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.