Service to Almighty God is not complicated, but there is so much more depth to God than Christians understand (or even want to understand). God is not just a happiness giver. For many, Christianity means a successful marriage, a happy family, adequate economics, protection from death. For many Catholics, Christianity (rightly) means accepting the bad with the good. This is all shallow Christianity. God is so, so much deeper, deeper but not complicated. God does not require ceremony and tradition (Psalm 51:17 “a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise”). God is all that we believe to be the nature and character of God. But God is deeper than what we shallowly understand. God is an existence where our own existence becomes insignificant. Walking with God is a state where nothing else even enters our thoughts, a state where we wish we could vaporize and meld with no thought for what is behind because every possible desire is satisfied in God Most High.
On Civil Accountability
I’m a private citizen with rights, but you’re a public servant with duties. —Vox
Recliner Worship
I find myself intolerably annoyed with anthems about experiencing God’s presence. How did mankind become so comfortable kicking back to imagine that God has a duty to satisfy the thirst or hunger or desperation of servants? It is a lazy and wrong-headed understanding of what it means to be an Abrahamic theist. Singung about the awesomeness of God’s presence might produce a goosenump, but it does not produce an encounter with the Almighty.Show more ›
A Spontaneous Meditation
“Come unto me, all ye labouring and burdened ones, and I will give you rest, take up my yoke upon you, and learn from me, because I am meek and humble in heart, and ye shall find rest to your souls.” (Matt 11:28-29 YLT)
“The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous runneth into it and is safe.” (Prov 18:10 YLT)
“Whom have I in heaven but you? I desire you more than anything on earth. My health may fail, and my spirit may grow weak, but God remains the strength of my heart; he is [my portion] forever.” (Psalm 73:25-26 NLT)
“But as for me, how good it is to be near God! I have made the Sovereign Lord my shelter, and I will tell everyone about the wonderful things you do.” (Psalm 73:28)
Yahweh, Jehovah, & Adonai
I learned a little Arabic in 2022. The classes ended abruptly so I did not progress as far as I had expected. My graduate studies included two linguistics courses that, for inteinsic reasons, were predominantly Indo-European (duh, I speak English, Spanish, French). Of course any linguistics curriculum includes an overview of other language families, and that once-extraneous knowledge of Semitic languages quickly made a lot of sense. It probably also accelerated my uptake. It definitely connected dots which I could apply to Hebrew.Show more ›
Surrendered Suffering Is Worship
Luke 22:42 records Jesus as praying, “Father, if Thou be willing, remove this cup from me; nevertheless not my will, but Thine be done.” These words demonstrate total surrender to יהוה. It is the sheep submitting to the shepherd’s plans and purposes. Suffering is not just the adversity which befalls us. Suffering is just as much knowing the adversity that will imminently befall us or the consciousness that our present adversity has no apparent set ending. Feeling about to break, we ourselves are likely to beg the Almighty to bring our suffering to an end. There is nothing fallable in that entreaty. But, if we then bring ourselves to say, “not my will but yours be done” then in that moment we offer a worship of submission. And every moment of mindful submission is worship. In worship there is peace. The desperation changes to sorrow as we experience God’s sorrow for our suffering. But if all we can offer is our desperate and broken heart, then it is sufficient to offer our desperate and broken heart. The old widow who gave her last two coins (Mk 12:41-44) offered God all that she had and it was an acceptable offering. It was her worship. When we surrender our last desperate emotions, it is our worship and it is acceptable, it is pleasing. Our agony, when offered as submission, becomes a lived act of worship. Stop bucking to start worshipping.
Inshallah, Mashallah, and Alhamdulillah
These three words capture the entirety of worshiping God Most High. I could conclude this post here and it would be sufficient for decades of meditation, but since when do I not discuss a matter at length?Show more ›
On Understanding God
I don’t understand its necessity, but I understand that you (God) understand it, and that is enough. —Vox
A Short Colloquy
| VOX: | I’m really tired of [this locality and these circumstances] |
| GOD: | Am I not enough for you? |
| VOX: | I withdraw my complaint |
(In other words, Do I not satisfy you? What else do you need?)
