Spirit Gives Birth To Spirit

Moses had his burning bush. When he had fled out to a foreign land and left his life behind, he became a simple shepherd. In this time in his wilderness, he spent time away from the rush and bustle of the world. Then one day he led his flock far into the wilderness and came upon the mountain of Horeb (also called the Mountain Of God). There, he had a face to face encounter when God showed up in a burning bush. Moses was respectful of the awe inspiring and holy God, so he took his sandals off and bowed before Him. And he was humble when God told him to go back to Egypt and save the Isrealites from their Egyptian overlords. He said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” But God knew his worth and knew that he was capable of the task He had given Moses. So he gave Moses His name "I am who is," or "I am who sent you." and sent Moses on his way to an historic adventure that would save his people.  What is your &q

When I read my bible regularly I am at peace. When I am soaking in the presence of God on Sunday afternoon on my couch with some good music on, I am at peace. When I go about my day knowing there is a bigger reality out there than I can fathom in my little frantic life, then I am at peace. And greater than that I have love. Love is the supreme end of humanity. To live without love is to die. Peace leads to love and love leads to peace. It is a wheel on which we should all learn to dwell. Without it, we are just existing.

Compassion - stolen from latin - means "to suffer with." To have compassion means to feel the pain of the person you are identifying with and to offer them something to sooth that pain, knowing that pain yourself. If we have compassion (experience the pain), all pat answers for other human beings' suffering will fall away. In those moments we are given the words to comfort. Those words come from the mouth of God, who has in turn suffered with us.

If you make wealth or having a full life, or changing the world, or even helping people the supreme goal of your life, you will never have enough. But if you make love the supreme goal of your life, you will always have more than enough.

Near death experiences bring you so much closer to the world around you. Those of you who know me well for the past few years, know that I speak from experience. I am reading a book by Philip Yancey and he describes what happens after a near death experience, and it is exactly my experience. "For weeks after the accident, I walked around in a daze of grace, looking at the sky, trees, grass, my wife, my friends, with fresh eyes...each new day brought promptings of gratitude"  and "I felt at once more conscious of the world's suffering which CNN and the internet funnel into our homes every day, and more grateful for the sheer joy and beauty of life." I highly recommend a near death experience to anyone who is apathetic or even just bored with life. On second thought, just practice being grateful whether you believe in God or not. It has the same effect.

Atheists are people too. So often, as we Christians hunker down in the Christian ghetto that begins to surround us as we grow in our faith, it is easy to demonize the very people we are here to bless. This should not be so. In our world of media-induced arguments, we are to remember the person on the other side of the table, who deserves love as much as us. I think that the best way to keep from this mindset is to go out and serve in the community, to keep up our contact  with those who do not believe as we do and those who do, but are suffering. To create relationships with people who may have faith, but are down on their luck - the homeless, the prostitute, the racist, the angry, the hurting, the hungry. The gospel needs legs because it is good news, and our actions can change the world if they are done in love. People who do not think as we do, will see the love in our actions, and this I believe is more effective in touching people's lives than all the sermons or apologetics bo

So I was explaining my faith to someone today. I told him that I believe that there are certain immutable laws to existence: a blade of grass grows like a tree grows like a human grows. There are differences, of course, but there are similarities that help us understand the world around us. I believe this is because there is an intelligence behind creation that does things in a way that humans can perceive. Atheists would say that it is our perception and the way we record information that is the commonality. But I choose to believe that there is an intelligence behind the laws of the universe. I choose to believe this because I have found that when I believe this, I am a better, more self-actualized person with a better outlook who actively works to do good in the world. It is the gift of faith the bible speaks of... it is not something you can muster on your own, rather it is a gift given to any human being who will accept the gift. If you come down on the atheists' side, I think