modern people are often confused (the truly older generations were not confused about this), so you young people, pay particular attention to this. Yes, Jesus was given by God to humans to redeem them from original sin, the sin of disobedience caused by Adam and Eve. We've discussed many of the "reasons" and gifts that Jesus brought, such as bringing God's face to humanity, fulfilling the role of Messiah and Savior, the New Covenant, etc.
But neither Jesus nor any of the prophets, nor any human alive has done what the questioner and many assume is actually happening, which is to lead or declare combat "against evil."
Understand this difference. There is a huge difference between refuting evil (proving that evil is wrong) and "declaring war 'against' evil.'" Neither God nor any of his holy humans, or any human that ever lived, or ever will live, is actively "combating" evil. Why? Because to combat evil means to erase humanity and bring about the end of all time. Evil is "baked into" the human condition and psyche because of their own brokenness, woundedness and continual evil choices through the generations. If God actually "declared combat 'against evil'" God would simply do what he is going to do one day, as explained in the Book of Revelation (the Apocalypse) and allow the end to all humanity, rendering the Final Judgment.
You young people have grown up with a fantasy and science fiction view of being a "hero" who is "for good and against evil," which is totally wrong headed. It's not your fault, since you were raised that way without understanding. Genuine heroes, including, and especially, the saints, live among evil infested and evil choosing humanity, and REFUTE evil by LIVING goodness as mandated by God. Evil is "combated" only through the myriad of individual and group choices that people make in normal life. It is not some "toon" with skinny superheroes "fighting evil," and with people (or aliens, or 'mutants') conveniently labeled "good or evil," "hero or villain." That's not life, that's not reality, and it's also not how evil and good work.
Remember that Jesus himself, who is all goodness, would not allow an admirer to call him good. Jesus did that to point out that only God is good. What does that mean? That means, as the Bible constantly teaches, that ALL humans carry the capacity and the active accommodation of evil, ever since, and indeed, as a consequence of, Adam and Eve's first choice to do so.
Previous generations were never under the delusion, that moderns are today, that humans are running around all full of goodness and sugar and 'light,' but fall astray due to that bad old evil. No.... not exactly. As Jesus has stated, no humans are good, only God is good, in the absolute sense. So it's not like perfectly good humans are running around then being tripped up by some 'agent of evil.' Evil is carried and nurtured and accommodated within each and every human, and all societies, generation after generation. Understand there is evil on a grand scale (such as Nazism) but also on the day to day accommodating of evil in the mendacity of the ordinary lives of average people, as they accumulated knowledge of evil, accept evil and indeed even re-label evil (fool themselves that what they are doing is normal and not evil), as regular tools in their lives. There is also the enormous evil of 'missed opportunity,' where people allow evil to happen and deny the choice of goodness and sanctity.
Remember that Adam and Eve did not help the serpent run out and do an evil deed. Adam and Eve chose to accommodate evil, by accepting its knowledge.
All humans enable evil and all generations accumulate knowledge of evil, and expand their accommodation of it, lately of an alarming degree.
So you must understand that God is not 'combating evil' because that would assume that there are "two sides" in a conflict, those who are 'good' and those who are 'evil.' Humans are not good (in the sense of being comprised entirely of goodness, or the potential for being all good), and all humans have at the very least a widespread daily accommodation of evil. For God to 'combat evil' he will allow humanity to destroy itself (under the Antichrist) and then he will send Michael to "officially" 'combat evil,' which means Satan is chained, sure, but um duh, that's because all humans are dead so it's moot whether he walks among them supposedly "causing evil," or not, since the vessels of the potential for evil, humanity, will have all perished and been judged.
So sure, God can "combat evil" with a nanosecond of his tiniest amount of will power, and he will do so, and that means the end of all things human, with the entire world where humans chose evil in the first place passing away out of existence. The resurrected who occupy the world to come, the New Jerusalem, will not have even a speck or particle of temptation to elect evil, so evil will not exist at all, since it will never be given an opportunity for 'birth,' in the world to come after this one is destroyed.
People need to stop thinking about "combating evil," and instead, combat personal and group sin and temptation, so that you can hope to be saved and achieve heaven, and the resurrected world to come, and not go, as MANY, so very many have and will go, to hell.
