Disappointing God
This is somewhat advanced theology. On the other hand, what isn’t?
After my previous post I started thinking that it is actually possible to cause God a disappointment. Let’s take a look at an interesting account in the 1. Samuel 15 (ESV, emphasis mine):
10-11: The word of the LORD came to Samuel: “I regret that I have made Saul king, for he has turned back from following me and has not performed my commandments.”
28-29: “The LORD has torn the kingdom of Israel from you this day and has given it to a neighbor of yours, who is better than you. And also the Glory of Israel will not lie or have regret, for he is not a man, that he should have regret.”
35: And the LORD regretted that he had made Saul king over Israel.
Let it be noted, that in Hebrew all these instances use the same word. Samuels reply is a reference to Numbers 23:19, where Balaam told to the king of Moabites that he could only bless Israel, not curse, because LORD would not change His mind.
So which way is it? Does God regret or not? The answer is of course yes – to both questions. Here’s how I figure it out:
God is by nature transcendent, beyond time and space. As such He knew what Saul would – and would not – do. And Saul did not disappoint Him. Nevertheless Saul was not the kind of King God wanted the king of Israel to be. He wanted to be the king of Israel Himself. He gave them Saul because people begged a king. (1 Sam 8).
Yet I would not say that Saul was doomed to fail in His task. Outside time God at sees everything what happens, whenever that happens. No-one really does anything, because action takes time, but everything just is, like is a still picture. And of course there is no free will visible. In this frame of reference it is impossible to fail Him. And whatever He decides in this frame of reference cannot change, for change needs time, but there is no time.
However, we do not live in that frame of reference. When we encounter God, it happens where we live, in this time and space of ours. Because we are inside time, we perceive ourselves as having a free will. Therefore it’s fair to say that within this frame of reference free will actually makes a difference, whereas in the transcendent frame of reference it is trivialized. But since we do have a free will – from our own point of view – we are capable of disappointing God.
This is the sense in which God regretted that He had made Saul king. Time after time Saul had failed to be obedient. He feared the men and did not ask advice from the LORD. He even cursed himself with the wrath of God. (14:44). Having chosen Him within time, it was within time that He regretted it. Of course transcendentally He knew He would do so.
The really interesting part is when Saul confesses his sins and begs for forgivness. He is not given back the kingship. We could say that he pushed his luck a straw too long.
The lesson for us is that we must not rely on mercy of God and go sinning. That would be failing Him. Not failing Him is staying put and saying:
Here I am, right now. You do what you want.
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I have never failed God – and He hasn’t failed me.
Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.
Hebrews 3:7-8
Sometimes it is difficult for me to remember certain times in the past. Not only because there were years so hard that I can really only recall some spliters from here and there. But because remembering many of the other things – those that I can recall – is painful. Ultimately, I think this may just be a matter of degree: the harder the pain, the blanker the memory.
But today I faced a memory from the past. I heard of a person I have not heard in a long time. And looking at how her life has gone – which was no surprice – I suddenly realized something. God has blessed me.
Namely, during the course of my life I could have taken many turns. Looking back, I have given up many opportunuties, due to fear, uncertainity, fatigue, depression, low self-esteem or anxiety. I suddenly realized what could have been, had I taken one another path. It could have been great. But I didn’t go for it. And what I ended up with instead, is terrific as well. So, even when I failed, I was blessed.
But then I realized another thing. I have never failed God. It’s not really possible to let down an omniscient being, who knows all I am and do even before I do it. So He knew what I would choose (and why) and prepared me a blessing. And also blessed my by letting me see what could have been. (I still have to work out what sort of blessing is that…)
However, I’m only so far. As if yet, I do not know how satisfied God will be to me in the end. If I get there, He will be. And to get there, there’s only one thing to do. The thing that has kept me on the path where I have got all these blessings.
- To seek truth, which is to seek God, who is truth.
- To stick to that and act accordingly.
- And when this fails, start over from the first point.
This is what is meant by: “Today, if you hear His voice, do not harder your hearts in rebellion.”
Worn out…
It’s this time of the year. And not. But still. I feel pretty stretched and worn out. Yet, this has been a good day. I mean that I actually got pretty much done. In addition to spending most of the day with my loved ones <3.
Today I’ve finally managed to write something about unity. In a more or less coherent form. Pretty good, considering that I’ve tried to do that for a couple of weeks not. I tried to go on into obedience, but had to give up.
