So...I've been feeling a little under the weather the past few days. On the outside I look fine, and have been going to work as usual, but on the inside my stomach is churning about, and is somewhat uncomfortable. I've also been feeling really really tired for no apparent reason today, with a slight headache. All this combined, meant that I have spent a large proportion of time today not really being able to concentrate on what I should be doing, and hence procrastinating (although, I did do a few useful things too).
In the course of my procrastination, I discovered
this blog, via a link from a friend's blog. I think it's excellent - very very funny (I kept getting odd looks at work when I kept bursting out laughing; Christians do the strangest things sometimes - which you don't realise until someone points it out!), but also very very thought provoking too.
I was especially provoked to thought by
this post. Have a read, but I was especially struck by this:
"In a way there are many films, songs, books, and images that point our imaginations to God even though the artist may not have intended this. To those who are seeking after Christ and his kingdom, they see glimpses of it all the time in the most peculiar places."There are a number of points I could make from this:
1)I identify with this completely and think it is very true. When I was little (and in some senses I still do this now, but slightly differently) I used to listen to pop songs and immediately relate all the lyrics to my own circumstances. I guess this isn't unusual, for someone who doesn't consider themselves wonderfully good with words to use prewritten words to try to fit them to her own life and use them to express how she feels ! But anyway, this meant that a lot of songs I would relate to how I saw God and what I wanted to say to Him. I saw God everywhere.
I still do. As people who know me well will tell you, I have a tendency to think about things very deeply (although I'm not always able to express this well in words). I can go and see a film, and will come out not necessarily thinking about how amazing the story was, but often thinking about what it taught me about God and who He is, and my identity in Him ! I can also go into a gig - be it a university concert (as last Friday), or a folk club, or anything else - and come out feeling like it has given me as much to think about and has made me feel much the same way as when I come out of church on a Sunday.
Why is this ? Now, it could be because God is bigger than just being God of church! He doesn't just speak to me when I'm sitting down on a Sunday morning, but He is a God who loves me and wants a relationship with me, and wants to relate to me in every aspect of my life i.e. He can 'speak' to me through other mediums as well as sermons (!) and He in fact chooses to speak to me through things I relate well to - like music and nature. (For those of you who aren't quite sure what I mean about God 'speaking', I'm sorry to use 'Christian Jargon'. But I think me trying to get my head around what I actually mean by using that would probably take up a whole nother blog post in itself ! Suffice for now to say that I'm not necessarily referring to speaking with an audible voice per se - although, that isn't impossible.)
It could also be because if God has created all things - including us, who He has given the ability to be creative - then surely all things will therefore point back to Him, and speak to us of His nature ?
2) The fact that I identify with this encourages me; it means that although I often feel like I fail to be pursuing God's Kingdom (again, another whole blog post! :) as much as I should be/want to, by this definition I must still therefore to some extent be pursuing Him, even when I know that there is more !
3) This is going to be a more long-winded point.
I went to a lecture tonight at the University, which was entitled:"Right hand, left hand: Asymmetry in brains, bodies, atoms and cultures." It was really really interesting - I learnt a lot of new things, like for example the fact that our bodies are asymmetric and about 1 in 10,000 people have their bodies wired around the other way from most other people, so with their heart on the right instead of the left etc. It's called Situs Inversus ! Basically, it was an astounding story that he was piecing together, about how inherently more complex things are asymmetric. For example, the majority of humans are right-handed (although most other animals are about 50/50 right and left), but that this asymmetry only arises because of underlying other asymmetries etc... all the way down to atoms in our bodies and the laws of physics ! But I was sitting next to a friend, and she said to me (I can't remember how it came up exactly) something along the lines of that people see what they want to see; like if someone is obsessed with the number 13 they will see it everywhere.
Are we endanger of being accused of this as Christians ? That the only reason we see God everywhere is because we are looking for Him ?! I know that in "science and God" debates I have often heard the point that there are many scientists who see God in the complexity of things, but there are also many scientists who are atheists as they believe that science alone explains things without a need for God - both groups are accused of seeing what they want to see, when in fact, science IN ITSELF can neither prove or disprove God.
But then, on the other hand, take these Bible verses:
"But
seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well." Matt 6:32-34
"You will seek me and find me
when you seek me with all your heart."
Jeremiah 29:13
"Ask and it will be given to you; seek
and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you." Matt 7:6-8
It says that when we seek, we will find. Implying that when we don't seek we don't find ? Hmmm...this would lead me nicely into an analogy that I like using sometimes...but that will have to wait for another blog post, as I really do need to go and get some sleep !
Questions, questions, and no easy answers. It's often the way, I start blogging thinking that I know what I'm going to write, but finding that it gets more confusing as I go along and process stuff ! Apologies for my incoherent ramblings.
But ultimately, however all of this stuff works out, it is encouraging and I know that the God of the Bible is, as I said in point 1, a HUGE God; He has made us creative people (in His image in fact, as He is the ultimate creator!) And I do definitely believe that He isn't limited to drawing us to Himself through only sermons at church or "Christian Music".
I shall end, as is fairly frequent on this blog I know, with some song lyrics; the opening two lines of a Steven Curtis Chapman Song:
"I found You in the most unlikely way.
But really it was You who found me"
- from the song "Remembering You" by SCC
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