Can you relate? ...

[Jimbeaux]

I am reading Winn Collier’s book Restless Faith: Holding On to a God Just Out of Reach (http://www.amazon.com/Restless-Faith-Holding-Just-Reach/dp/1576837114/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1216678396&sr=8-1). Early in the book Collier confesses:
“It isn’t that endeavoring to explore the vastness of God is an ignoble pursuit; it’s just that I am blinded by my vanity. I find it difficult to comprehend that knowing God is not simply possessing a great array of facts about him

“Rather than trusting the Good Creator, enjoying his gifts when they are offered, and being content in the mysteries of divine ways, I manipulate with painstaking calculation and intellectual dissection. I seek to control, and I strive to subdue. I am determined to know—not an intimate knowing lovers revel in but a manipulative knowing like that of a frantic scientist ripping apart his latest experiment, reducing the mystery to spare parts and junk metal. What I find, however, is that this God I attempt to conquer in much larger than I could ever imagine, and he doesn’t conform to my categories or succumb to my whims.

“My obsession with being right and conquering God is a culturally acceptable way to feed my addiction for control and a clumsy mask for my feverish attempt to keep at bay the foreboding possibility that I might not be as well put together as I let on.”
Can you relate?

~Jim

If the first step in an argument is wrong everything that follows is wrong.


~C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

[JimfromOhio]

I am reading Winn Collier’s book Restless Faith: Holding On to a God Just Out of Reach (http://www.amazon.com/Restless-Faith-Holding-Just-Reach/dp/1576837114/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1216678396&sr=8-1). Early in the book Collier confesses:
“It isn’t that endeavoring to explore the vastness of God is an ignoble pursuit; it’s just that I am blinded by my vanity. I find it difficult to comprehend that knowing God is not simply possessing a great array of facts about him

“Rather than trusting the Good Creator, enjoying his gifts when they are offered, and being content in the mysteries of divine ways, I manipulate with painstaking calculation and intellectual dissection. I seek to control, and I strive to subdue. I am determined to know—not an intimate knowing lovers revel in but a manipulative knowing like that of a frantic scientist ripping apart his latest experiment, reducing the mystery to spare parts and junk metal. What I find, however, is that this God I attempt to conquer in much larger than I could ever imagine, and he doesn’t conform to my categories or succumb to my whims.

“My obsession with being right and conquering God is a culturally acceptable way to feed my addiction for control and a clumsy mask for my feverish attempt to keep at bay the foreboding possibility that I might not be as well put together as I let on.”
Can you relate?

~Jim

If the first step in an argument is wrong everything that follows is wrong.



~C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain


I can relate when I was a younger Christian but knowing God more, I know that I trust Him no matter what happens. Thanks for sharing.

[NewSong]

Ouch! Good post! I don't want to derail the thread from the original post but I do have a response to this the final point made in the summary of the book.

[QUOTE][“My obsession with being right and conquering God is a culturally acceptable way to feed my addiction for control and a clumsy mask for my feverish attempt to keep at bay the foreboding possibility that I might not be as well put together as I let on.”
/QUOTE]

If in a culture this is the acceptable way ...how do you break the trend? I mean if this is acceptable (Not necessarily right) how do you go against it?

Another thread might be more appropriate.... I think a lot of us are conditioned responders and not necessarily wanting to be in the cycle as described above ..Speaking for myself.. of course! So, the object would be how do we break this cycle if we are guilty of it.

So yes I relate.

[Moriah_Conquering_Wind]

One of the advantages to being born female: the inherent trait of tendency toward valuing relationship and process over ownership and results. ;)

Moriah can see the truth of the words as applies to those whom that shoe fits. Its own foot, however, has much different contours.

[Jimbeaux]

Ouch! Good post! I don't want to derail the thread from the original post but I do have a response to this the final point made in the summary of the book.

[“My obsession with being right and conquering God is a culturally acceptable way to feed my addiction for control and a clumsy mask for my feverish attempt to keep at bay the foreboding possibility that I might not be as well put together as I let on.”


If in a culture this is the acceptable way ...how do you break the trend? I mean if this is acceptable (Not necessarily right) how do you go against it?

Another thread might be more appropriate.... I think a lot of us are conditioned responders and not necessarily wanting to be in the cycle as described above ..Speaking for myself.. of course! So, the object would be how do we break this cycle if we are guilty of it.

So yes I relate.

One way is to remember that while we may be in the world, we are not of the world. We are ambassadors of another kingdom, first and foremost subject to the laws and values of the kingdom we represent, not the kingdom we have been dispatched too. An ambassador will never forget, not even for a moment, who he is and the kingdom he represents.

To help us sort out these divergent values the Spirit has renewed our mind so that we will not be “conformed to the world” but, rather “transformed” to make the lines clear between what it is to be in the world but not of the world.

That still require constant attention (and diligence) because the allure of the world’s values is so insidious and subtle that if we are not careful we will forget which kingdom we are part of.

~Jim
If the first step in an argument is wrong everything that follows is wrong.
~C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

[NewSong]

One way is to remember that while we may be in the world, we are not of the world. We are ambassadors of another kingdom, first and foremost subject to the laws and values of the kingdom we represent, not the kingdom we have been dispatched too. An ambassador will never forget, not even for a moment, who he is and the kingdom he represents.

To help us sort out these divergent values the Spirit has renewed our mind so that we will not be “conformed to the world” but, rather “transformed” to make the lines clear between what it is to be in the world but not of the world.

That still require constant attention (and diligence) because the allure of the world’s values is so insidious and subtle that if we are not careful we will forget which kingdom we are part of.

~Jim

If the first step in an argument is wrong everything that follows is wrong.


~C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain



Thank you. It was so kind of you to take time to answer this..This is deep for me but I want to get it right. :) Thank you.

[GreatistheLord]

It's right. We should be like children in our thinking. Knowledge puffs up.