I hope this helps.
Friday, February 1, 2008
Football analogy to help understand "end of times"
I’ve written about proper understanding of Biblical “end of times” references before, and continue to focus on this topic because of the high interest in it and also to continue to help people toward a proper understanding. Rather than write long and comprehensive postings I like to take one aspect at a time to explore.
The point I would like to make is that God has not mapped out the specific set of events that takes humans to the “end of times.” God is all knowing, but that does not mean he is all manipulating. There is a huge difference. I’d like to use, since this is Superbowl season, American football and coaching analogies. In the Superbowl the winners of the two leagues compete and one team wins the game, making that team the Superbowl champion. God can be thought of as the overall sponsor of sports in general. God has encouraged humans to enjoy sports and recreation in addition to their devotions, their work and their family. So God likes seeing all the football teams compete and kind of cheers for both leagues and all the players. If it were up to God there would someday be Superbowl One Thousand. (It is Superbowl 42 that is going to be played this Sunday). In fact, if it were up to God, he’d be thrilled if someday people played Superbowl Ten Thousand, or Superbowl One Hundred Thousand!
God is all about life and being fruitful. If one was going to try to summarize God’s “agenda” it would be to be “fruitful and multiply.” This does not mean just numerically having babies. It means stewarding a world that humans did not create but have day to day responsibility for so that people stimulate life and increase in goodness, since that is what “fruitful” really means. Think about a fruit tree. It could yield tons of sour and inedible apples, for example. You could call that a “fruitful” tree but that is not the spirit of the meaning of the term. Fruitful means an abundance of goodness that is passed along to one’s children, children that are encouraged and welcomed into the world.
So God is not interested in humans having children who are then made to suffer in an increasingly sour world. That is only half the spirit of the words “fruitful and multiple.” That is the “multiply” without the joy of sweet “fruitfulness.” God does not want humans to be “mean SOB’s and multiply.” God does not want humans to “prune away babies so you can have unlimited sex and then multiply just enough to provide low income workers or as accessory babies.” God wants sweetness and goodness to be produced by humans along with and FOR their children. Therefore, God would be thrilled if the humans kept multiplying in children and in goodness until they could see Superbowl 100, 1000, 10,000 or more! So long as people are pious and in fear of God (by fear I mean the proper definition which is to respect God’s place and fear the consequences of losing him) and they bear and love children, and work toward making a flawed species and their flawed world as good as possible, the “end of times” will not come.
However, God understands the nature of humans all too well, and he knows everything about everything. Like a coach God knows the strength and weaknesses of his team, of each of the players, and of the circumstances they are playing under (weather, injuries, home or away, etc.) God knows that there is only one winner of the Superbowl each year. Likewise God knows human weakness. Someone could be a great football player but a rotten human being, for example. God knows about drug use, about gambling, about throwing games, about poor refereeing and bad breaks. (I’m mixing my analogy a little bit because I’m more of a baseball fan than a football fan!) But God continues to coach and cheer all of the individual team players, coaches, fans and support staff, whether they are 0-18 or 18-0 for the year. That is because it is the enjoyment of sport, the family focus of sport events, the providing of jobs, the gathering of community and the stimulating of the honest economy that is the fruitfulness of the football season and the Superbowl. It’s not the winning team, it is the annual season of coming together in good natured sport crowned in the Superbowl, and then the anticipation of second chances in the next season, and the next, and the next, and so forth. Therefore why would God decide that humans will live until Superbowl Number (imagine some number) and say, well, this is enough, time for the Second Coming? God would not want that because so long as each year and each generation is fruitful and multiplying, it is “Good.” God will not destroy what is good. That is the temptation of humans, to destroy what is good for others in order to achieve power and control. A related temptation is to define what is good and force people to conform to societal dictatorships of vices that are now defined as being “good.”
