God

God Moves in a Mysterious Way
by William Cowper

God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform;
He plants His footsteps in the sea,
And rides upon the storm.

Deep in unfathomable mines
Of never-failing skill
He treasures up His bright designs,
And works His sovereign will.

Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take,
The clouds ye so much dread
Are big with mercy, and shall break
In blessings on your head.

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
But trust Him for His grace;
Behind a frowning providence
He hides a smiling face.

His purposes will ripen fast,
Unfolding every hour;
The bud may have a bitter taste,
But sweet will be the flower.

Blind unbelief is sure to err,
And scan his work in vain;
God is His own interpreter,
And He will make it plain.

An agnostic dyslexic insomniac is someone who stays awake all night wondering if there really is a dog.

'I refuse to prove that I exist,' says God, 'for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.'

'But,' says Man, 'The Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED.'

'Oh dear,' says God, 'I hadn't thought of that,' and promptly vanished in a puff of logic.

'Oh, that was easy,' says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing.

Is it significant that a back-to-front dog becomes God, while a slightly more contorted cat becomes act (probably with a small 'a')?? Must have a word with Sirius (which reminds me, on behalf of all cats, why is there no cat-star?)

Once or twice--well, no, not a god, actually, but a responsive spider. 1. sitting on the ground with her (then)lover, Ted, in some afternoon-filtered sunshine. Late late autumn in a part of the world where winter barely arrives --the sun is still strong on on skin and clothes are still light weight. Ted is leaving soon and they are uncertain of when they will see each other again. Ted sees a tiny spider walking on the leg of his jeans. He says to the spider, »Tie me to Belle--c'mon, I'll give you a quarter.«
Immediately, like a close up slo-motion sequence from a PBS science special: the spider launches a gossamer web thread into the air, with a kind of shower of crystal almost-sparks, the thread sails across the gap between the lovers and connects at Belle's knee. The spider walks across.

In his book, The Easy Yoke, Doug Webster retells a great Wil Willimon story about a young, idealistic college student who ended up in one of the worst-looking housing projects in Philadelphia.

A brand-new Christian, this wide-eyed urban missionary didn’t have a clue how to evangelize in the middle of the city. Frightened and anxious to share his new faith, the young man approached a very large, intimidating tenement house. Cautiously making his way through the dark, cluttered hallways, he walked up a flight of stairs and heard a baby crying. The baby was inside one of the apartments. He knocked on the door and was met by a woman holding a naked baby. She was smoking, and she was not in the mood to hear about Jesus. She cursed at the boy and slammed the door. The young man was devastated. He walked outside, slumped down on the street curb, and cried. »Look at me,« he said to himself. »How in the world could someone like me think I could tell anyone about Jesus?«

Then the young man looked up and saw a dilapidated old store on the corner. It was open, and he went inside and walked around. It was then that he remembered the baby in the tenement was naked and that the woman was smoking. So he bought some diapers and a pack of cigarettes and headed back to the woman’s apartment. He knocked on the door, and before the woman could start cursing him, he slid the cigarettes and diapers inside the open door.

The woman invited him in.

The student played with the baby. He put a diaper on the baby—even though he’d never put a diaper on a baby before. And when the woman asked him to smoke, he smoked—even though he’d never smoked before. He spent the whole day playing with the baby, changing diapers, and smoking.

Late in the afternoon the woman asked him, »What’s a nice college boy like you doing in a place like this?« He told her all he knew about Jesus. Took him about five minutes. When he stopped talking, the woman looked at him and said, »Pray for me and my baby that we make it out of here alive.« He prayed.

This young man’s story is a freedom story. Because of his freedom in Christ, he was led by the Holy Spirit to change diapers and, well...smoke. If this young man were in your youth group and gave this testimony, I have a strong feeling many Christians wouldn’t be celebrating his freedom in Christ—they’d be asking you what was going to be done about his »indiscretion.«

Trouble is, what he did was a Spirit-led indiscretion. Paul said it best: »Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom« (2 Corinthians 3:17). And in this situation, he was free to smoke.

Uh oh. When Jesus says the truth sets us free, he isn’t kidding.

The trouble with modern Christianity is that we’ve tried to de-fang the truth. Freedom in Christ does have fangs. Sharp ones. That’s why, when Christ was around, people weren’t afraid to tear roofs apart and let little children run out of control. The freedom Jesus is about isn’t a nice, religious concept or a cute idea—it’s a wild, dangerous, shocking, upsetting, uncomfortable, daring, threatening truth. Freedom in Christ means we are free to fail and free not to fail; we are free to follow Christ and free to run from him; we are free to obey and free not to obey; we are free to sin and free not to sin.

