Living In A Spiritually Flat World

In Psalm 80, the psalmist cried out to the Lord to save his nation and "to restore and smile on us." The sentiments expressed in the psalm echoes what many of us feel when our prayers do not seem to be answered. Some have turned away from God in such times even though it is a time when they need God even more.

The psalmist lived in a time when people believed that the world is flat - the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. The earth was the centre of the universe with the sun. moon and stars moving around it. Living in such a world, the people were not able to travel far beyond their homes. It was also inconceivable to them that one can travel round the world.

Their spiritual perspective is that of heaven being above and hell as below. Living with such a perspective, people believe that they need to please God or God would turn away from them. They needed to plead for God to return to them.

However, in our modern world, we have a totally different perspective. We know that the earth is round and that it is revolving and moving round the sun. When the part of the earth is turned away from the sun, there is the darkness of night. When it turns back to face the sun, it has the light of the morning sun. We are aware that we are not the centre of the universe but our earth is but a tiny ball in an universe that we find hard to imagine.

Such knowledge of our physical universe should move us from the concept of living in a "spiritually flat world" where God moves toward or away from us. When we turn away from God in our lives, we will encounter the dark night of our souls. Adverse circumstances, suffering as well as hedonistic pleasures in our lives tend to turn us away from God. It makes no difference to God whether we are turned towards Him or not - but it makes a big difference to us as it determines whether we will be able to have the love, joy and peace that God wants to give us.

The picture of God being in the centre of our lives can help us to understand the discipline of repentance. Repentance is not just feeling sorry for our wrongdoings but a recognition of our need for God and our need to keep turning back to God as the lover of our souls. Difficulties, problems and suffering can become our springs for joy and peace if we use them to seek the grace and love of our Heavenly Father. Such times can be times for the reframing of our minds, the renovation of our hearts and the revival of our souls.

We will experience the joy unspeakable and the peace that surpasses all human understanding when we move from living in a spiritually flat world with magical religious practices to a spiritual world in which Christ is in us our hope of glory. In an Upper Room Reflection, I was reminded that "the heart’s single greatest desire is to listen attentively to the voice of God speaking through scripture, nature, daily events, and the kind of reflection that leads to expanding self-knowledge." It is only when we live such a life that our hearts will have room for God.

So let us cultivate the discipline of solitude, meditating on God's Word and learning to listen to the voice of our Shepherd in prayer.

The Hidden Ways Of God

In the Upper Room devotional on 26th October 2011, the writer drew attention to the importance of silence in our relationships with one another as well as with God. In our increasingly noisy world of easy and instant communication, we tend to see silence in relationships as "a sign of disapproval, rejection, or disinterest."

While this may sometimes be true, we need to understand the value of silence - as a "time out" to draw closer to God so that we can learn to be humble, honest and loving. We need to hear God calling us to a deeper level of intimacy that is beyond words - to be still in order to hear the soft and gentle whispers of His love and grace.

This brings to mind the teaching of Martin Luther of the concept of "Deus absconditus" - the God who is hidden. This is to counter the easier theological teachings that when God has revealed Himself in Jesus Christ, "everything was inexhaustibly known and available about God."

The theology from Martin Luther's work is to remind us that God's ways will always be a mystery to us. Richard Foster makes the point that "the hiddenness of God" is to increase our awareness to the truth that "God is not at the beck and call of human beings."

We need not be afraid of silence - especially the silence of God. Let us cultivate silence in our lives and to treasure the golden moments of being still in the presence of our loving Heavenly Father.

The Place & Space of God's Kingdom

There were two posters at an exhibition at the National Library last week which caught my eye. One poster posed questions with regard to the concept of "Place":

"Where does "PLACE" begin and end?"

"How much of a "PLACE" is found only in the MIND of the perceived?"

Another poster gave me new thoughts about "Space":

"Space is simultaneously personal, communal and impersonal."

These two posters led me to reflect more deeply on the Kingdom of God. What is our perception of God's Kingdom? Where does God's Kingdom begin and end in our lives? How much of God's Kingdom is found only in our minds?

