68. Pretending to be Someone Else

2 Cor 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!

This has been a strange period of time for me, and I am more than a bit frustrated.  Though the government agency has finished their review of my agency, and there was nothing found that should prohibit my resuming taking on new business, we are still not cleared to do so. It is a bit frustrating as we cannot provide quality service with low numbers, in order to do adequate work there needs to be sufficient income, so that the person who works with me as well as myself do not have to split our attention to make ends meet.

As well, the other venture that I have been working with has taken a huge step sideways.  After a month of writing, asking for feedback, and being told that the work has been really good, during the meeting to finalize the material I have been working on, I am told that it actually is useless.  When I asked why that honest feedback wasn't given earlier it was explained they didn't want to hurt my feelings. 

I am not really sure how to take all this. I believe the saying is I don't know whether to scream, cry or go blind. 

The home front can carry equal frustration; we are in the midst of renovations. (Need I say more?)  I chuckle as I realize that if the renovations were a child then she would be going into grade one this year.  The roofing job we had done last year is actually worse than I thought when I first saw it.  And, with the business still in a holding pattern, the renovations are proceeding at the blinding speed of a glacier.

So if you hear on the radio or see on the TV the breaking story of a naked man on the roof of his house with a paintball gun, you can tell people you know that man.

 

I feel most challenged about prayer.  It seems messed up to ask God for my roof to be healed, when there will be people who die today because they went without food.  As well, how do I pray for more money when there are families in my community that are a pay cheque away from being destitute? The entire idea of rolling out my Letter to Santa and climbing up on God's lap to ask for new toys disturbs me.  Not that I think I should just shut up and be glad with what I have, but honestly, I am glad with what I have.

And so...

I am thanking God that life is so large that these kind of challenges confront me.

I am praying not that these situations go away, but rather for guidance as to what to do.  I believe that there exists an opportunity within all of this.

I am not going to tell the person who did not give me feed back until it was useless that she is an idiot.

I am moving ahead with confidence by hiring my cohort full time knowing that I can catch up later.

I am trying to see each situation as an opportunity to be of service and to be the messenger of love, grace and God that I am created to be.

It doesn’t come easy. 

There is still a desire to rant like Chevy Chase in the movie Vacation. The rant that includes "whistling zip a dee doh dah" out of a particular orifice - that “give you a piece of my mind” screaming fit.  But, I don't.  I am pretending to be someone else, a new creation.

And....

I have had the owner of a roofing company volunteer to help me to get the roof done properly by the first company.

There has not been the same delay with contracts that usually happen.

Then the other day thinking that I seemed kind of cranky Wanna tackled me – wink wink nudge nudge

I believe that I am created in the likeness of God.  Therefore, I am gracious, and patient, and loving, and kind, despite the fact that those traits lie buried and trampled over by my personal history.  So when I write about a new creation in Christ it is finding my way back to how God intended me to be.  I am not there yet.  I still want to stand up on a particular board room table and pee on a certain report. So instead I am pretending that I am someone else.  I am not sure who that person is, but I know how he is - a new creation.

And the miraculous seems to be happening.

67. What is the point?

So what is the point?

Hopefully as we mature in our faith, we come to a place of reckoning.  Why is it that I believe?  What is the point to my belief? 

You may have gathered by now that I question the doctrine of hell.  I think it is our penchant for punishment that is revealed in our interpretation of scripture, not God’s.  Simply put I do not think the love and grace of God has an expiration date.

So my faith is not an afterlife insurance policy.

I also do not believe that God was so angry at us, that he had to kill something.  We are told repeatedly that his anger last only for a moment, and that he is much more interested in repentance than sacrifice (punishment). 

So my faith is not an appeasement of God.

I am not one of those who upon securing a more hospitable residence for when I am dead, then go about storing up treasures in heaven.  I think the verses that refer to such, as well as the ones referring to our crowns, are simply hyperbole.

So my faith is not a celestial retirement savings plan.

That said, you would be within your rights to ask me what the point of my faith is.  The honest answer, because.  I grew up believing in God.  The same way I grew up believing in Uncle Murray and Aunt Marion – they lived in Winnipeg.  I think I saw Uncle Murray once, which means I have seen God more times.  As well for me the entire experience of life, even with the creepy family, was so outrageously good that I believed that there had to be something.

So my faith is part of the fabric of my life.

If you missed the post where I wrote about God being my imaginary friend, let me fill you in.  God is my imaginary friends.  That does not detract from him.  It is how God, for the most part, is accessed – through imagination.  Understand that I hold imagination in high regard.  Also, know that I consider all relationships an act of our imagination.  For the most part the other person, be it spouse, friend, family member, enemy, or other, is not the person we have the relationship with, it is who we imagine the person to be. I could get stranger with this but don’t want to at this time. I also know that there were many great matters that were sorted out through our imaginations.

I am intrigued by the theory that the universe is a hologram.  Imagine, no pun intended, that we are on the holodeck – what kind of scenario are you running?

http://rt.com/news/space-evidence-universe-hologram-195/

But I have side tracked too far.

So my imaginary friend God, has had to bear the brunt of my many fears and imaginings as well as joys and happinesses as well as sorrows and griefs.  But even when I left him alone – the Pslamist David tells us this is impossible – it was not so much he that I was avoiding him but those that were gathered in his name.  As well, I could not bring myself to believe the things they said about him.  I still believed in God.

So I have always sought God.

I have tried to be agnostic, and if you were a stranger and asked about my faith I would answer that I was agnostic.  Not that I am embarrassed about God, Christ and the Holy Spirit, rather I am embarrassed by some of the antics those that claim his name get up to doing.  But my agnosticism gets lost in curiosity.  If there is a God, and I believe so, then it is not enough to say that he cannot be understood or experienced. 

God is the biggest question there is.

So why am I a Christian?  Well, other than the fact that Christianity as I understand it is the only religion that has that I do not have to behave in order to come to God? 

I am Christian because it is the right thing to do. 

Sorry, it is that simple – that for me is the point of my faith.  When I had finally had enough of drinking and drugging and the insanity – I was told that if I turned my will and my life over to the care of God as I understood him, then the obsession to use would leave me.  And it did.

But it goes further than that.

I am called – invited – drawn to participate in creation – not creating.  Yes, it is hyperbole, but I am called to be part of Christ himself.  And yes I know the body part that most people I might probably form.  I am called to see the Christ in you and others, and to be the Christ to you and to others. 

I am called to keep mindful that this earthly life is but a season. The point of being here, even if all creation groans, is to enjoy the stay.