The Light in the Woods

#15 – THE LIGHT IN THE WOODS – OCTOBER 2006

© Aubri Dennison 2006

10/3/06 Inspirations       As I was kayaking it was suddenly so clear to me – of course it’s never right to target God’s people for death. No matter how much you love God He will only use you as an instrument for good, not evil. So if you’re a terrorist you want to assess whether your tendencies are really for the love of God or under the influence of the devil. And if you’re a terrorist’s target, you needn’t wonder if God is conspiring against you. God doesn’t want anyone to hate others for falling prey to sin, and He doesn’t give anyone the go-ahead for genocide. Where is the good, if you kill all non-Muslims? Then only Muslims will sin. Sin is with us on earth no matter what we do – you can’t kill it away. God decides, as He always has, not priests, rabbis, or mullahs.

10/8/06 Inspirations        I was going to read a medical mystery book just to see if I could get back to reading for fun. For the last two years anything I read that isn’t theology seems so lame and inconsequential. After a few pages, I realized the book concerned abortion, and before long I got a creepy feeling the book was pro-abortion although the author tried to appear open-minded. So I went to the back of the book where there were research notes. In many pages of notes, including the six main arguments surrounding the controversy, the author never once managed to mention the will of God concerning His creation. Suddenly I realized that not only are there people who form their life decisions as if there was no input from God, but that there are many people like that and I used to be one of them. If you go on beyond abortion to other decisions, you realize that our pride and need to feel in control of our lives predominate our culture. Pride and self-determination are good things when used for good, but as usual we swing way out and use our gifts wrongly. The wonder is that it’s safe to mention our creator at all. The wonder is that He allows such despicable creatures to breathe. Well, we don’t understand His great love for us but it’s surely noticeable if you take a look at what He’s up against. Now the question is, how can I help bring people to see the importance of God’s will? Not so that nobody has fun here on earth, but so that they can enjoy God’s kingdom forever, and bring our culture back to where it’s based on what really counts. How can we feel worthy of help from God in protecting ourselves from evil abroad if we don’t admit God’s desires here at home?

10/17/06 Insights from Study         No wonder there is strife in the world – we are trying to work against our almighty creator. If He was mighty enough to create the universe, what is there in a man that would make him even entertain the idea of denying God? It’s the big sin, pride – pride in one’s “selfness”. If only we could all see how dependent on God we are, pride would go out the window. Would this result in the expected abasement of ourselves? Quite the opposite – abasement is what we now have. In a loving relationship with God, a proud person finally has what they’ve been looking for – their right place, a high place; through acceptance of the love they’ve always had in the mind of God. Can you ever hope to top that by your own means?

10/18/06 Inspirations          How to demonstrate humanism: first, deny certain of God’s gifts as “inappropriate” for human consumption. Or alter these gifts in such a way as you take out the value God put in them, and declare that it’s now “better for you.” Then, promote a list of things God has forbidden, make them into law so that believers will have to choose civil disobedience and non-believers or waverers will come to think sin is “acceptable”. Remove any trace of God from public view so that whenever anyone tries to get guidance from the source of all power they will come to be seen as “fanatically repressive”. Promote sex education in schools in such a way as to get kids to think that anyone who abstains is “self-righteous”. Tell people that whatever they want to do with their bodies is OK because God’s will and free choice are mutually exclusive. Call abortion, pornography, prostitution, homosexuality, compulsive gambling, public lewdness, and blasphemy “victimless pursuits”, and display of a manger scene at Christmas “offensive to others”. Our country was founded on the principle of religious rights because those that settled here recognized that our rights come from God, as do our responsibilities. Our country has been blessed many times over since then. We have been counted on to export this culture of prosperity to others less fortunate. This is the responsibility of the fortunate. But we have taken His gifts and made them into something evil. How long can we trample God’s love in the dirt before He decides to put His efforts where it’s better appreciated and better used?

10/19/06 Insights from Study             Would you bother to seek and love God if you always lived in perfect peace and contentment? It’s only through adversity that you come to Him in awe, knowing that He doesn’t always override the disastrous effect of a sinful world. One of the hardest things for me to remember is that when we’re troubled, God doesn’t find it offensive that we ask for deliverance. In fact, He loves to love us and give us good gifts. And He will always keep His promise.

