Our expectations of God, and the impact they have.

What expectations do you have of God? What expectations do you have of what God will do?

Imagine you turn up to what you believe is a music class. The teacher is an art teacher, and the room is decked out ready for an art lesson. But you're wearing glasses. What you see of the classroom and your teacher is altered. To you the classroom looks like a music room, and your teacher a music teacher. No matter how hard you try to relate to your music teacher, you end up lost because you're relating to him as a music teacher. There are even moments you don't even realise your teacher is commicating with you, or doing stuff for you. And you miss opportunities your teacher presents to you.

This badly written metaphor is like how our expectations of God cause us to relate to God as someone he isn't. When I do not see God for who he is, I cannot effectively communicate with God. I get lost in his teachings, I don't see what he is saying to me or doing for me, and I miss opportunities he creates for me.

Quite simply, the expectations I have of what God will do and who he is get in the way of me seeing God for who he is, seeing God in my life, and seeing the opportunities that God create for me.

Why the Universe makes perfect sense...

I love that there are things that don't make sense in this world. Physics for example. Physicists still don't have a unified system that explains why things happen. In our everyday life we experience Newtonian physics but when scientists look at really small objects those laws no longer work, and the same with really big objects. Then there is light, that has a whole lot of rules that are inconsistent with other matter.

I don't proclaim this to be truth, but I really love the idea that this world only continues to exist because God chooses to act within it. Consider that for a second. The reason that science can't explain the universe could be because without God's intervention the universe just could not exist.

If that is true, then everything makes sense...

Smelly Gamers Charity - Donate and Save a Life

I try to limit the things I post that are from other peoples blogs, but I couldn't resist with this one...

Religion vs Spirituality

I've been thinking about religious and spirituality lately, about how they interact, how we confuse them and how I think we relate to them as the same thing even though on some intellectual level we think they're different. The below I do not profess to be truth. It is my thoughts and what I've come up so far about religion and spirituality. I will value your comments and opinions on the issue, please share them. So let's get started...

What is RELIGION?
According to my dictionary religion is "the belief...in a superhuman...power." While this is true for some people, I find the definition really only covers a subset of religion. Funnily enough Wikipedia provided what I believe to be a much more complete definition:

"A religion is a set of [beliefs, principles] and practices, often centered upon specific supernatural and moral claims about reality, the cosmos, and human nature... Religion also encompasses ancestral or cultural traditions, writings, history, and mythology, as well as personal faith and religious experience."

What stands out to me in this definition is the bolded section, where the author notes that these beliefs, principles and practices are often based on spirituality. This raises the possibility that religion while often associated with these things, does not have to be.

What is SPIRITUALITY?
Spirituality has many definitions and from one person to the next you'll get many different interpretations of those definitions. One thing seems rather consistent though, that spirituality has something to do with there being more to reality than what we can see, smell and touch. A Christians spirituality is the relationship they have with the one and only God.

What does Religion have to do with Spirituality?
We often relate to religion and spirituality as the same thing even if on an intellectual level believe they are different. We live like RELIGION = SPIRITUALITY. Religion and spirituality actually exist as two entirely different concepts. We relate to them as one and the same, because at some point in our life we collapsed them into being the same thing. The issue with this is that spirituality is now related to as religion and vice versa, and it creates a lot of confusion and misunderstanding around religion and spirituality. It is a large reason many non-Christians have a misinformed idea of Christianity.

What does this mean for Christians?
If we accept that every human being has a spiritual life, whether they choose to acknowledge it or be ignorant to it, Christians are beings who are _in touch_ with their spirituality and follow God. This spirituality we explicitly refer to as our relationship with the one and only God, the God who refers to himself as I Am. All Christians have a similar spirituality, but there is a vast number of religions that are centered on Christianity. For many Chrisitians it can be difficult to distinguish our spirituality (i.e. relationship with God) from our religion. Christians should expect that their relationship with God will impact their religion, and that indeed our religion will also have an affect on our relationship with God. However there exists an issue when our religion defines and therefore restrains our relationship with God. In these situations we relate to God as if he exists in a box we own and control, performing the necessary functions consistent with our religion to keep us happy and comfortable. When this happens we no longer have a relationship with God, but have created a god out of our religion. Religions aren't all necessarily, but can be idols and false gods in themselves.

What does this mean for non-Christians?
We said Christians were beings in touch with their spirituality, so to be consistent with that definition non-Christians are those who are ignorant to their spirituality. They are unaware, or have chosen to ignore God's desire to have a relationship with us. Although they may not realise it, non-Christians are very religious. They have their own religion and engage in religious acts and rituals daily. For non-Christians who are aware of God, but choose to ignore or disbelieve of God think they are often opposing spirituality, when in-fact they are merely opposing somebody else's religion while being ignorant to their spirituality. For these people a relationship with God doesn't naturally present itself as they are actively ignoring it. Unfortunately many churches are caught up in religion, and aid this misunderstanding. Making it easy to think God and Christianity are religions rather than a relationship we are privileged to have access to.