So God knows that it is inevitable that at some point in human’s future they will make choices that will take them to the brink where they are no longer being “fruitful and multiplying” in the way that God wills and plans for humans to live. When the fruit of humans is predominately sour apples you can expect the Second Coming. But just because an awful lot of sour apples are being made today, does that mean one should throw up one’s hands and say, “Ah ha, time for the Second Coming, I’m ‘covered’ in my ‘faith’ and now I’m going to dump the world in the Lord’s lap?” You better not think that lest you be one of the ones who cries “Lord, Lord!” and yet find thou art judged to be chaff instead of wheat. Remember chaff is the indigestible part of the wheat. People who gleefully point to the sorrow of the sour apples and hope that it is a counter toward the Second Coming at the “end of times” are useless, since they are not working to put off the ill deeds that could reckon with the end of times. Those who gloat for the end of times as being comeuppance for others of different faith have made themselves into chaff rather than wheat.
So would God give up on a franchise that has a 0-18 record and say, “Well, football is no good, let’s cancel this team altogether?” No, of course he would not. If God had a team full of immoral people, would he cancel the entire sport for all the rest of the teams and end the Superbowl? Obviously not, he would get a coach to reform and/or replace the players on that team. Would he not crown with laurel leaf crown the coach who is like a role model for the team, and who brings a team that lacks character into honorable, if not winning play? Yes he would.
So long as humans are working to have children in a moral society and be sweet in their fruitfulness people have nothing to fear about imminent end of times. That should be good news to everyone. If you are thinking, “Aw shucks, everyone is not going to die and be judged soon” you better start rethinking your culture of retribution, self satisfaction and death orientation lest it take you down too. Who hopes that the entire sport of football will be canceled by God because many of the teams are doing poorly and perhaps have serious moral flaws? That is not God’s way. If it was he would have canceled human’s football season, so to speak, a long time ago. And if you read your Bible and understand you will know that God had his moments when he thought “it was time.” But God gave the second chance and good men and women brought the world back from the brink before.
Make no mistake; understand that the world is in dire and abysmal moral condition. People have actively worked to make as much sour and rotten fruit as possible and they have succeeded on a scale that should surprise even them. But for the love of God, that should make people roll of their sleeves and work to bring back the sweetness and combat the sourness more than ever! Rather than gloating or becoming another boring media depressive everyone ought to recapture the memory of what a land flowing in milk and honey is like.
I understand devout people who think only Jesus Christ (and/or the Mahdi if you are a Twelver in belief) can fix the world. And they are correct to the extent that only in the faith is the way shown for goodness on earth under God and hopefully anticipation of eternal reward in heaven. But like the coach, this does not mean that the person who first wrote the football rule book has to attend every game. Imagine how the sport would go if no one knew how to play a game of football properly unless the one and only football rule book author had to be physically present at every game and shout out instructions, and call each play? Jesus Christ taught what people need to do in the Gospels. The Old Testament preserves the words of God through the prophets, including in good living advice in the Book of Proverbs! And the Prophet (PBUH) received from God’s angel the way to live in virtue and with strength and fidelity to the one God. Every time humanity gets itself into an awful situation people should not sit back and let their children (and the children of their global neighbors) to suffer while waiting for Jesus to arrive with his iron rod of final judgment.
Here is one final point with the analogy. Notice that I started with the observation that God would like to see “Superbowl” seasons for many, many years to come. I didn’t say each football season must be higher scoring, more talented, more exciting or more profitable than the season before or God will “cancel the sport for lack of progress.” To the contrary! It is “good” the way it is, just as the basic nature of humanity, if it lives by God’s rules and in the family unit is “good” already. It is maintaining the goodness that is humanity’s problem. But to use this example, every ten years of football, another generation of schoolchildren are born, learn about football, watch it on TV or attend games with their family. Later they grow up and become players, spectators, or part of the football economy (they at least wear a jersey!) Each child, each adult gains the benefit of football. It is not a cumulative success thing, just as the goodness of humanity is measured one person at a time in the goodness of their life and not by which team of humans won the Superbowl that season. If God fathered humans to be good and to live good lives, is not a thousand years of billions of humans being good even better? And is not ten thousand years of billions of humans being good better yet? Each person who lives in goodness and provides it to others is their own justification for life and for humanity continuing. So God wants to see the already “good” football sport continue to the Superbowl each year for season after season after season for as many as humans can muster and manage so long as the “goodness” is maintained. Likewise God wants to be a fan and coach of humanity, not be the one who has to turn out the lights and do the firings because humans stopped being good and gave up on the season.
