Enjoy what you have...

"Enjoy what you have rather than desiring what you don’t have. Dreaming about nice things is like chasing the wind."
    -- Paraphrased from Ecclesiastes 6:9 (New Living Translation)

Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright 1996, 2004. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

A Battelstar Galactica perspective on the things God prepares us for

** SPOILERS BELOW **

Final episode of Battlestar Galactica (BSG) has been released, and I finally got the opportunity to watch it last night and WOW what an experience. It had to be the most emotional, intense as well as satisfying end of a TV series. The music was as usual overwhelmingly immaculate. There's one part that stood out to me. Throughout the entire BSG series Gaius Baltar and Caprica Six have been on this journey, that would seem like the "god" of the BSG universe is guiding them and preparing them for something bigger. They have doubts, they have challenges and on numerous occasions it just seems like yes maybe they are pawns in some greater plan but chances are they're no different to anyone else but just obsessed with an idea of some greater power.

In the final episode they both indeed fulfill on what they had been prepared for. Due to all their preparation they are in the right place, at the right time to save, Hera Agathon, the young half-human, half-cylon girl and rescue her returning her to the CIC (the main command centre of the ship). That act that god had prepared them for was so insignificant compared to what they imagined it might have been, in a flash it was done and gone.

Baltar: "Hera, will she be alright?"
Angel Six: "She survived, thanks to you."
Angel Baltar: "Both of you."
Caprica Six: "And that's it, that's all god wants of us?"
Angel Six: "God's plan is never complete."
Baltar: "Great."
Angel Baltar: "But I think it's safe to say from now on your lives will be less eventful."

The reason such an act was unexpected in the show, is because we don't think something God would be preparing us for could be so insignificant. We relate to God preparing us for things that are bigger and better, things that are newer, things that are going to stand out bright compared to all our preparation. But it should be obvious to us now, the things God prepares us for, may seem so insignificant to us we might not even realise we've fulfilled on our training. God has a bigger plan than we'll ever understand in this world, so never underestimate the smallest things you do.

Photo of Gaius Baltar from TV Series Battlestar Galactica, downloaded from BattlestarWiki. This is a promotional photo falling under the fair use clause, which includes photos from press kits and used in promotion of the series.

Projection

Linked from Battlestar Wiki and copyright by Universal Studios. Use of it here is believed to be fair use.

In the TV series Battlestar Galactica (2004), cylons do something they call projection. No matter their environment or experiences they project an environment they find more pleasing. So walking down a dark, uninteresting, cold hallway in a spaceship for them they can experience, as did Tricia Helfer as a Number Six, a beautiful rain forest.

This science fiction concept of projection isn't far from how we already, knowingly or not, experience our own reality. The main difference being we aren't aware that what we experience as reality is in-fact a projection, and we aren't aware that we actually have a choice.

You won't physically see, hear and feel a rain forest while walking down a dark, cold hallway. But what you would experience walking through a rainforest, you are capable of experiencing anywhere, anytime and with anyone. It just requires you choose that experience.

What we experience is defined by us not by our circumstances, but we neglect to choose our experience resulting in a default to whatever our circumstances have to offer. Think of Paul (Philippians), in prison he was able to feel joy, peace and love. His experience weren't defined by his circumstances but instead he chose to look elsewhere, to look at Jesus. Through knowing, remembering and thinking of Jesus and knowing and experiencing who Jesus is Paul could experience joy, peace and love.

An Inspiring Method to Studying the Bible

There are several problems with the commonly used methods of studying the word. If you've ever used the S.O.A.P. method, you'd agree it's good however they miss a step for the sake of making a catchy acronym. If you've ever used the Swedish method, you'd probably also agree it's good, but it has too many steps to remember them all and lacks simplicity.

The last time I prepared a bible study, I decided to come up with my own approach to studying the word. One, yes, inspired by these previous two methods, except following a set of requirements, much like how I define requirements for software I develop. These requirements were:

• Short
• Simple
• Inspiring
• Action Encouraging

The method I invented/re-invented/whatever is not an acronym, sorry, you'll just have to remember the 4 steps in total. P.S. If you notice, 'acronym' wasn't in my list of requirements.

1. First Impressions - After having read and absorbed the passage, what stands out, what observations can you make. Note: as a "first impression" you are to be looking at this passage with no preconceived ideas, even if you have read it before!
2. Concerns - What is there that needs to be explained? What doesn't make sense? Or, why does it make sense?
3. Revelation - What is there to be discovered?
4. Action - What is there to do? To declare? To commit to? Or to pray about?

Steps 1 and 2 create an appropriate context for step 3. By giving up any pre-conceived ideas, and truly getting a 'first impression' of the passage, Step 1 allows you to see the passage in new light, and Step 2 will then allow you to understand it. So don't rush through them quickly to get to Step 3.

Hope you find it as useful as I do :).