10/28/06 Inspirations               Proof of God? He can’t be measured – He is infinite, omnipotent. Our human understanding of Him must be incomplete because we’re not perfect like Him. If He can’t be measured, science will never be able to explain Him. But that doesn’t mean He isn’t real; only that science is insufficient. Why doesn’t He appear? He doesn’t work that way. He doesn’t want us to come to Him just because He’s beaten us over the head to make it happen. He wants us to experience His love and for us to return it; coming to Him through our complicit free will. It’s the same way with tragedy and disaster — those are consequences of an imperfect world that God doesn’t always intervene against. Why? For the same reason He doesn’t appear to us in a mass vision; it’s more important and beneficial for us to see ourselves in our weakness than to see God in His power. No tragedy on earth comes close to the tragedy of not spending eternal life close to God. But we have to ask and we have to give. We have to ask God for His knowledge and grace in order to give Him what we have to give Him – our own will in order to meld ourselves into His will. Once we know we’re pleasing to our creator we don’t need to do anything else.

10/29/06 Insights from Study                The more I get exposed to other religious viewpoints, the more I realize it’s OK to believe what I believe, and I don’t have to hide my convictions. Right and wrong is written on my heart – this is God’s work, and if it brings me to God in a different path than others or than the one I was raised to walk, the fact that God is with me says it all. I don’t have to explain how I know God’s with me – all discernment comes from Him, and I’ve been given the grace to weigh my beliefs. That over with, I’ve become right with God and can start to be God’s instrument to help others up to the right path. Not because I’m right and they’re wrong, but because it’s a privilege to enjoy our creator; a privilege that is a shame for anyone to miss out on.

10/29/06 Insights from Study          The difference between studying God and knowing God is like the difference between romance and love. We start out with a fervent infatuation and end up in a comfortable dedication. The process is necessary. We sometimes mistake the moment of spiritual sophistication as the onset of lukewarmness. It isn’t that at all, as when romance turns into love. We are led from active seeking to passive enjoyment; from proactive study to intrinsic knowledge. When God takes over, we know we’ve made it, because the process demands we let go. Then divine guidance takes over from human incompetence.

10/29/06 Insights from Study           The fact that the same subject in the gospels is often seen differently by the individual writers is way more heartening to me than disillusioning. It’s the exact same thing we ourselves witness all the time, and that puts the stamp of authenticity on it in a way that precise accord never could. What’s magenta to me could be purple to you. But if we both say the robbers got away in a dark blue metal flake automatic transmission 4×4 with black leather interior, we could justifiably be suspect of collaboration. And if we’re talking about a robbery that took place years before and was witnessed not by us but by someone who told us about it, that’s even more suspect.

10/29/06 Insights from Study          I’m uncomfortable with a true mystic’s need to forego any thoughts of worldly gifts, even if the thought is for the adoration of the giver – God Himself. It makes a mystic into someone useless to society, and, therefore, to God. So you’ve made yourself “right with God” — what good is that to anyone but yourself? Can’t I be a mystic in the sense of enjoying direct communication with God and still be a benefit to society? Of course I can – Jesus did it and I’m doing it. That’s where the “Christian” part of Christian Mystic comes in. A Christian doesn’t just mean someone who believes in Christ; it means someone who lives in a Christlike way, and Christ was never a selfish hermit. Maybe it should be called “applied mysticism”.

10/31/06 Inspirations         Lord, your people call out to you, and when you answer ever so quietly they don’t listen. But then they move on to Satan’s places to call out again, and the devil trips over himself in his zeal to intercede. Lord, what Satan has to offer will pass away with the earth. Your gifts are eternal.

10/31/06 Inspirations           How dare you berate God for not interceding against the tribulation our sins have brought upon us, when you won’t even acknowledge His authorship of your every joy?

10/31/06 Insights from Study           The person who says “Well, I guess my reward will have to be in heaven” hasn’t looked around themselves enough. Is it possible to miss so entirely the beauty that has been made for us? The care that has gone into our evolution? The mastery over the rest of creation that we have been entrusted with? The promise that has been echoed throughout the history of man and God? Our reward is in heaven, but if we haven’t recognized the rewards here on earth that we’ve been given despite our not having deserved them, then we haven’t recognized God’s presence here on earth at all. So it’s no wonder we feel unsatisfied and unappreciated – the trick isn’t to write it off with a sigh and wait for something better, but rather to be satisfied and appreciative of what we have.