Some good questions

In my last blog I talked about asking good questions in order to understand and go deeper, without bias or prejudice. In this blog I want to pose five questions to you. With full disclosure, these questions are taken from a book called “Share Jesus without Fear” so you know the context and subject. Stop now if you have no interest! So here goes…

1. Do you have any kind of spiritual belief?

2. To you, who is Jesus?

3. Do you believe there is a heaven and a hell?

4. If you died right now, where would you go? If heaven, why?

5. If what you believe were not true, would you want to know it?

I invite you to think about each question and answer them for yourself. They are pretty good questions to make you think about life after death, your own spiritual life, and what God might be saying to you. If you go through all five questions and answer “no” or “not interested” at any point then maybe think about why you think that way.

If you answer “yes” to number 5, then I think the best place to look for truth is the good news written about Jesus in the New Testament of the Bible.  Here are six key scriptures that summarize what He did for us when He came to the Earth. Read them aloud and ask yourself what each says to you personally.

1. For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that everyone who believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16)

2. for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23),

3. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 6:23).

4. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures (1 Corinthians 15:3-4),

5. But to all who did receive Him, to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God (John 1:12)

6. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in and dine with him, and he with Me (Revelation 3:20).

I pray that God will open your mind and stir your heart to seek after Him through these scriptures!

Asking Good Questions

 As a consultant engineer, I’ve found that an important skill to learn is asking good questions. If you want to understand your client’s real needs, you have to ask the right questions, and listen carefully to their responses, otherwise you can misunderstand what’s going on.  I’ve heard it said that there are no stupid questions, only stupid answers. In the context of learning from a teacher, that may be true, but more broadly in life, I think you have to be asking good questions, asking the right questions, in order to have the right focus and to be able to dig deeper in your understanding. So maybe there are stupid questions, or at least useless, or unhelpful questions.

Photo by Artem Maltsev on Unsplash

So, what are some features of a good question? (That’s a good question!). Let me offer up the following suggestions:

1. A good question seeks to understand.

I think this is the basic starting point for any good question. Why are you asking the question? If it’s not to understand what the other person knows or thinks, then it’s probably missing the point. We should always seek to understand and using good questions is a good way to do that.

2. A good question goes deeper.

Beyond just getting a factual answer, a good question doesn’t just scratch the surface, but actually digs deeper. Hand in hand with increasing your basic understanding, a good question can start to help you see the motivation, the feelings, and the heart behind the answer.

3. A good question is unbiased and does not prejudge.

Finally, a good question is offered in a way that allows the answerer to give an honest answer. If the question is loaded, or hiding some secret intent to catch out the person answering, just to make your point, then I wouldn’t call that a good question. It might be clever, but it’s not good. A good question doesn’t presuppose what the answerer is going to say. We can guess how they might answer, but we need to have a mind open to what they actually say. And then, if the answer needs further clarification, we go back to number 1, which is to again, seek to understand with a follow up question.  Simply, “why do you think that or say that?” is a great follow up.  Then just listen without criticism, and you’ll start to understand what the other person thinks.

So there are my 3 tips, or features of some good questions. Am I missing something?

Next blog I’m going to try asking some “good questions” and let’s see what you think.

Revving up your spiritual life with R.P.M.

I recently participated in a men’s retreat with some fellas from my church, at which I shared some thoughts on how to beef up your spiritual life using a simple three step approach. This is something I’ve been pondering for quite some time. It’s simple but can have a profound impact on your life if you do it. It has in my life, for sure.

If you want to shoot a target, there are the three simple steps of: Ready, Aim, Fire. You have to get the fundamentals right by getting yourself ready, and taking careful aim, before you then fire, otherwise you have little to no hope of hitting the target. A similar principle can be applied to our spiritual lives. If we want to hit the target there are steps we need to take.

In order to remember the steps, I’m using a three letter acronym: R. P. M.

If you do these three things you will grow spiritually and, in my opinion, live a fuller and more meaningful life. So let’s get started with the first letter, which is…

R = Read

The scriptures say “Be transformed by the renewal of your mind.” 