Selfishness, Or Rather Not-Selfishness

Tonight at Northside our senior minister's sermon was titled Against The Tide: Selfishness. The talk was really not what I was expecting, Graham took an entirely about-turn approach to discussing selfishness that while some might consider non-confrontational I believe was very insightful. Language plays a huge part in our world. We often use it to describe the world and don't realise the power language has in creating the world. For this reason when empowering someone it is typically more effective to identify what there is to be done, rather than what shouldn't be done. This is what Graham did tonight, he discussed selfishness by discussing what is missing when we are being selfish.

The qualities we discussed all came from Collosians 3:12-14 and includes compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, bearing with one another, forgiveness and of course love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. And I really get that if I am being selfish, I can't be all or any of those things. I can attempt to fake it, but where will that get me?

Graham said one thing tonight that stood out to me and challenged me. He said, and this is probably heavily paraphrased, we shouldn't just go out and try and be all these things, but instead spend time with Jesus and through getting to know him learn and discover these qualities. Don't interpret this as a it's-not-your-responsibility, or that it happens "magically". It happens with intent, but unless we spend time with Jesus how do we truly learn those things? How do we truly experience and can then follow our Lord's example. Without getting to know Jesus and learning from him the best we can do is imitate the idea of the qualities - we will miss the entire depth and breadth that comes with being compassionate, kind, and having humilty and so on (see above list).

How the world distracts us from God / Dealing with everyday and global issues

Most of the time when I am faced with challenges or issues in my life, at work or in relationships I try to relate to them in the context of God. I might speculate whether an issue is a challenge from God, or something new he wants me to learn or experience. Even global issues like the economy or climate change, many people I think would ponder what part it plays in God's plan.

It occurred to me recently that all the issues and problems that go on in our lives, regardless of what higher purpose they serve, are all distractions. We usually consider our issues urgent so we give into the distractions. It's so easy to give ourselves over entirely to the latest and greatest emergency, and in the process move our attention away from God.

When new distractions are thrown into our lives, community or world, we have a choice. Give ourselves over to the distraction, or give ourselves over to God.

If you're not sure what I'm meaning by issues or distractions, really anything in your life or the global life of us all counts. Maybe you lost your job, run out of money, crashed your car, have to move, had a baby, or maybe it's global like fuel costs, the economy crashing or climate change. Regardless of their higher purpose, they all serve as distractions from God.

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...

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.

Strengths and Weaknesses

Ahh weaknesses, they commonly rear their head during a job interview. Your interviewer asks you what your weaknesses are, and you sit there and think to yourself for a second "How do I make myself sound human and realistic, without telling them all the things about myself they won't like." In that moment it might feel like the only time we think about our weaknesses, but we spend more time than we realise working on ourselves, improving ourselves and practicing and doing things that we're just not good at.

Don't get me wrong, as a Christian I think we should better ourselves. But what I'm talking about specifically is skills. I am a software engineer and some of my strong skills includes software architecture, software design, clean and modular development, efficient task management, and an easy ability to adapt to new programming languages and paradigms. My weaknesses would include public speaking, car maintenance, and fitness training. They're things I either need practice at, or formal training to be considered skilled.

In a corporate setting the skills you need are tightly described by your job description and so they're the skills you'll probably have. If you work in a smaller company you'll find the work you do will fringe on skills you just don't have. And if your an entrepreneur it can be really tempting to run your business in that way also. When starting out with your own business you can save a lot of money doing everything yourself, you know the work will be done exactly how you want it and you can preserve ownership over the entire business by not getting anyone else involved.

But there's something really wrong with this. God created us all and gave us gifts. In some cases these gifts will translate into our weaknesses and they need just a bit of practice to flourish into our strengths. In many cases however these gifts are our strengths, waiting to be used to their full potential. God designed us to work together using our gifts in our community of followers. In the Bible we are delivered a message on this (1 Corinthians 12), encouraging us to perform the function God designed us for in much the same way that one part of our body performs a specific function. Our ear hears, our eyes see and our mouth tastes. Christian communities often fall under pressure when individuals take on roles they weren't designed for. This can be seen in churches where a minister takes on all the roles needed to operate a church, often performing tasks that he/she has no skills with and in turn lowering the effectiveness of the church in that area and taking him/her away from the tasks that need their gifts.

This same experience translates into business. Businesses where the entrepreneur holds on tight, doing everything themselves have a higher chance of either dieing in their early days or never growing beyond what that one person can create. If you're interested in taking your business outside the limitations of your own skills, and expanding the skills that are available to your business, you have a few options. The first I would suggest is outsourcing: What tasks do you perform that someone else can. Another option is a personal assistant: Are there a large number of administrative tasks that could free up your time if handed over. Ideally what you should do is identify the tasks you perform that you shouldn't be wasting your time on. And then finding other businesses or individuals that can service those tasks.

Do I Acknowledge God?

This question at first prompts an easy simple answer, "Yes." But do I really? I now believe this to be a very difficult to admit, "No."

Sure I acknowledge God when I pray. I acknowledge him in my thoughts throughout my day. But last week I had a conversation with supervisor. We discussed my strengths, weaknesses and the conversation resulted in a lot of praise being dealt out about me. But in all of my responses to the praise, there was not a single time I acknowledged God's hand in my success. Not once. Maybe in my head, but not from my mouth.