I hope this helps.
The point I would like to make is that God has not mapped out the specific set of events that takes humans to the “end of times.” God is all knowing, but that does not mean he is all manipulating. There is a huge difference. I’d like to use, since this is Superbowl season, American football and coaching analogies. In the Superbowl the winners of the two leagues compete and one team wins the game, making that team the Superbowl champion. God can be thought of as the overall sponsor of sports in general. God has encouraged humans to enjoy sports and recreation in addition to their devotions, their work and their family. So God likes seeing all the football teams compete and kind of cheers for both leagues and all the players. If it were up to God there would someday be Superbowl One Thousand. (It is Superbowl 42 that is going to be played this Sunday). In fact, if it were up to God, he’d be thrilled if someday people played Superbowl Ten Thousand, or Superbowl One Hundred Thousand!
God is all about life and being fruitful. If one was going to try to summarize God’s “agenda” it would be to be “fruitful and multiply.” This does not mean just numerically having babies. It means stewarding a world that humans did not create but have day to day responsibility for so that people stimulate life and increase in goodness, since that is what “fruitful” really means. Think about a fruit tree. It could yield tons of sour and inedible apples, for example. You could call that a “fruitful” tree but that is not the spirit of the meaning of the term. Fruitful means an abundance of goodness that is passed along to one’s children, children that are encouraged and welcomed into the world.
So God is not interested in humans having children who are then made to suffer in an increasingly sour world. That is only half the spirit of the words “fruitful and multiple.” That is the “multiply” without the joy of sweet “fruitfulness.” God does not want humans to be “mean SOB’s and multiply.” God does not want humans to “prune away babies so you can have unlimited sex and then multiply just enough to provide low income workers or as accessory babies.” God wants sweetness and goodness to be produced by humans along with and FOR their children. Therefore, God would be thrilled if the humans kept multiplying in children and in goodness until they could see Superbowl 100, 1000, 10,000 or more! So long as people are pious and in fear of God (by fear I mean the proper definition which is to respect God’s place and fear the consequences of losing him) and they bear and love children, and work toward making a flawed species and their flawed world as good as possible, the “end of times” will not come.
However, God understands the nature of humans all too well, and he knows everything about everything. Like a coach God knows the strength and weaknesses of his team, of each of the players, and of the circumstances they are playing under (weather, injuries, home or away, etc.) God knows that there is only one winner of the Superbowl each year. Likewise God knows human weakness. Someone could be a great football player but a rotten human being, for example. God knows about drug use, about gambling, about throwing games, about poor refereeing and bad breaks. (I’m mixing my analogy a little bit because I’m more of a baseball fan than a football fan!) But God continues to coach and cheer all of the individual team players, coaches, fans and support staff, whether they are 0-18 or 18-0 for the year. That is because it is the enjoyment of sport, the family focus of sport events, the providing of jobs, the gathering of community and the stimulating of the honest economy that is the fruitfulness of the football season and the Superbowl. It’s not the winning team, it is the annual season of coming together in good natured sport crowned in the Superbowl, and then the anticipation of second chances in the next season, and the next, and the next, and so forth. Therefore why would God decide that humans will live until Superbowl Number (imagine some number) and say, well, this is enough, time for the Second Coming? God would not want that because so long as each year and each generation is fruitful and multiplying, it is “Good.” God will not destroy what is good. That is the temptation of humans, to destroy what is good for others in order to achieve power and control. A related temptation is to define what is good and force people to conform to societal dictatorships of vices that are now defined as being “good.”