I Wore a Thobe Today
Nearly eight years ago I posted my first manifesto, Why I Wear Skirts. Skirts are still super awesome, but today I forge another countercultural path: the Arabian Thobe. Yet for all the wisdom and perspective gained through skirts, I find myself re-learning some of the same simple lessons all over again.Show more ›
Demanding a god that thinks like a human
How often do we hear the critique, I cannot believe in a god that allows so much suffering to exist in the world. This statement actually expresses the thought that I can only believe in a god that thinks the way that I think (i.e. because I would end suffering if I were God). Show more ›
A Short Colloquy (#2)
| VOX: | I’m really tired of being here. |
| GOD: | If you’re here then you’re not there. |
(In other words, You can’t know the dangers lurking elsewhere so I’m holding you ‘here’ which is better for you than ‘there’.)
A Short Colloquy (#3)
| VOX: | God, I really want this [matter] solved. |
| GOD: | Really? Do you want that more than me? |
| VOX: | יהוה is my shepherd I shall not want. (Ps 23:1) |
What we pray
“Most of what we pray is me-me-me, want-want-want, my terms, my timing, my pleasure, my solution. We approach God with the mentality of an immature child.” —Vox
A Short Colloquy (#4)
| VOX: | God, please bring me someone to help. |
| GOD: | Are you willing to forgive _________? |
| VOX: | I trust your process. |
That’s a sorry cop-out.
(Nontrinitarian) Christian Advantage
It might be, that as a (nontrinitarian) Christian, I enjoy the capacity to honor, respect, and revere—without snobby superiority—both my Jewish and my Muslim brethren who, like Christians, worship the God of Abraham.
God is not…
God is not what we think God is, neither is God what we imagine God to be. We are blind (wo)men trying to describe colors. Everything that we articulate is conscripted by our limited vocabulary. We who are finite cannot actually understand what it is to be infinite. Our weak articulations describe the infinite as being everything that the finite is not. But we cannot actually predict the infinite. Every word that we use to describe God Most High has zero useful meaning. God is not what we think God is because we cannot think beyond the capabilities of our thought. God is more than we can imagine. Perhaos we are but one percent accurate in our understanding of God, incapable of comprehending the remaining ninety-nine percent.
Adam, Eve, and the Creation of Everything
Five years ago I observed that Scripture arguably describes a simultaneous creation of Adam and Eve. Read literally, woman was extracted from man. Extraction means the woman was already within the man at creation. Did God sort a comingled bag of jellybeans into pinks and blues, or did God change one-half of only-blue jellybeans into pink jellybeans? If the former, then Adam and Even co-existed ab initio.Show more ›
Hawk Nelson: Faithful
Pensamientos sueltos
¿Cómo puedo dejar que mis pensamientos sueltos caigan en otro asunto cuando tengo el señor todopoderoso rey de reyes soberano del universo aquí a mi alcance? ¿Cómo puede ser que aquél no ocupe toda mi mente y toda mi conciencia?
Revealing God
God has spent all of human history revealing more and more of himself to humanity. It is time to recognize those cycles and endeavors for what they were and for what we were. The metaphors and symbolisms were appropriate for the stage of human civilization and human cognition. But we are in a different stage today and it is time to recognize the past revelations for what they were and it is time to look beyond those metaphors and conceive of something new today.Show more ›
Daniel Calveti: La niña de tus ojos
“Lo halló en una tierra desolada, en la rugiente soledad del yermo. Lo protegió y lo cuidó; lo guardó como a la niña de sus ojos.” (DEUT 32:10)
Encuéntrame otra vez
Not Not Muslim
Muslim originally meant (and still means) “one who submits to God.” That sounds like a pretty awesome designation. I desire to be wholly submitted to God. The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.
Muslim later acquired its second meaning of “one who practices Islam.” As I pointed out previously, Islam means “peace through submission to God.” I desire that peace.
So I am Muslim, but not Muslim, or maybe just not not Muslim.