Monday, August 04, 2003
Yargh
So much for daily retro-updating (I think I just made up a word =P) about the Grenada trip! I think I'm just going to give up on that idea because with my schedule, the idea wasn't really practical, and going day by day makes it harder to explain the overall experience.
Anyway, today I felt like I got some stuff to think about in Sunday school (sorry, I've given up trying to call it Life Long Learning). After I gave my thoughts, other people gave their thoughts, which didn't necessarily agree with mine, or gave another angle for me to consider. I listened to them, and I could see where they came from, but I didn't change my initial opinion, I just took parts of what was said and made revisions/additions to my own thoughts. I think that's a good kind of way to approach new ideas (like the scientific method), but still, I have this niggling feeling in the back of my mind that I'm actually being closeminded. Y'know, like I'm not really hearing what people are saying, and I'm just taking parts of thier arguments and making them fit into my own beliefs.
For example, we were talking about war, and God's view of war. There was this passage from Isaiah or something in which the Israelites were told by God (through a prophet, of course) to go to war to carry out "God's vengeance". The way I looked at it, the main thing was not that because God told the Israelites to go to war, therefore God is okay with war, but that that particular war was "okay" because it was a direct order from God. The Israelites were just tools to carry out God's vengeance. How many wars nowadays can be seen to have similar motives? Basically I was trying to say that our wars, nowadays especially, are NOT okay with God. I realize that my logic wasn't and isn't particularly well thought out, but I believe that my basic idea (of war not being okay with God) still stands.
Shawn and Alan both discussed how God uses war, and I could be wrong, but it seemed to me like their point was that God is okay with war, and that sometimes he even wants to use war to make a point. Now, I agree that God can and does use war, but just because he uses it doesn't mean that he desires it. I mean, God also uses all the hard times and pains that we go through, but does that mean that he desires these hard times and pains on us? Argh. Somehow that logic sounded better in my head. Now I don't know if I'm really making sense or not.
I guess the way I see it, it's kind of like Pastor Sharon's thing about the beatitudes. I've heard her talk several times about how Jesus isn't saying that it's desirable to be poor in spirit, or to mourn so that you can be blessed, but that the beatitudes were spoken to comfort people already experiencing such brokenness. Feh. I'm making a hash of it again, but I see God's opinion on war in kind of a similar way. War is, unfortunately, a fact of human life, so sure God uses it, but I think that he'd rather NOT have to use it, just like he wants us to live happy, whole lives, not broken or mournful ones, but doesn't stop blessing us even in those less than ideal times.
So much for daily retro-updating (I think I just made up a word =P) about the Grenada trip! I think I'm just going to give up on that idea because with my schedule, the idea wasn't really practical, and going day by day makes it harder to explain the overall experience.
Anyway, today I felt like I got some stuff to think about in Sunday school (sorry, I've given up trying to call it Life Long Learning). After I gave my thoughts, other people gave their thoughts, which didn't necessarily agree with mine, or gave another angle for me to consider. I listened to them, and I could see where they came from, but I didn't change my initial opinion, I just took parts of what was said and made revisions/additions to my own thoughts. I think that's a good kind of way to approach new ideas (like the scientific method), but still, I have this niggling feeling in the back of my mind that I'm actually being closeminded. Y'know, like I'm not really hearing what people are saying, and I'm just taking parts of thier arguments and making them fit into my own beliefs.
For example, we were talking about war, and God's view of war. There was this passage from Isaiah or something in which the Israelites were told by God (through a prophet, of course) to go to war to carry out "God's vengeance". The way I looked at it, the main thing was not that because God told the Israelites to go to war, therefore God is okay with war, but that that particular war was "okay" because it was a direct order from God. The Israelites were just tools to carry out God's vengeance. How many wars nowadays can be seen to have similar motives? Basically I was trying to say that our wars, nowadays especially, are NOT okay with God. I realize that my logic wasn't and isn't particularly well thought out, but I believe that my basic idea (of war not being okay with God) still stands.
Shawn and Alan both discussed how God uses war, and I could be wrong, but it seemed to me like their point was that God is okay with war, and that sometimes he even wants to use war to make a point. Now, I agree that God can and does use war, but just because he uses it doesn't mean that he desires it. I mean, God also uses all the hard times and pains that we go through, but does that mean that he desires these hard times and pains on us? Argh. Somehow that logic sounded better in my head. Now I don't know if I'm really making sense or not.
I guess the way I see it, it's kind of like Pastor Sharon's thing about the beatitudes. I've heard her talk several times about how Jesus isn't saying that it's desirable to be poor in spirit, or to mourn so that you can be blessed, but that the beatitudes were spoken to comfort people already experiencing such brokenness. Feh. I'm making a hash of it again, but I see God's opinion on war in kind of a similar way. War is, unfortunately, a fact of human life, so sure God uses it, but I think that he'd rather NOT have to use it, just like he wants us to live happy, whole lives, not broken or mournful ones, but doesn't stop blessing us even in those less than ideal times.