So God knows that it is inevitable that at some point in human’s future they will make choices that will take them to the brink where they are no longer being “fruitful and multiplying” in the way that God wills and plans for humans to live. When the fruit of humans is predominately sour apples you can expect the Second Coming. But just because an awful lot of sour apples are being made today, does that mean one should throw up one’s hands and say, “Ah ha, time for the Second Coming, I’m ‘covered’ in my ‘faith’ and now I’m going to dump the world in the Lord’s lap?” You better not think that lest you be one of the ones who cries “Lord, Lord!” and yet find thou art judged to be chaff instead of wheat. Remember chaff is the indigestible part of the wheat. People who gleefully point to the sorrow of the sour apples and hope that it is a counter toward the Second Coming at the “end of times” are useless, since they are not working to put off the ill deeds that could reckon with the end of times. Those who gloat for the end of times as being comeuppance for others of different faith have made themselves into chaff rather than wheat.
So would God give up on a franchise that has a 0-18 record and say, “Well, football is no good, let’s cancel this team altogether?” No, of course he would not. If God had a team full of immoral people, would he cancel the entire sport for all the rest of the teams and end the Superbowl? Obviously not, he would get a coach to reform and/or replace the players on that team. Would he not crown with laurel leaf crown the coach who is like a role model for the team, and who brings a team that lacks character into honorable, if not winning play? Yes he would.
So long as humans are working to have children in a moral society and be sweet in their fruitfulness people have nothing to fear about imminent end of times. That should be good news to everyone. If you are thinking, “Aw shucks, everyone is not going to die and be judged soon” you better start rethinking your culture of retribution, self satisfaction and death orientation lest it take you down too. Who hopes that the entire sport of football will be canceled by God because many of the teams are doing poorly and perhaps have serious moral flaws? That is not God’s way. If it was he would have canceled human’s football season, so to speak, a long time ago. And if you read your Bible and understand you will know that God had his moments when he thought “it was time.” But God gave the second chance and good men and women brought the world back from the brink before.
Make no mistake; understand that the world is in dire and abysmal moral condition. People have actively worked to make as much sour and rotten fruit as possible and they have succeeded on a scale that should surprise even them. But for the love of God, that should make people roll of their sleeves and work to bring back the sweetness and combat the sourness more than ever! Rather than gloating or becoming another boring media depressive everyone ought to recapture the memory of what a land flowing in milk and honey is like.
I understand devout people who think only Jesus Christ (and/or the Mahdi if you are a Twelver in belief) can fix the world. And they are correct to the extent that only in the faith is the way shown for goodness on earth under God and hopefully anticipation of eternal reward in heaven. But like the coach, this does not mean that the person who first wrote the football rule book has to attend every game. Imagine how the sport would go if no one knew how to play a game of football properly unless the one and only football rule book author had to be physically present at every game and shout out instructions, and call each play? Jesus Christ taught what people need to do in the Gospels. The Old Testament preserves the words of God through the prophets, including in good living advice in the Book of Proverbs! And the Prophet (PBUH) received from God’s angel the way to live in virtue and with strength and fidelity to the one God. Every time humanity gets itself into an awful situation people should not sit back and let their children (and the children of their global neighbors) to suffer while waiting for Jesus to arrive with his iron rod of final judgment.
Here is one final point with the analogy. Notice that I started with the observation that God would like to see “Superbowl” seasons for many, many years to come. I didn’t say each football season must be higher scoring, more talented, more exciting or more profitable than the season before or God will “cancel the sport for lack of progress.” To the contrary! It is “good” the way it is, just as the basic nature of humanity, if it lives by God’s rules and in the family unit is “good” already. It is maintaining the goodness that is humanity’s problem. But to use this example, every ten years of football, another generation of schoolchildren are born, learn about football, watch it on TV or attend games with their family. Later they grow up and become players, spectators, or part of the football economy (they at least wear a jersey!) Each child, each adult gains the benefit of football. It is not a cumulative success thing, just as the goodness of humanity is measured one person at a time in the goodness of their life and not by which team of humans won the Superbowl that season. If God fathered humans to be good and to live good lives, is not a thousand years of billions of humans being good even better? And is not ten thousand years of billions of humans being good better yet? Each person who lives in goodness and provides it to others is their own justification for life and for humanity continuing. So God wants to see the already “good” football sport continue to the Superbowl each year for season after season after season for as many as humans can muster and manage so long as the “goodness” is maintained. Likewise God wants to be a fan and coach of humanity, not be the one who has to turn out the lights and do the firings because humans stopped being good and gave up on the season.
I hope this helps.
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