Anyway, here’s a sample. It still need lot of CLAP, but I thought I’d better get something out in the first place…
Unity – Creating a critical density of mature Christians in Europe.
The aim of Project Diktuon is to create a critical density of mature Christians in Europe. This is different from a critical mass: even in nuclear bomb the question is about density – enough high quality substance in small enough space. Likewise, we want to bring many high-quality Christians into a web of connections with each other and tighten that network.
The purpose of God is to have children. He wants people to be part of His family. And if we are of one family with Him, we are of one family with each other. Christ did not leave us here alone. He left us here together. And it is His will that we live here together, loving one another.
As we are immersed in the death and resurrection of Christ, we are of one being with Him. We literally have a connection. In Christ we are children of God, His younger brothers and sisters. This applies to all Christians, so we are one in Christ, even with people we have never met.
The unity in Christ is reality to all people in the Kingdom so we need to act accordingly. We need to embrace everyone, who is in Christ, with brotherly love, and welcome them to our communion. As we are of one body, we must accept unity in holy communion with each other. To reject a person, in whom Christ lives from the the holy communion, is to reject Christ.
Our unity with each other is founded on the fact that we are in Christ and Christ is in us. When we want to conquer our differences and work on our unity, we do it by seeking Christ, not by seeking each other. We will find each other at His cross. We wont find agreement by you starting to think like I, or I starting to think like you, but by each of us surrendering our minds to Christ, so that He would teach us how He thinks.
We need to seek the truth and not assume we have found it. When we seek the truth, we seek Christ, who is Truth. Therefore there is never harm is seeking the truth. To seek the truth is to be ready to relinquish what we believe to be true for what we learn. Therefore to seek the truth is to be aware of our own fallibility and to be humble. If we cease to seek the truth, we cease to seek Christ.
To seek Christ is to focus in what we have in common in Him, and not to side issues that separate us. To respect Christ is to respect all those, who are in Christ, even when we think or act differently. If Christ wants either of us to change, it is His task to demand and cause it, not ours.
This means that we need to consent to unity of Christians. Not in our own terms, or the terms of the other Christians, but in the terms of Christ. Our unity is not just a good idea, it’s a fact. To renounce that fact in words or deeds is to renounce Christ. The path to unity and unanimity is obedience and submission to Christ.
Path to this consenting is a path of prayer. As we pray, we surrender more of our lives to Christ. We need to pray together and for each other. As we do that, we surrender more of our relationships to Christ and consenting to unity becomes our desire and we start to work together for common goals. We need to encounter each other and everyone else praying, so that people would see Christ in us. As we submit to the teaching of Holy Spirit, we learn to pray like this as naturally as we breath.
No Christian is an island. We belong to God’s family, and we have to take care of one another. We are both those who need to be taken care for and those who need to look after others. But no-one of us is alone, no-one can leave their siblings alone, or do anything in the kingdom alone. Even Jesus sent His disciples two by two, never alone.
Our actions as individuals have to grow from real, living human-sized communities. These communities have to emerge organically from the people, and they cannot be established by an outside authority. Similarly, Project Diktuon is about supporting people in these communities, helping people to bear fruit in their current contexts, and not establishing new ones.
Our most important community is our own family, and the most important place to build the Kingdom is at our own home. Our homes are the places where we can be real ourselves and let others see us and our lives as we are.
These communities, such as families and micro-churches are natural building blocks in the kingdom. They are places to share care, love, attention and prayer. These small communities are where we live our authentic everyday life. There we can be the representatives of God’s grace to each other and to those following our lives and serve our communities and surroundings with the gifts God has trusted us.
While it is important to team up, to be remain functional these communities also need to be small enough. Typically the upper limit for the size is about a dozen. Thus the growth of such communities leads organically into their multiplication, as they divide when new people join them.
The communities are the context, where we can experience we belong to something larger than just ourselves. These communities themselves belong to an even bigger context, the Body of Christ. Thus each of us is individually a subject in the Kingdom of God.
We need to work for the good of the Kingdom, even when it does not serve our immediate benefits or those of our community. When the Kingdom prospers, the people of the Kingdom prosper. We need to remember that our goal is is better than an own goal.
We need to appreciate our differences as the richness of God’s creation. God has called us to be His children and reflect His likeness. We must not try to convert others to think or act like we do, but to seek together Christ and His ways and let everyone mature in their own faith. And accept, that they might end up somewhat different than we. To expect others to be like our ideals, is to replace God with our ideals. Our unity is not based on how we see each other, but in us being in Christ.
