Spiritual Ponderings

I told you so! What emotions do those words stir up? I found this intriguing to me as I thought about it earlier today. It occurred to me that I have once again come across a real and a counterfeit, something that can either add to one's life or make one feel diminished. The most common thing that comes to most people's minds whenever this phrase comes up is when someone has predicted something negative would happen. We often use this as a punchline to reinforce the idea that we knew better ahead of time and the person we have warned didn't listen to our opinions. As something of a final jab to reinforce the fact that we were right and they were wrong we throw out this one-liner, “I told you so. I knew that was what was going to happen and you didn't listen to me.” As I thought about this I wondered about the typical reaction inside that usually occurs whenever someone says this to us. I suppose I can't speak for everyone, but I know in my own experience that...

I have always internally struggled with the concept of 'the law'. The way that this idea was embedded into my psyche growing up always had a rather negative connotation to it. 'Keeping the law' seemed to have a dark feeling to it, something that required a great deal of effort, willpower and lots of help from God. Failing to live up to every detail of this performance perfectly carried with it frightening consequences, some of which were imposed on me physically and painfully. At the same time I heard a great deal of religious talk about the fact that love was somehow supposed to be the 'fulfilling of the law'. Since the law was such a negative subject for me and usually associated with punishment and pain, closely linking love with the law created confusion in my mind about what love must be. Added to this were the mixed messages I received from people who sometimes insisted that 'love is a principle'. The people who usually said this tended to use t...

Unconditional love gives others the right to hurt us. (John Bevere, The Bait of Satan p.16) I have heard that God loves me with unconditional love. I have accepted that with my mind. But after reading the above statement I felt confronted with some heart questions. God, do You really love me with unconditional love? That means that according to this You have given me the right to hurt You(?) That doesn't compute with anything I feel about You in my mind. I can't even grasp that. Then I heard God whispering to me. Why do you find it hard to think that I give you the right to hurt me? Well, I have to think about this and explore what is really going on deep inside. That is hard – You know – to really get honest about my gut-level feelings, especially when they don't sound religiously correct. But I know it is very important to do it anyway. Maybe I have a hard time believing this because I have never been able to imagine it even being possible that You would really hu...

If we have food and covering, with these we shall be content. But those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a snare and many foolish and harmful desires which plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil , and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. But flee from these things , you man of God, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, perseverance and gentleness. (1 Timothy 6:8-11) As I look at this verse from a more mature perspective now I can see clearly that it is not the money itself that will corrupt me but it is my allowing the motives listed here to infiltrate my soul. On the flip side, this passage also spells out quite clearly what I need to focus on if I am to remain free from these tenacious attitudes and lusts. I need to pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, perseverance and gentleness . Now that sounds amazingly familiar, like a paral...