"You cannot be contained in man's imagination. You go on and on and on..."
It was a real sweet time with Jesus.
Then this morning I read in Psalm 50:21, "...you thought I was altogether like you..."
My general way of life, without giving any thought, is that God is like me. So wrong. He is uncontainable to my imagination.
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THIS POST has me really in thought. Wow. Digesting and searching whether there's scripture to disagree with his thoughts and my thought is there's not, so...wow.
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Lastly a paraphrase of the Lord's Prayer from "The Divine Conspiracy". (I'm finally on grueling long chapter 8 of 10. Whew.)
Dear Father always near us,
may your name be treasured and loved,
may your rule be completed in us -
may your will be done here on earth
in just the way it is done in heaven.
Give us today the things we need today,
and forgive us our sins and impositions on you
as we are forgiving all who in any way offend us.
Please don't put us through trials,
but deliver us from everything bad.
Because you are the one in charge,
and you have all the power,
and the glory too is all yours - forever-
which is just the way we want it!
may your name be treasured and loved,
may your rule be completed in us -
may your will be done here on earth
in just the way it is done in heaven.
Give us today the things we need today,
and forgive us our sins and impositions on you
as we are forgiving all who in any way offend us.
Please don't put us through trials,
but deliver us from everything bad.
Because you are the one in charge,
and you have all the power,
and the glory too is all yours - forever-
which is just the way we want it!
"'Just the way we want it' is not a bad paraphrase for 'amen'. What is needed at the end of this great prayer is a ringing affirmation of the goodness of God and God's world. If your nerves can take it, you might (occasionally?) try 'Whoopee!'. I imagine God himself will not mind."
I love that paragraph following the prayer!
I love that paragraph following the prayer!
4 comments:
I love the phrase "uncontained to my imagination."
Jeremy and I have been talking about PBZ's last two posts (greco-christian and judeo-christian). Our reaction has been much like yours. Mind blowing.
WOW, that was a lot to absorb. The cycle of life after life after death.... HUGE. You know, my mind never went past happy on a cloud, strumming a harp.. (kidding.. kind of). The point about this being our home is something new for me, but it confirms what God has been saying to me. I have wanted to live in a protected "sub world" until it was time to "go home", but God is saying, right now this is home, so make the most of it. Maybe that wasn't his point, but eh, works for me.
Thanks for the great food for thought.
The PBZ post was very interesting. The Heart of Wisdom Teaching Approach by Robin Sampson goes into some of that history and calls for a return to more Judeo-Christian rather than Greco-Christian thinking. The other thought I had was of the Ray Boltz song "Does He Still Feel the Nails?" It's been years since I heard it, but it's such haunting song that causes you to really think about the effect our sin has on Jesus. Much pondering!
I can't say I care for the paraphrase of the Lord's Prayer though. I don't think the line, "Please don't put us through trials and deliver us from everything bad," is at all accurate or even Biblical!
Thanks for your comments on my blog! Have a great weekend!
About the line 'please don't put us through trials...'. Yeah, I don't really like the way he put that part either. But the author goes into detail about the meaning and it was really good. The line didn't totally match up to his explanation.
His point was that it's good to pray that nothing bad happens, as God wants to save us from many bad things that COULD happen (not that we are spared every bad circumstance). And we need to recognize that we are weak without Him and incapable of making it through bad things on our own - so we are praying out of our weakness, into His strength.
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