Freedom in Christ makes us all extremely nervous. It should! Because freedom in Christ isn’t a youth ministry issue, it’s a soul issue. Although the Spirit of God calls us to freedom, many of us have allowed our bosses, our churches, and our parents to quench the Spirit and kill the life within us. Then, instead of following Christ, we start following policy, parental expectations, and staff directives. And suddenly we find ourselves exhausted, burned out—our souls lifeless and dead.

Freedom in Christ is very hazardous to our jobs, too. It means we’re more afraid of disappointing Jesus than we are of being fired. Freedom in Christ means we have the courage to ask why our staff meetings are about church business instead of about Jesus.

Freedom is a wonderfully risky consequence of listening to the wild whispers of Christ’s Holy Spirit and sharing those whispers with our students.

»Are you tired?« Jesus asks. »Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me, and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly« (Matthew 11:28-30, The Message).

What is Jesus whispering to you? Are you too busy? Then slow down. Quit programming so much. Quit trying to fix everybody. Take time to savor Jesus’ love for you—and let him run freely in your soul.

God. Many people, maybe even most, believe in one or another God. Or Gods, even. Unfortunately this phenomenon has brought some of the worst events to humanity. I mean: most wars have been started because of conflicts about what God people believe in. Wars have even been started between groups believing in the same God, but in a different way.

Believing in God also has brought many many good things. For most people it is a source of strength, of moral guidance and an inspiration for their daily actions. This has lead to many beautiful things, like humanitarian aid, decent education, health care for people that cannot take care of themselves.
Of course this 'let us call our actions as inspired by God' has also made people do horrible stuff, like claiming that condoms are leaking in order to convince people to not use them. Thus contributing to the spread of HIV, a kind of murder.

I think the important thing to remember is the 'two faces' thing about believing in a God. Two faces as in: it can lead to beautiful, but also to horrible stuff.
And it is important to remember that just claiming that your actions are inspired by your God, doesn't necessarily make them the Good Thing To Do.

What was this thing, the »Trinity?« Does this mean you believe in three Gods?


No. The Bible tells us in many places that there is only one God (Deuteronomy 6:4; Isaiah 43:10; 1 Timothy 2:5; 1 Corinthians 8:6). But it also tells us that three Persons are this same God‑the Father (John 17:3, 1 Corinthians 8:6; 1 Peter 1:2), the Son Jesus Christ ( John 1:20:28; Philippians 2:6,7, compared with John 5:18, Titus 2: 13; 2 Peter 1:1), and the Holy Spirit (Acts 5:3,4, Hebrews 9:14).


But that sounds crazy! How can three Persons be one God?

I'll admit it sounds unusual. We aren't used to seeing any humans who are more than one person, but that doesn't make it impossible. The key is for us to remember that being and personhood are different kinds of things.

What do you mean?

Look around you. You see lots of different beings‑a rock here, a tree there, a building over there, a cow out in the field. All of these are beings, but they aren't persons at all‑they don't have the three attributes of personhood, intellect, emotions, and moral free will. On the other hand, you see some beings that are persons‑every man, woman, and child you see is both a being and a person.

So we know that some beings are not persons at all. and some are one person. But there's nothing that tells us no being could be more than one person.


So long as you remember the difference between being and person, while it may be strange to think of a single being being three persons, it isn't illogical and should not be impossible to believe.


This is why Jesus instructed His followers about initiating people into Christianity and told them to baptize »in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit« (Matthew 28:19).

Maybe it's not illogical, but it's pretty hard to understand.

Shouldn't we expect many things about God to be hard to understand? After all, God has more power and more intelligence than all the universe, and we are only beginning to understand our tiny corner of the universe.

God, the center and focus of religious faith, a holy being or ultimate reality to whom worship and prayer are addressed. Especially in monotheistic religions, God is considered the creator or source of everything that exists and is spoken of in terms of perfect attributes—for instance, infinitude, immutability, eternity, goodness, knowledge (omniscience), and power (omnipotence). Most religions traditionally ascribe to God certain human characteristics that can be understood either literally or metaphorically, such as will, love, anger, and forgiveness.

if god created the universe and god had jesus come to our planet, and there is life on other planets, did god send jesus to those planets to save them and if he did did jesus look like a hippy alien?