In order to do this we need to feed our minds with what is good and helpful for us to grow mentally and spiritually. I’d argue that the best way to do this is to read the Bible every day. There are many helpful reading plans, devotional readings, and a whole bunch of online materials to help you read the Bible. One of my favorite websites is the Bible Project. Check it out!

A secondary source of good fodder for our brains and souls is good books. I love several excellent Christian authors including: C.S. Lewis, A.W. Tozer, J.I. Packer, R.C. Sproul, and Francis Chan, to name but a few. So click on the links and check them out!

And finally, for those who complain that they don’t like reading, there are many good sources of teaching at Right Now Media, which many churches subscribe to. They often have the authors of books giving you the main messages from their books.  There are also audio Bibles and audio books, and of course many good podcasts which are great if you’re wanting to feed your mind whilst you’re driving. 

P = Pray

“Draw near to God and He will draw near to you”

As you’d expect, there are many scriptures that talk about praying, such as the one above in the letter from James, Jesus’ half brother, or in his first letter to the Thessalonians, Paul says we should “pray without ceasing.”

God is relational and in order to have a relationship with Him we need to first be reconciled to Him and then we need to grow by communicating with Him.  At a very basic level, prayer is simply talking with God. There are many different kinds of prayers and some good resources to help you learn how to pray effectively. One that I read not too long ago is The Battle Plan for Prayer. It was very good, but possibly the best book I’ve read on the topic, which opened my mind to different ways of praying, is “Nurturing a Passion for Prayer” from Navpress, though it looks like they no longer publish it, so get it from Amazon while you can!

When you pray, you can use Jesus’ model prayer (also known as the Lord’s Prayer) as a template. You can write prayers, particularly if you like to journal, or keep a diary. And possibly the best thing I learned was to pray scripture. There are many Psalms that can be used as prayers, but also many other sections of scripture to help you express how you feel with God.

My last recommendation for praying is to do it first thing every morning. Give God the first fruits of your day and you’ll see the rest of the day is radically better than when you don’t. Trust me on this and try it.

M = Move

“And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of our Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.”

You’ve read, you’ve prayed… now MOVE. Do something. Do something beyond yourself. Do something for a higher calling. Do whatever God lays on your heart to do and do it well.  Serve God and serve others. Be obedient to His call on your life and do it with passion.

As Switchfoot put it so eloquently in their song, I dare you to move!

So there you have it RPM - Read, pray, then move. Three actions that are simple to understand, but harder to do consistently. But just like shooting, you need to keep practicing if you want to hit the target.

How about you?

Freedom

In my final blog on what I’ve termed “weighty words” we come to the word freedom. This might just be the simplest of all the words to get a definition on which everyone would agree. At it’s basic level I guess it just means you’re not constrained, or stopped from doing something or saying something. You’re “free” to do what you want. Taking it a little further, the idea of freedom can be applied to different things. We have freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, all of which convey that you’re allowed to say, write, or practice, whatever you want.

I’m writing this blog just a few days after the “Juneteenth” holiday here in the States, celebrating the official freeing of African American slaves by a proclamation given on June 19th 1865, in Galveston, Texas.  This brings to mind the obvious thing that the opposite of freedom is slavery. If you’re forced to do something against your will, then that’s not freedom. That’s slavery. And to be liberated from slavery into freedom must be one of the most profound and wonderful feelings of all!

Physical freedom

I think it’s worth thinking about freedom being applied in three different ways. The first is physical freedom, which is the simplest and most obvious. If a person or an object is physically free, then it can move freely and is not constrained. An object or a person is not tied down or in chains if they have physical freedom. However, if that object or person inadvertently wanders off a track and gets entangled or bogged down in something then they are no longer physically free. So, even with the idea of physical freedom we can see that it’s helpful to have tracks or trails to keep us in a region where that freedom is safe, or to follow a guide who knows where they’re going. Totally unbridled freedom is risky and can be dangerous.

