Thankful Thursday: Great Expectations, bells and whistles.

I believe that this Thankful Thursday Thing (LOL at my alliterations...reminds me of an SCL post...fun stuff) has evolved to hold a message as well as my thankfulness...

The bells and whistles thing. I believe that God is simple. God is so uncomplicated that we as humans refuse to accept Him that way. Like, when you see this really easy question on your exam sheet...and you're like naaaah, it must be a joke, or wait..maybe it's super duper complicated..and then you go ahead and give the most complicated answer you know, and promptly fail. Just the other day i read something about Christians and the Bible...i wish i saved that quote..wait, hold on..lemme find it..in summary though, it says that the Bible isn't complicated at all...it's just that "Christians" choose to make it out to be so because they fear that the moment they accept that they understand it as-is,they will have no choice but to conform to it. I can understand how that is a scary thought. If, however, you do not admit to entirely understanding it, that is a huge fertile field (alliterations!) of loopholes to exploit... What will the Law proffesion be without loopholes?

"The matter is quite simple. The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand we are obliged to act accordingly. Take any words in the New Testament and forget everything except pledging yourself to act accordingly. My God, you will say, if I do that my whole life will be ruined. Herein lies the real place of Christian scholarship. Christian scholarship is the Church’s prodigious invention to defend itself against the Bible, to ensure that we can continue to be good Christians without the Bible coming too close. Dreadful it is to fall into the hands of the living God. Yes, it is even dreadful to be alone with the New Testament."

Yes, i even shrunk it in an attempt to fool you minions into thinking that it is a nice short quote :P


Human beings seem to crave ceremony and great mystery before they accept that a thing is credible. If it doesn't shoot fireworks and arrive in a cloud, it must be substandard.

This, however, creates problems for those of us who realize that maybe, just maybe, it isn't as hush hush and secret society as "they" make it out to be. Once i read a book about how to angle your church floors and dim the lights just so, so that people will be in "the mood". It just can't work without the bells and whistles eh?

I do not need to be told about seas being parted, and bones being made human again. I believe God is Awesome. He proves this to me with every breath i take. It is the way it is, i do not need a fairytale woven around it to make me awestruck. Reality itself is magical, it's beautiful. I do not need all these "extras".

Too often we make God out to be Human. We ascribe our human characteristics to Him. We make God out to be petty and egotistical. God is not human, He is above the emotions and characters we exhibit. This, however, is difficult for us to grasp, because we cannot compare something to another thing that we know NOTHING about, so we drag it down to our level and break it into bits of our reality. Just like when people were convinced the earth was flat. They could not conceive the concept of it being otherwise.Like explaining the colour red to someone who has only ever seen blue. My best bet is that they would conclude it's some shade of blue... This is how we know God. As one other quote said, to paraphrase, we see God as some sort of Cosmic Grandfather.

Grandfather. Human.

Why should God be man or woman or black or white or yellow? God is God. But that sort of God is abstract, so we make Him into a handy Cosmic Grandfather ( i love this expression btw!), one with Whom we can relate.

This other joke goes; Do not argue with an idiot, because they will bring you down to their level and beat you with experience.

The beat you with experience part is irrelevant, but the down to their level part seems to be exactly what we've done with God. We've made Him a super human. He is great and all, but He's just this Mighty Human. That upsets me sometimes. Sure, it's easier to relate to and all that, but we then begin subconsciously giving Him these oh-so-human add-ons, ones that we understand.

Human beings are the ones who love feeling "big" and having their egos stroked, and yet even among humans, those who are truly "big" somehow rise above the banality that is demanding for their ego to be stroked.

So yes, it's still about religion, and even the Bible in this. They are so full of grandeur, and stories designed to make your jaw drop and all these overly awesome things. What the writers/spreaders didn't seem to see, imo, is that there is/was absolutely no need for all the frills. If they had looked around, they would have seen that the truth of what is is more fantabulostical than any sort of tale they come up with.

They've gone and left us with a dilemma now. You don't seem to be allowed to appreciate both versions. It's Tales Vs Reality, and you are on top of everything threatened with a lifelong BBQ, you featuring as the main meat, if you refuse to believe the Tales version. It sucks.

God is simple, uncomplicated, and wise beyond human understanding. All out wiseness and insight must be the most hilarious thing God watches.

Understand if you understand.

I am thankful for life

I am thankful for the way He looks out for me

I am thankful for the little packets of joy He places in my path. He has designed the funnest obstacle course for me.

I am thankful for emotions. Happy and Sad, tears and laughter, love and heartache. Life would be so vanilla without them!

I am thankful for wisdom...i don't claim it, but i am thankful that i have access to the works of those who are blessed by it.

I am thankful for my family

I am thankful for my friends

I am thankful that the things i call problems are really so insignificant in the big picture

I am thankful for His reminders

I am thankful that He has taught me to be thankful instead of giving in to despair

I am thankful that i went to church last Sunday! Honestly, the service was jokes, the message was...*crickets* why is this man even talking? BUT! you could feel the goodness radiating...so that was nice..and i met the nicest Swedish Missionary lady..she was hot life fire, btw :P..just added that because Missionary conjures up the strangest images of unattractiveness for me :P

be good ya'll...and find the awesomeness in the simplest of truths!!! God's magnificence is not in a magic trick. Know this.