What Do I Believe?

What do I believe? What do I think is true? This question refers to things I expect to remain true and not change, though they may, but I believe they won't because that would not be truth. My reality may change, but the truths I hold, the things I believe with every ounce of certainty will not. If they do, then they no longer are true or believed.

In addition, I am not speaking for myself only. If I believe something to be true, then I believe it to be true for you as well. You may disagree with me, but that just means I think you are wrong (some of my favorite people fit that category). So, what do I believe? Let me start with a few regarding God.

I believe God exists, is omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient.

I believe the Bible is God inspired.

I believe Jesus is God and God's Son.

I believe I could go on and on, but you could find it all in the Bible. In fact, it seems anyone can explain or disprove just about anything using scripture. This is often due to the fact that scripture is often taken out of context. You can't yank five words out of a whole book to fit your circumstance. I know I am guilty of this on occasion, many of us are, but we need to do better. However even then it can be difficult at times. Furthermore, there are many churchy ideas we believe, that are quite difficult to explain with scripture at all (which would make them not true). Here's one that's been driving me nuts the past few days: Freewill.

Freewill is a widely accepted belief amongst the church today. I don't think I have met someone who shares my beliefs of God that does not also believe in freewill. But find it in scripture... sot so easy. At least it hasn't been, for me. So what, you say? Major on the majors and minor on the minors, and freewill is a minor? I disagree, without freewill, it all changes, nearly everything I know to be true and purposeful changes. This matters.

Do we have freewill to choose to follow God and his Commands?

If He is all powerful (as I believe he is), and He makes a command, then I suppose NO, we have no choice. God said "let there be light" and there was light. If we can choose to not follow His commands then doesn't that mean we are overriding God's power, which makes Him not all powerful. It changes truth, it matters. Unless, of course, His command is for us to choose. Choose to follow or not, to believe or not to believe.

Let's look and scripture, and if freewill is true and the bible is true, then it should be evident. Lazerus - Did Lazerus choose to walk out of the tomb when Jesus called him to come forth or did His call simply rip Lazerus right out of there? i can just see it... "Dude, Jesus you rock, I thought I was like dead and then all the sudden like whoa, here I am! Far out!" (guess I picture Lazerus as a surfer dude)

How 'bout when Jesus called his disciples to follow him? They did, why? Did they choose to follow, or were they without choice because the Almighty commanded it so, just as God commanded the "light"? Maybe the "light" can shed some... well just read Gen. 1-3 and I'll pick up from there later.

Truth defined

The "Truth" that I am focused on is definition #5a of thefreedictionary.com: reality or actuality. There are alot of things we accept as true, but are not necessarily verified facts, nonetheless we treat them as such anyhow. Gravity, as far as I know is not a proven thing. There probably is some obscure bit of proof out there that I don't know about, but that just makes my point. Even when we don't have or know all the facts, we believe it exists. Call it faith, belief, whatever... we do it. I see my 2 year old son standing on the couch, and I have a belief... he will jump off and gravity will introduce his face to the corner of the TV stand. I don't worry about the ceiling fan, because I know he will fall down not go up up up like he wishes he could. I believe it. I have faith.

Now let's say you have a revelation, you read something, watched something, whatever and you come to realize that gravity doesn't really exist or at least not the way you thought it did. Sure, at first your skeptical, but as time goes on it starts to make more and more sense... gravity isn't pulling you, the atmosphere is pushing you, or the sun, or stars or whatever. But your reality has changed, your actuality, your truth about gravity. You dont say much about it to anyone, because they won't believe you, understand what your talking about, or even care since there completely comfortable believing what you used to. Nonetheless, you can't go back to the old way of thinking, and it changes how you view so much of what is important to you life. Not talking about little trivial things, but foundations of who you are and what you do. Like gravity, it is a big deal.

So I guess more of what I am speaking of is BELIEF and what I believe to be TRUE. Much of what I have been accepting and believing to be true is changing. Things that define me like career, education, parenting, values, success, church, community, family, and yes even God (more about God and who he is and what he wants from me rather than his existence). And it seems that many of these truths are coming faster than I can fully process them, so I am using this blog as a 21st century means to organize and develop my thoughts. I welcome your input and will try not to proclaim too much as absolute truth (although I will get there eventually) and have no agenda or purpose other than to make sense of the hundreds of thoughts that are brewing in my head at any one moment.

So, what do I believe is TRUE?

True or false

As a teacher I have often relied on the age old assessment tool of True or False statements, but it seems that lately many of the truths that I have held, that society around me, and culture has blindly accepted as written in stone are beginning to to look different to me. That is to say not true, untrue, false. What if some of our most basic beliefs are wrong, incorrect, not really what we thought? What is reality? What is truth? Just because everyone else does it, accepts it, believes it is no longer enough or me. I must look deeper and ask more questions. This planet's crust is only about 7-30 miles thick, but its some 4,000 miles to the core. We are very familiar with the crust, the surface of it anyhow, but that is not all there is. There is more, the reality of Earth is much more involved than dirt and soil and worms. I am digging for truth.