We want to reach all of the Kingdom and welcome everyone who is in Christ and commits to these values to this the Diktuon Network, irrespective of their religious background or their position within their religious context.
10 Reasons why I love WPMU
WPMU is short for WordPress MultiUser. Sometime in hopefully not so distant future the WPMU code will be integrated into the WordPress core. I’ve written couple comments on the wpmu.org blog lately, so I guess I could also take part to their competition. So here are 10 reasons why I love WPMU.
10) I use WPMU. In fact, this blog is on WPMU. In fact, I have several sites on this same WPMU installation. And it’s no more difficult than with ordinary WorPress. I’d be fool not to love something to which I have such an intense relationship.
9) It is both Open Source and Free Sofware. All the essential Freedoms – to copy, distribute, study, change and improve the softwarecome – with it.
It has an easy learning curve. Well documented, active community, actively developed. To get into it – from the first dip to the pits of doom – I suggest The WPMU Tutorials site. They grok the WPMU.
7) There is commercial support available. If you really need something to be done, there’s someone you can pay for it to be done. And as it’s popular Free Software, there’s no fear of vendor lock-in. Ask them.
6) Templating system. WPMU is WordPress generalized, and WordPress is really a blogging oriented CMS, whose templating system can be seen as a sophisticated database interface. In case you didn’t understand, you can make coffee with it.
5) Themes turn all this tech into eyecandy. And as WordPress allows pretty much anything, there are N+1 different themes for it. Farms Big 100 theme pack is a great collection, and there’s an even more cutting edge version of it in the premium side. This theme (Rubric 1.0) is from that pack.
4) Plugins. WPMU is a great core, and with templates and themes you can bend it to astonishing outcomes, but plugins make it possible to extend it into incredible things. Many WordPress themes and plugins can be installed using the WordPress’ own interface.
3) Proven technology. WordPress.com uses WPMU and it hosts hundereds of thousands of blogs. That should say something.
2) WPMUdev Premium. WPMU is a jetplane. They have the afterburner to turn it into a Concorde. At a very reasonable price you tap into a continually developed and maintained pool of Free Software. Among my favourites are the autoblogger, which I use to import public blogs to my private BuddyPress (while not Premium, an excellent WPMU plugin and a product in itself) social networking site, and the awesome domain mapping plugin, that simply makes me forget that the sites in this installation are running under different domains. Their plugins “Just Work” and thus are easy to forget. (Speaking of which, lets not forget the Sitewide Privacy Options -plugin. An ABSOLUTE Must if you intend to build a private community.) They have all kinds of plugins from nifty login/logout redirections to extensive frameworks for making money with your site.
1) The folks. Andrea, James, Andrew, drmike, Andy, Jeff, DJPaul… The list is too long even to think. You don’t know who I am, you don’t know who you are, but I’ve seen you in the forums. Love you folks.
Travel plans
Sometimes I think I have got to be nuts.
We are planning to travel to France in late November-Early December. Just to see some old friends and places. Maybe staying at some couchsurfing couches. And to visit Germany as well, for Christmas market. The initial plan is to fly to Paris.
Low budget, 8 month old baby.
I have got to be nuts.
On Anarchy and Monarchy
Putting the boring historical facts aside, the legend of Robin Hood is quite interesting. Most people remember Him from robbing from the rich and giving it to the poor. However, even doing so would make him little more than a common thief. However, there is an interesting tension in his character that arises him to the ranks of great fictional personae: He was both an anarchist and a royalist.
On the one hand he did rob from the rich. But not from any rich, only those who oppressed the poor. Hence he did not really steal wrongly from the rich, but only return to the poor what the rich had wrongly taken from then. What seemed like injustice was therefore actually justice.
In essence he was an anarchist. He did not recognise the government he perceived as corrupt and oppressive, but started to do what he believed to be right independent of the rulers. Had he not been an outlaw already (been tricked by the very same authorities) this line of action would have made him one.
However, even in his anarchy, he was not without rules. He rejected the authority he judged to be illegitimate, but recognized as legitimate, namely the right king Richard (not the imposter prince John). According to Walter Scott, Richard later pardoned his gang.
A clear example of this attitude is that Robin Hood refused to attack the king, not because he would have been afraid of the guards, but due to respect. The king, who wanted to meet Robin, had to disguise himself as an abbot to get hijacked by his gang. This also shows the outlaws other trait, that he was a royalist, loyal to the just and rightful government.
