More Meanderings...

My TREK friend was very busy over the weekend so he wasn't able to email me until today, and then he asked a couple questions that were from the Catholic realm, and rather than bluff my way through them, I told him, truthfully, that I don't have answers to them. I have guesses, and opinions, but nothing to base them on except what I have learned as a Protestant, so I won't answer them in this blog tonight. He attended a memorial service over the weekend and the monsignor contradicted himself a couple of times. I said he'd have to ask the man himself to clarify what he believes. I'm sure there's an explanation; I just don't know what it might be.

I hope he gets LEARN THE BIBLE IN 24 HOURS by Chuck Missler and finds answers in it to so many of his questions so that we can be on a level playing field. As long as anyone doubts the veracity of the Bible, I don't see how we can come to any kind of mutual starting point... and if we can't do that, we may as well drop the topic and begin something else because we will be spinning our wheels and getting absolutely nowhere.

I believe to the core of my being that the Bible was given by God to people who were tuned in to him (after studying it for eight years, reading how impossible it would be for it to have been dreamed up by 40 different authors and been accurate and tie together the way it does when the authors didn't know each other, etc.). Only a Someone who knows past, present and future could have "dictated" it to His devotees -- Someone who can look across the entire span of "time" and see it all laid out. God isn't bound by time and limited vision.

Imagine a parade. From a perspective down on the ground you might see one, two or three floats at a time. From the top of a building, you would be able to see perhaps 10 or 12 at a time. From a helicopter, you might be able to see the whole parade and know where it begins and ends -- past, present and future all at the same time (from the perspective of a street-based person who's NOT in the copter with you.) Same parade -- different perspectives and ability to "experience/understand" it all.

God is in a position to see HISTORY from such a vantage point, because He exists "outside" time. He created it. He can watch His plan from start to finish. That's why He was able to tell his prophets what was coming. That's how we are able to discern "false prophets": if they say something will happen and it doesn't, it wasn't told to them by God.

I wish I could find my copy of LEARN THE BIBLE IN 24 HOURS, but then I would give away too much of the farm and you wouldn't go get it and read it. That would not be a good thing!
But I highlighted so much of it -- there was so much great stuff in it that answered the questions I had - it must be 3/4 yellow. I know I went through two highlighters while reading it. "Oh, this is good! Oh, man! I didn't connect this to that! Holy Smokes! This is amazing!"

And when you get to the chapter about the gazillions of odds against one man in history (Jesus) fulfilling the dozens of prophecies about the Messiah in the Bible, it will convince the most unconvinced skeptics on the planet, I think! I'm not a mathematician, so I wasn't able to follow it every step of the way, but those of you with left-brain dominance will be able to, and YOU are the folks most likely to be skeptics, I think. (Right brain/intuitive people find God more believable because they have personally discerned Him more often. I think that may be why the majority of church goers are female. The "fair" sex has to be right-brained or dual-sided in order to multitask and interact as much and as well as we do over the spectrum of activities we so often ride herd on.) (By the way, this isn't a sexist remark. Men are "hunters." They fixate and pursue goals: a deer, a job, sex, a wife, shelter (not generally in that order!). Women are scatter-brained (in a nice way!) : they can gather eggs while holding an infant on one hip and watching out for the safety an older child; or answer the phone while faxing and writing a note to a colleague...

The older I get, the less well I am able to be "scatterbrained." In the past, I worked well as a pinball in a pinball machine: I could head in one direction, be knocked into another direction, careem off yet another, and remember to get back on track to the first goal I had in mind. These days, I can still "scatter" but getting back on track is harder: I may forget where the hell the track began or where I was headed before someone diverted my attention away from it! Don't get me wrong -- I'm still better at it than most men will EVER be, but the ability to do it is faultier the older I get. Some days I just have to sit down and concentrate (depending on what it is I need to do) and let the rest of the " to do" list wait until my brain can wrap itself around the next task...

And that's okay. It can grate on a person to find oneself less able do things that used to come so easily, but it's all part of the process of learning to let go and resign as General Manager of the Universe. Someone else has the reins, anyway!