There were days I had asked God for strength, patience and for the skills needed to fulfill on my work, and he had answered them, for I have done great work for my employer. And while I was being praised for my work I may have humbly accepted the praise, but in not acknowledging God my work glorified me instead of glorifying God.

At this point I feel sick and disappointed in myself. But I am not staying in this place of disappointment. I apologise Lord for working to glorify myself, please forgive me and guide me. I am committing to acknowledging You (God) wherever I am present to Your (God's) work.

Different approaches to studying the Bible

I know there are plenty of different methods to study the bible like the Swedish Method, or concept of S.O.A.P readings but what I'm interested in is literally approaches to studying the bible rather than the methods themselves.

When I study the word I come to it being intentional to get something of impact out of it. This might be an assurance of God's love, or an insight into how I can live life more effectively. Coming with an intention like this is good, but I've realised my intention manifests itself in such a way it may be causing me to miss things God wants to tell me. When I approach the Bible in this manner I read the bible expecting to find something and searching for it. And whenever we are searching for something, we at least have a rough idea of what we're looking for. The fact that we have even the tiniest preconceived idea of what we're looking for limits what we're going to see when we read the passage. It's like when your thinking of buying a new grey car. Suddenly you see all the grey cars people are driving around, standing out as if they're more prominent than red cars.

So what's another approach I can take to studying the bible? I think a good way is to first start with prayer, committing to God that you will remove any expectations you have, and that you want to give up your current understanding of what you're reading. Ask God that you will see what he wants you to see, and not what you already know. Going into the word having given up your preconceived ideas about the passage will give you the opportunity to read the passage in it's rawest form.

This may be a difficult thing for you to do. Many of our preconceived ideas are concreted into our subconscious, created when we were kids. But if we're going to read the word for what it is, we have to be willing to give up our own need to be right about our current beliefs and knowledge. We have to be willing to read the word, and acknowledge an understanding we have could be wrong.

I recognise this isn't the only way of approaching study, and I'm in no way suggesting you drop your current approach to study. I still think the first approach is a very powerful way of approaching the Bible, but I've come to realise that it was limiting my study, and so I'm giving this a go.

Please, if you have another approach to studying the bible, please post them as comments to this post. I am eager to see what other people think of this matter.

Love

Love is what has been on my mind since doing a S.O.A.P. reading the other day.

I had read 1 John 3:11-3:24, and felt the passage had a strong message that love is essential. It gave practical points on how to love, and talked about how the world would hate us and it was essential for us to love. Although this was all very good, I felt like I was missing something. Like there was something in the passage that would have a huge impact on me, I just couldn't see it yet. I explored what it is for me to love, and then I explored what it is that gets in the way of me loving, and that's when it came to me...superficial judgment.

On thinking further I determined love and superficial judgment cannot exist in the same space. One way I think of love is: accepting who someone is and who someone isn't, and giving up having to change them. When I get to that point with someone, I can be in that persons presence without anything getting in the way of loving them, even in a sacrificial way. No matter who they are, or what they have done.

That realisation had an immediate impact on my life, and the relationships with several people I know were altered because no longer did my judgment of them stand in the way of loving them.

My realisation that God can care for me better than I can.

As I walked down to the shops for lunch this afternoon, water drops started to lightly hit my body. It was the warning of rain to come. Inside me I felt a sigh of disappointment. I had no umbrella, I'd either get wet on the way there or wet on the way back. I prayed in my mind, "Please don't rain." But I felt rather guilty praying for not-rain. In Australia there's a shortage of water with our dams running low. Wouldn't me getting wet be a small sacrifice to provide water for my country?

It then occurred to me how naive I was being about God, and the huge lack of faith I had. You see when it started to rain I immediately jumped to keeping myself dry. I knew if it didn't rain, I would stay dry. But I wasn't having faith in God to care for me. I was taking a problem, finding a solution and asking God to implement my solution. I was telling God how to care for his creation, and what I was asking was selfish.

God has more solutions available to him than I ever could and he knows how to care for me. This is what I then prayed:

God. Please keep me dry, but if the only option to keeping me dry is turning off the rain, please make it rain.

As I continued to walk on the footpath, a scared feeling rose up in me, not knowing what was going to happen next. Then the rain then picked up and I smiled. I knew God had responded to my prayer.

In hindsight, if God had held back the rain like I was asking it may not have been in my best interest anyway. If there's a lack of water in my country it affects me in the long run.

Prayer Requests

Most of the time when I'm asking God for something, it's asking God for guidance, healing, and wisdom. All great things, and I think they all are great to ask God for. They're practical, they're probably some of the most prominent things in an active Christians mind. "Where do you want me God?" "What should I be doing with my life?" "Please help me to understand this so I can figure it out." "Please take this pain from me so that I don't suffer anymore."

It occurred to me last night at Connection Group while me and my Christian family were sitting around praying. How much more impact would it have if I asked God to fill me with love and compassion. Doesn't the need for Christians to have love and compassion overshadow so many other needs we have?

I'm not saying don't ask God for what we need. Rather I'm saying we're forgetting about essential things we need.

Everyday Life

The video says it all so I'll say no more.