We limit God's rule when His place in our lives is confined only to our Sunday worship and church activities during the week. Instead of putting on Christ when we leave church we take off Christ and put on the masks of our ego selves.

We are so preoccupied with our pursuit for health, wealth and pleasure that we forget that we are only pilgrims on this earth. We are so earthbound that we are not homesick for heaven. Even as we faithfully pray, "Your Kingdom come," our eyes are not opened to the reality of God's Kingdom in our daily lives in the here and now.

Jesus taught us that God's Kingdom is to be found in our hearts. So often, it is only when we face death that we seek God's Kingdom with all our heart. The good news is that Jesus came to help us to create space in our hearts for God. Like space, prayer is simultaneously personal, communal and impersonal.

We may feel at times feel that prayer is impersonal for we cannot see and hear God. But the hymn, What A Friend We Have In Jesus, teaches us that prayer is personal - and what peace we often forfeit when we fail to bring our concerns to our Lord in prayer. At the same time, prayer is communal as we pray for one another as it links us together in our concerns for one another and the world.

God's Kingdom is the space in our hearts and we need to receive it with the childlike attitude of trust and wonder. In the gospel of Luke, Jesus tells us very clearly:

“Let the children come to me. Don’t stop them! For the Kingdom of God belongs to those who are like these children. I tell you the truth, anyone who doesn’t receive the Kingdom of God like a child will never enter it” (Luke 18:16-17)

We do not need more faith – we simply need to put whatever faith we have in God. We are to be like children who are able to believe what they cannot understand. Unfortunately, as we grow older, we lose our childlike wonder and we only believe what we can understand. How true it is that there are times when ignorance is bliss! The truth, as stated in the Upper Room devotional today is that “we don’t have to know the how to trust God with the what.”

Our responsibility is to learn to turn our worries, fears and anger to Christ so that we can see our circumstances through God’s eyes and to respond to them in the power of the Holy Spirit. Instead of wasting our energies on trying to increase our faith in human ways, we are called to discover the movements of God in our daily and ordinary lives so that we can experience and enjoy His agape love. We will be filled with the inexpressible joy of our salvation when we submit to God’s reign in our lives by seeking to love Him more as our Heavenly Father instead of busying ourselves trying to win points to please Him.

Heaven - God's Dream For Us

Our images and concepts of heaven play a very critical role in how to live our Christian faith as well as how effective we are as witnesses of the love and grace of God.

The parable of the prodigal son shows us that some of us may chose to leave heaven only to find ourselves in the hell of a hedonistic and materialistic lifestyle. On the other hand, some of us are living in the hell of a religious legalistic lifestyle even though we claim to worship God as our Heavenly Father.

Jesus came to seek the lost and to heal those who are sick. His sternest criticisms were directed towards the Pharisees who claim to know God but fail to do the will of God.

The good news is that Jesus came to show us that life is a life of love. We are the children of a loving Heavenly Father. The story of our lives and of our human history is the love story of God in creation.

When the disciples asked Jesus to teach them how to pray, He taught them the Lord’s Prayer. It is a prayer that reminds us that life is all about God’s Kingdom and His providence. At the same time, we need to recognize the importance of forgiveness and the reality of evil.

The Lord’s prayer encapsulates our mission to bring heaven on earth and share the wonderful message of God’s love for all mankind. When we pray, “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed by Your name, we are to remember that our fellow human beings are God’s children.

In a book for children, God’s Dream, Bishop Desmond Tutu described God’s dream as being about people sharing and caring for one another. He made the point that each of us carries a piece of God’s heart within us – and when we love one another, the pieces of God’s heart are made whole.

Making God’s dream is simple – as easy as sharing, loving, caring, playing and laughing – when we see one another as all God’s children. But it is difficult if not impossible if we try to do so without dealing with our pride, prejudices, unforgiveness, and greed.

Our responsibility is simply to pay attention to what our Heavenly Father is saying to us each day in the people we meet and the circumstances we face each day. The good news from the psalmist is that our Heavenly Father watches over us when we put Him first in our lives. He rescues us from the death of lives of futility and provides us with we need even in times of scarcity. (Psalm 33:18-19)

Let us give the first place in our lives to God so that there will be space in our hearts for His amazing love.