Mental Freedom

By analogy, the idea of physical freedom can be extended to our minds. Mental freedom, or freedom of thought, means we’re free to think about whatever we want. Conversely, if we’re trapped by worries or “brainwashed” into holding a certain belief then we really don’t have mental freedom. Similarly to physical freedom, if your thoughts have no boundaries, and you let your mind wander into dark or crazy places, then you’re in danger of getting trapped by those thoughts, entangled and bogged down. So be careful where you let your mind wander!

Spiritual Freedom

And if you’ve read any of my previous blogs, you kinda knew where I’d end up, right? That’s right, there’s spiritual freedom and it’s opposite, spiritual bondage or slavery. In the Christian world view we’re all born as slaves: slaves to sin. What this means is, we might want to do the right thing, but we don’t have the freedom to always do it. We get trapped in habits and attitudes from which we can’t escape. Thankfully there is a way out. St. Paul wrote “For freedom Christ has set us free.” If you turn to Jesus and ask Him, He can set you free spiritually and mentally. Now that’s freedom!

Hope

“Hope springs eternal in the human breast; 
Man never Is, but always To be blest. 
The soul, uneasy, and confin'd from home, 
Rests and expatiates in a life to come.”

― Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man

 After quite a hiatus, I’m returning to my series of blogs about seven “weighty words.” Not that anyone is keeping track, but I’m up to my penultimate word, which is “hope.” This word is tied closely with my previous weighty word, faith. In the previous blog I talked about the importance of understanding the object of your faith, and that just simply “having faith” in anything is not the point, but we must have faith in someone or something. I think that’s true for the word hope too. It’s not that we simply have hope, but that we have hope for something or in something, and it’s the thing in which we put our hope that’s most important.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Like previous blogs, I like to start with a definition or two. This site has a long list of definitions and uses of the word, but I’ll pick out just two that are succinct and capture the basic essence of hope:

intransitive verb To wish for a particular event that one considers possible. 

noun The longing or desire for something accompanied by the belief in the possibility of its occurrence.

So the word hope includes the idea of something happening in the future, usually something good or at least something we want to happen. If used in a positive sense, it should conjure up a sense of optimism and expectation that the thing hoped for will happen. Of course we can use it in a less positive way saying “I hope so” when we’re really thinking like a fatalist that it probably won’t happen! But the essential idea is that something good will happen, and we believe that it will.  The other important aspect of hope that’s tougher to get our heads around, and especially in our current age of instant gratification, is that hope requires waiting.  If you already have something, you don’t hope for it.  St. Paul states it like this:

Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

So somehow the waiting, and the expectation are good things that instill in us a positive feeling of hope.

I hope so

So, back to my early discussion on the object of your hope.  You can hope that you win the lottery. You can hope that it won’t rain tomorrow (actually we could use some rain here currently in Texas, so maybe I should hope it does rain!). You can hope for a nice gift for your birthday, or hope that a loved one will call you soon. You can even hope that your favorite team will finally win this year! I think these are all OK, but from the examples you can see that many of the things we hope for, while possible, are often highly unlikely to happen.  They are vain hopes.

When scripture talks about hope, however, it’s quite different. A quick search for the word hope in the Bible turned up 550 entries, almost all of which are very strong and positive assertions. They speak of a sure hope, and not a wavering or vain hope. For example Psalm 71 speaks about having hope in God our rock through the ups and downs of life. Verse 5 says “ For You are my hope, O Lord GOD, my confidence from my youth.”  And then verse 14 says “But I will always hope and will praise You more and more.” So this is a hope that brings confidence, and inspires someone to praise. It’s clear from this Psalm, and many other scriptures, that having a hope in God brings us strength, and that putting our hope in Him helps us to deal with the tough times in life. Hope, faith and trust in God are bound together when He is the focus of all three.

Ultimate hope

Having hope in general is a good thing. Having hope in God and His promises, I’d argue, is a better thing. But there’s something in scripture that I would say is the best object of all for our hope. Going back to the scripture I quoted earlier in this blog, but backing up a couple of verses, Paul says: 

“For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.”

The Christian’s hope is for “the redemption of our bodies.” In other words, our hope is that we will one day be resurrected like Jesus, that we will live forever. And the source of that hope is Jesus himself, who said:

“… so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”

And again:

“Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?’”

