Favorites

Every human being is a mystic.  Too borrow a phrase from a Clint Eastwood movie, we mystics all, include the good, the bad and the ugly.  There is not one of us that has not, for at least a brief moment, received a message from eternity.  Much like the meteors of varying sizes, God is bombarding all of us for as the Apostle Paul said in Romans 2:11, “God has no favorites”. Some messages are burned up in our Godless atmosphere while others make contact with the people indiscriminately.  Inside of religion or among the religion less, we all are targets for God’s appointed messages.

Some of those contacted deny even the possibility of a message from the spirit world, fearing being outed as a freak.  Some of us hide in the bushes with the messages from God, hiding with an overwhelming sense of unworthiness.  Some of us take the messages from God as proof of our own personal specialness, much like the Pharisees that hounded Jesus.  Some of us take and accept the messages from God to build an orthodoxy around which they expect other people to gather and bow.   Some of us take our God gifting to impress this ugly world through writing, poetry and art.

If I were God, which I am not, I would say, why should I even bother?  Why bother to share the blessings of eternity by sending messages to these self-involved, dunderhead humans?  Are not you rejoicing that I am not God?  Despite all our receiving delays, his messages continue to fall upon we undeserving.  God says, we are in this together, there is a planned future for you, trust and work the plan.

G. Goslaw

Landers, CA

 

 

 

Safety

 A mystic is one of us who makes or is reputed to have made a connection with the spirit world.  Our secular Godless culture laughs at such claims and calls these people fools.  The Bible says much about who are the fools.  Proverbs 18:6 says, “Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions (TNIV).”  Is this not an apt description of secular culture?  

Jesus contrasted the wise man and the foolish man in Matthew 7: 24 to 27.  The fool builds his or her life on the sand of popular culture refusing to understand spiritual matters as outlined by Jesus to his disciples.  The winds and rains of life will eventually blow and scatter the sand dwellers.  The wise man will hold steady on the rock, the very words of Jesus, in every tempest.  There is safety on the rock.   

G, Goslaw

Landers, CA 

 

Panic or Panacea

As much as we try to avoid or redefine our reality, we cannot avoid the angst resulting from our aliveness.  We sometimes weather this angst by grabbing hold of a panacea that avoids the terror in the short term.  A panacea can be anything, family, friends, money and all religions.  Kierkegaard, the father of existentialist philosophy and a theologian named the “why are we here” angst, dread.  One of his translators preferred to name this unavoidable emotional state, anxiety.  We are all talking about the same thing but let’s call it what it is, a life-long panic attach.

What are we to do with this universal human panic reality?  Historically, we have devised religions of every sort and in every culture to relieve the panic to give us a short-term feeling of pseudo security.  The opposite reaction to avoid panic is to kill the other guy and build a humanly devised sense of pseudo security.  This security will eventually fail us as religions fail because they are a temporary fix only for the minority.  All of human history can be condensed into our human search for security, both now and into eternity. 

Is there not then another alternative that is proactive?  The Jesus way is the only way.  That way is to live with faith in our eternal Father God and thereby to trust this reality as our present and future hope in the face of our anxiety.  The living angst will always be with us every day on this earth.  The only alternative is the forward vision of the very short Jesus prayer given as an example to his disciples.  They were just like us, regular powerless folk.  They were filled with life anxiety as we are and justifiably so.  Please check it out, Matthew 6: 9 thru 13.

“This then is how you should pray.

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.”

 

G.Goslaw

Landers, CA   

      

   

 

 

Simple

Leave Jesus with his message about the faithfulness of our Father God on the cross. 

Take down from the cross the unnecessary, superstitious and ancient God hyperbole. 

G.Goslaw

Landers, CA