Can Spirituality exist without Religion?
Try to imagine a life where you are spirituality aware but have no religion. It's rather difficult, because even if you are like me and don't actively associate yourself with a specific religion, you essentially still have a religion. You still have beliefs, principles and practices, and these things are the basis for a religion. Your religion may not have a name, but it's the underlying system by which you profess to live your life.

Can Religion exist without Spirituality?
There are many people proclaiming to be Christians who live a life intending to be good and making every effort to adhere to the ten commandments who aren't really connected with God. Some of these people may not even realise that. It is very easy to live a life surrounded and devoted to religion and still be disconnected from God. You might think of it like a marriage, where we are married to God. If the marriage has no passion or connection between the husband and wife and if they rarely talk, spend time together, interact, or connect on any intimate level, the marriage still exists as a way of living their lives together, as a legal bind, but there is no connection and no experience of being one. Religion can exist without an awareness or connection with God, and for many people this is how they experience their Christianity.

What now?
Depending on where your at and your own situation there may or may not be action for you to take. If you feel that there is, take a look at yourself and honestly answer the question, "Am I actively involved in a relationship with God?" If so that's great. Take a look at your life and your religion and have a think about how your relationship to your religion might be putting God in a box or in which ways you might be glorifying your religion as opposed to God. If you don't have a relationship with God, he's right there waiting to talk to you.

Mastering Passion and Motivation

Being passionate, motivated and sticking to your commitments is a function of your ability to:

1. generate yourself


2. construct your environment such that it is responsible for generating you


3. be in the right place at the right time, so that the universe lines everything up just right, i.e. fluke it.

Some of those things probably won't make sense to you just yet, but stick with it, I'll get to them.

Most of the time when we, human beings, are passionate or motivated to do something it's a fluke. It's something we're temporarily fascinated by, or maybe we're passionate about something because of our parents or a past experience (e.g. a friend dying of cancer, might compel us to start a charity). Whatever the reason, we are commonly motivated by our environment. Something happens, and we respond by becoming passionate or motivated about something new.

What you want to know about this is that having your passions driven by your environment gives you little control over your life**, and will commonly leave you with a sense of dissatisfaction. Take a look and I think you'll find this to be relatively true.

So if fluking it gets the job done, but isn't on the road to a fulfilling life, then lets talk about the other two options. Generating yourself and creating your environment such that it generates you really go hand in hand. So what is "generating yourself." If you imagine yourself as an entity with one responsibility: being. Not doing, not having, just being. You have the choice of being happy, sad, joyful, free, loving, passionate, excited, ... etc. Generating yourself is basically taking responsibility for who you are being, and without needing anything or anyone else, creating that state of being in yourself, authentically. It's important to note generating yourself isn't faking something and it definitely isn't pretending. It creating that state of being for yourself. It will take some practice, but don't force it, just give it a go.

You'll find generating yourself can be difficult at times, and everyone has moments where they are unable or not willing to generate themselves. Having your environment setup to encourage your passions and to motivate you creates a very powerful space for you to operate in and is really a physical form of your commitment.

If you can master generating yourself and successfully setup your environment, you will be on the track to passion and motivation. And as time goes on you'll find yourself being less dependent on your environment and surroundings to motivate you. There will just exist you and your commitments being fulfilled^.



**For all the Christians out there don't read this and go into defense mode about how only God should have control over our life and confusing your environment with God, this isn't what I'm talking about. You should hand your life over to God, but that doesn't mean you become a leaf in the wind. God wants us to develop consistency and control over ourselves, and part of this is developing our ability to be focused.

^There are many things that can get in the way of you being passionate and motivated. The above is one approach and it won't necessarily make a difference to you. Stayed tuned though, in the not-so-distant future I'm writing about another thing called INTEGRITY which will open a whole new world to fulfilling your commitments.

A Stressful Day at Work

This is what a stressful day at work looks like...

Gargling Aspirin, What the?

Today I was introduced to the odd ritual of gargling Aspirin. Why would someone do such a thing you ask? For a sore throat seems to be the season to take it up, the theory is it works as an anesthesia, numbing the area and relieving your pain.

Odd thing about it is it seems unaccepted in the medical community, even though it has been known to be suggested by GP's and pharmacists. I decided to consult the unreliable, but often relied on source, the Internet:

"Gargling with aspirin dissolved in warm water is not advisable as it may cause further irritation to the membrane. You need to swallow aspirin for the body to absorb it as a pain reliever.
-- health.rutgers.edu/brochures/sorethroat.htm

"Aspirin gargles will do little to ease soreness in the larynx...However, it may ease a sore throat...There is little research evidence to confirm that aspirin gargles are effective for sore throat. However, it is a popular treatment and may be worth a try."
-- patient.co.uk/showdoc/23068940/

duets.nhs.uk indicates that gargling aspirin for pain relief with a sore throat is being questioned by medical practitioners, but on that website no studies have been done or uploaded yet.

And from these sites I learnt little, but enough to make a decision for myself not to try it. It may have benefit, maybe, but I think I'll stick with lozengers and drinking a lot of water to relieve a sore throat, or if I'm going to take a pain relief drug, I think I'd just swallow it. I imagine pain relief drugs like Panadol, Aspirin or Nurofen will probably work better if they are digested, seeing as that's the method of interaction they were designed for.