And finally, the last book of the Bible gives this vision of a future state…

“And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.’”

That’s the Christian’s hope, and that’s my ultimate hope. How about you? 

Faith

 I’ve been a Christian for more than thirty years and so, as a “person of faith,” you’d think that of all the weighty words I’ve been discussing in this series of blogs, the word “faith” would be an easy one for me. But you’d be mistaken. As I’ve done with previous words, I think I can come up with a reasonable working definition for the word faith, but, being transparent with you, I’ve wrestled with what it truly means to “have faith” in a practical way, and why God places such weight on us needing to have faith at all.

So let’s start with some definitions. Many years ago someone taught me a simple acronym using the letters in the word “FAITH” to define it.  It’s “Forsaking All, I Trust Him.” In essence this simple definition equates faith with trust. I’ve heard teachers and preachers give the example of having faith in the pilot of an airplane to be able to fly the plane and get you safely where you want to go. Or another I’ve heard is having faith in the chair you’re about to sit on to bear your weight and not collapse in a heap on the floor.  In both of these examples, faith is synonymous with trust.

Turning to the Bible, the classic definition of faith is given in the book of Hebrews, chapter 11, which starts out with the following definition and then goes on to give several examples of people demonstrating their faith in God over hundreds of years:

“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the people of old received their commendation. By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.”

 So, from a Christian perspective, faith is certainly about trust, but more specifically trusting God for things we can’t directly see or feel with our senses, things we can’t fully wrap our minds around, or things that have not yet happened. (I think this is where the pilot analogy comes in. Most of us don’t know how airplanes work or how to fly them, so our “faith” is based on someone else - the pilot - knowing how to make it work and get us there.) Faith is not just trust, but also connected with hope (my weighty word for next time!), and belief.

Object of faith 

I’ve heard it said that you just need to have faith, and sometimes the people saying that mean that you just need to have faith in something, whatever it is. These are generally well-meaning folk that want everyone to get along, and simply want to encourage others to have a spiritual side to their lives. I guess there’s some merit in this, but it rings hollow for me. I think the most important aspect of faith is actually the object of that faith. Reflecting on some of the examples I’ve already shared, it’s pretty evident that having faith in a chair is a whole different thing than having faith in the God who created the universe. So we need to reflect on who or what we put our faith in, along with our trust and hope. I’ve chosen to put my faith in Jesus and what is written about Him in the Bible. Others might put their hope in other religious ideas or ideologies, or put their faith in their country, or political party, or even in themselves. That’s their choice of course, but it’s hopefully clear that who or what you put your faith in is very important in steering your life and shaping who you are. In this regard, Jesus has never disappointed me, and so I wholeheartedly recommend having Him as the object of your faith.

Reasoned faith vs blind faith

Many years ago I overheard someone saying that you have to have a blind faith, and just trust God. I don’t accept that faith is totally blind, at least not the Christian faith to which I adhere. My own experience is that it’s possible to have a reasoned faith based on the evidence we see and what we read. God is logical, and I think He has given us plenty of evidence for His existence. The complexity of the universe, the laws of science, and even the simple fact that the physical universe exists, all point to a creator behind it all. The Biblical record of Jesus’ life, backed up by extra-Biblical writings, archeology, and the long history of the church, also provide tangible evidence that Jesus was and is real. So God gives us plenty of evidence that points toward Him. We can use logic and reason to help us seek God.  The ex-journalist turned author Lee Strobel has written several books and articles on this if you want to investigate more, including the book that describes his own personal journey from skepticism to faith in The Case for Christ.

Weighty faith

So, we have a decent definition of what faith is - trust, hope, belief - we recognize that the object or focus of our faith is important, and we note that we can use logic and reason to help us with faith in Jesus. So, why did I start this blog out by saying it’s a word I’ve wrestled with over the years? Well there are two aspects of faith I’ve grappled with: (1) why has God made faith so important, or even necessary at all, and (2) what does it mean to live by faith in the day-to-day?