Anarchy is not living without laws, it’s living without hierarchies. Obedience to the true King still remained. The popularity of this legend speaks of how people in general relate to his ideals: it is acceptable to defy the authorities, if the authorities are unjust, but even then they one should remain loyal and obedient to the rightful king.
This principle extends directly to the Kingdom of God. Jesus is King, and the kingdom is organised in a way that is supposed to serve the interests of the King. But if the subjects of the King find, that these institutes rather prohibit the interests of king, for example by demanding division in different churches and forbidding communion, the right thing to do is to disobey them and rather do what they know to be the will of God.
This naturally makes these people outlaws in the eyes of those institutions. And like Robin Hood and his merry men, they can expected to be exiled from the safety and prosperity of the safe “cities”. But they have themselves become the threat to the oppressing authorities in those cities. And they are the ones who obey the king.
Lullaby – My Adaptation
During the first tiresome weeks of our 5-months old, I adapted this lullaby for her. (Yep, I think “night” rhymes better with “child”.) As we are in habit of speaking English every other week, I keep singing this to her those weeks:
As I lay you down to sleep,
Angels watching over you, my child,
I pray the Lord your soul you’d keep,
And angels watching over you.All day, all night
Angels watching over you, my child,
All day, all night,
Angels watching over you.Should you die before you wake,
Angels watching over you, my child,
I pray the Lord your soul He’d take,
And angels watching over you.All day, all night…
Should you live another day,
Angels watching over you, my child,
I pray the Lord your to guard your way,
And angels watching over you.All day, all night…
Should you live another day,
Angels watching over you, my child,
I pray the Lord your to guide your way,
And angels watching over you.All day, all night…
Yes, it is a prayer, a blessing. Feel free to add new stanzas and repeat ad infinitum 
Feeling dizzy…
I’ve had a bit of a flu lately, and way too little rest. Sometimes I really wonder if what I’m doing is worth the trouble. Some of the stuff I’m working on is quite heavy to work on…
Good news is that I have much of it written. Bad news is, that it is written in Finnish. Making it worse, whenever I try to rewrite something, I make changes. And not just a word here or there. Often I change most of the stuff. That’s how I am. So no hopes of getting the final word out of me: when I have finished, I’m already thinking of another way of saying it
But just to give an idea of what kinds of things I’m thinking right now, and why are they so difficult.
To get an idea what Christianity is all about, one has to start from the beginning. Or rather even from before the beginning. What was God thinking when He created the universe?
Children. God wants children. And not only in this time. Even before He established the universe, He had planned to make us holy and pure, but it will take until the heaven and the Earth disappear until this plan is complitely finished.
Creating the universe was just the first part of the plan. Having created everything, God created man in His image. Fall was the event where man left to walk on his own paths. We could say that the core of the fall is, that we know ourselves what is right and what is wrong. In other words we have a moral of our own, separate from God. When we do naturally what we think is good, it is innatural for us to leave decision about what is good, to God.
Therefore fallen man is not only separate from God, but also incapable of living according to the will of God. Even when he manages to do deeds that are in line with the will of God, these deeds are based on him judging himself – perhaps using the godgiven law – what would be right in the eyes of God. Therefore his deed, which is in line with the word of God, originates from his knowing good and evil, in other words from the fall and sin. So even when he does deeds that are in line with the will of God, these deeds originate from his fallen nature, and thus have the stain of sin.
God’s plan of salvation is two-fold. On one hand it is about atoning the sinful deeds we have done or will do, and on the other hand it is saving us from this state, where everything we do essentially is sinful, growing out of sin.
And here’s where I run into problems. The original skips right ahead to the latter part, but I feel that I need to bite into the first issue too. And even while that too should be pretty straightforward, it is as if there was some spiritual resistance. Wonder why?
*sigh*
P.S. Does anyone happen to know any smiley plugins for WordPress?
In the beginning…
- Doctor! Doctor! I think I’m God!
- What has happened? Tell me everything from the beginning.
- Well, in the beginning I created a blog…
I just love to play with words
So, today I have created a blog. I have also started this blog, which is nice – and important – but ultimately just something of my own. The other blog I wish get a life of its own. I feel that at this point it needs so much CLAP that I don’t even want to say it aloud just yet.
I’m excited. That’s the word
P.S. CLAP: Care, Love, Attention & Prayer.