Starting with the first one, the Bible makes it clear that faith is very important. Back in the book of Hebrews, a few verses down from the ones I quoted near the start of this blog, it says “…without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.” I’ve always found it easy to accept that love is important: loving God and loving people is probably the strongest guiding principle for my life. But why does God place such an emphasis on having faith too? I really don’t have a good answer, except that He says it’s so, and that by having faith in Him I’m showing Him I love Him. I just have to accept it and I’m OK with that.

Possibly the harder one for me is trying to figure out how to live by faith. I’m an engineer, and one that tends to overthink things. This combination is not ideally suited to letting things go and simply living by faith. But when I do live that way - not worrying so much about everything or trying to figure it all out - trusting that God has things in hand and putting my focus on seeking Him, then I do experience a peace that’s hard to explain (see previous blog!) I’m definitely a work in progress when it comes to faith.

So what about you? What does the word faith mean to you?

Let me finish up with the lyrics from a song by Michael Card:

To hear with my heart, to see with my soul
To be guided by a hand I cannot hold
To trust in a way that I cannot see
That's what faith must be  

 

 

Holy

 “Silent night, holy night, all is calm, all is bright”

Next on my list of weighty words is the word “holy,” and as we’re approaching Christmas it seemed appropriate to start with a line from a carol. But what makes a night holy? What does the word holy, mean? Holy night, holy ground, Holy Spirit, holy of holies, holy cow, holy smokes, holy moly, holy hand grenade (for all the Monty Python fans!) - holy is an adjective that we apply to all sorts of words in different contexts, but I think in all of them the main thing that is conveyed is that it’s something different and special.

In previous blogs, I’ve usually relied on a dictionary definition or two to help guide our discussion of what these weighty words mean, but for this one I’m going to take a shot at it myself, from my own experience of reading and using the word over the years. So here goes, the Andy Shaw definition of “holy”:

Holy: something that is set-apart, special, and sacred; much better than whatever is considered “normal”, something that is holy is completely “other” than typical. Our experience of holiness stirs up a sense of awe that’s difficult to explain in purely natural terms, and hence evokes the supernatural or magical.

Often the word holy is used to convey moral purity or perfection. I don’t think this is the primary meaning, however, but more of a secondary consequence of something being set-part, special and much better than ordinary.

Let’s test this definition against three major uses of the word holy.

Holy Place

Think about church buildings - particularly the older ones in Europe - or grand cathedrals, temples, shrines, mosques, or synagogues. All of the major religions of the world have places they set apart as special and sacred. Think also about holy mountains and rivers. There are special places and spaces that have created in people a sense of something beyond themselves. For yourself, think about a place that you’ve visited that has invoked a sense of awe in you that’s hard to explain. Perhaps that is a holy place.

Holy Person

Now applying the word to people - holy men and holy women - can be troublesome if you defined holiness as morally pure. Many folks who have been held up as being holy, have turned out to be as flawed and fallen as the rest of us. But if you think of it as being “set apart” then I think more-safely it fits monks, priests, ministers, pastors and other people who have set themselves apart to serve God. At least in principle it works. We can give honor and reverence to those who have chosen a pathway that seeks to honor the divine.

Holy Presence

Finally, I want to focus on the use of holy to describe a presence. This is trickier and more personal than the other uses, and maybe outside of your experience, but let me try. This kind-of ties together both the notion of a holy place with a holy person, or to be more specific, the ultimate holy person who is God. Many times I’ve been in a church worshipping or sitting at home praying, and I have quite tangibly sensed the presence of God. In those moments, I feel in awe of who God is and what He has done. It’s hard to explain but it’s real and not something I can manufacture myself. Personally speaking, this is my ultimate experience of the word holy and it’s almost impossible to put into words, but for sure it’s something special and much better than normal, inspiring awe within me that I can’t explain in natural terms.

I don’t think I can do full justice to describing the holiness of God and so instead I recommend the work of R.C. Sproul, either in his original book “The holiness of God,” or a series of recorded lectures from a few years ago. Check them out if you’re interested in pondering more about the concept of holiness.

If you have a different idea about what “holy” means, or if you agree with me, I welcome your comments.