Filled with hope?

Today I have hope. I don't usually have hopes, because I am easily distracted and/or made busy by other peoples needs. Hope seems to be a long-term thing and for me they are easily lost in the jumble that is my life. But today I have hope.

A while back I had a hope and it was made real by the fact that Taylor Hicks won American Idol.
yah! I couldn't believe it!

" I couldn't believe it!" Hmm, Maybe this is a insight into your comments to follow.

Hope is born of a desire for something to happen that is beyond your control. I have a goal to finish this bloc today; it is not a hope because I am capable of doing it myself. Tailor's victory was completely beyond my control. You may say it was partially in my control, however I could not see that American Idol needed my dollar enough to make me vote so they did not get either my vote or my dollar.

What's this about your "dollar"? Voting is free -- it's a toll-free call. Molly and I voted about 20 times each week! Slacker!

"Let us be clear on this: I am an unintentional slacker!" And even though I am not a fan of exclamation marks, I have used one here to explain my distress.

However, they may have gotten a benefit from my hope to see Taylor win, you see God likes me, and wishes to make me happy so maybe:

Whoa! Talk about your delusions of grandeur! You think God helped Taylor win to make you happy? I might suggest to you that your feelings might not be so important in the great scheme of things.

A small amount maybe is what I think I am, a small spit in the ocean of reasons God allows to decide a big event. Maybe.

I admit, I still wonder what God thinks about a television show that bills itself as idolatry right from the get-go. Can't you almost hear the Old Testament prophets crying out about this?

It's amazing to me how much the Christian church has changed over the years. Back in the days of my youth, when just about everything on TV was evil and theaters were dens of iniquity, a show calling itself "American Idol" would have been denounced from every evangelical Christian pulpit from coast to coast! The idea that a Christian would go on the show and sing a worship song in order to win the title of "American Idol" would have been preposterous! (by the way, I loved Mandisa, and think she got voted off way too soon.)

Nowadays, everyone goes to the movies, and watches AI. How long will it be before God rains down fire and brimstone on us all?

I think God is more into torrential winds and obscene volumes of water nowadays.

To be sure you'll have to ask Him. (An activity I endorse.)

I hope God responds that way anyway.

Once upon a time I was working at a company who made garden lattice. They produced this lattice in an open air shed i.e. it had no walls. For weeks the weather was dismal. Rain, darkening clouds, and cold made my life a misery. So I said God, please, just a few minutes of sunshine and I will feel better. God seeing that I needed such a blessing, parted the clouds for a few minutes and for the rest of the day I was cheered up. Not so much because the sun came out, but because God saw the deep need in my heart acquiesced to my request.

I had a similar experience once. I was in college, and was very depressed one cloudy night. Sitting on my porch and looking up, I asked God to prove his love and care for me by parting the clouds and letting me see one star. The clouds looked very thick, but shortly after I prayed I was very happy to see the clouds part for a moment just where I was looking and a single star peek through. It was a wonderful moment. As you said, the delight came not so much from the fleeting glimpse at the star, as from the thought that God would hear my prayer and take action like that.

many times. I admit that just about every time I pray for God to act on my behalf, I think of that night. The results over the years have confused me. Why would God respond so quickly to such a trivial request, and then seem to do nothing at times when a much smaller (by my reckoning) miracle could change everything?

Does God only want to do things for me that have no lasting impact on anything?

I must say, I've seen far more prayers go unanswered than I've seen answered. This troubles me. I feel silly talking about God moving heaven and earth to make me feel a little happier while others are praying for things they desperately need and getting nothing (in many cases).

This is an affliction born of a poor understanding of the nature and character of God. When preachers say form the pulpit "God answers prayer three ways: yes, no and wait." they do a disservice to the people listening. God answers all prayers the same way: "I will do what is best for you." What seems like a no is really "that is not good for you right now." What seems as a yes is really "This will bless you more if I you get it now." What seems like wait may just be "you will never get this, it will only hurt you".

You may say I am foolish to think that God cares so much so that He would change the weather for me but here is what I think about that: There are so many people who have that attitude they never ask Him for hardly anything. So He then doesn't mind occasional "just a few minutes of sunshine" requests. Besides God is large with broad shoulder and an infinite amount of compassion, and all the time in the world to bless. You have not because you ask not, yah know.

I"m sorry if I"m coming off as a cynic here, but with millions of children starving around the world, and the world so full of sorrow and suffering, and depression and suicide and painful death all over, how does God's parting the clouds to give you a moment of sunshine show God's "infinite compassion"?

Don't get me wrong. I love to think about God painting rainbows and sunsets in the sky. I would like to believe that God personally acted on my behalf whenever some trivial blessing comes my way.

But I find all that increasingly difficult as the reality of life sets in. Or maybe it's just that I'm becoming more cynical as I get older. It almost seems blasphemous to imagine God doing something trivial for me when others who are in desperate need suffer and die. You might say it's because they "ask not", but doesn't that make God really petty? He'll move the clouds aside in the sky at my request, while millions of children starve to death because they didn't "ask"? Does that really show God's goodness?

Today I have the hope that if you read this you will leave me a message that will include a hope that you have. I will return the favor by asking God to bless you. Will He bless you? I hope so.

Sorry if I've seemed to rain on your parade here. It's not been my intent. I admit that I hope for blessings still, and still pray for them. Like Abraham maybe, I "hope against hope".

And sometimes (also like Abraham was known to do now and then) I get downright mad at God, and the way he runs things. He seems more like Loki, the Norse god of mischief, than the orderly God that I seem to see in the Bible.

It's probably just me seeing through a glass darkly. At least I hope so, and will continue to do so.

I have decided hope is cool.

It's better than the alternative!

Jerry’s Philosophy 101

My morning paper in review:

Hatred, bitterness, unforgiveness, evil, illness, arrogance, and divorce. Dictators, terrorists, meanness and unkindness. Racism, lawbreakers, gossips, lawmakers and war.

If for every action there is and equal opposite reaction.

Fear, sadness, emotional injury, Treblinka, empathy, snubbing, family dissolution. Subservience, improvised explosive devices, cowering, sorrow. Cross burnings, incarceration, ill will, hopelessness, and desolation.

People like to read about bad things happening to other people. It makes them feel better. How would you like to read a story like "Bill Gates' private fortune increases by 10%!" All that would do is remind you of how little you have compared to him. Much better to read about poor people, so that you can feel like your well off.

Good is not the reaction to the action of evil; good is the cure for evil. Some may say God and Satan are both necessary for a human being to reach his or her full potential.

Jerry, here's a news flash: God created Satan. God had and has a purpose for Satan. God's will is being fulfilled. Satan, and his influence, is a necessary part of the plan, or God would never have created him.

I say “no thank you”. I would rather Satan would spend his time flying a kite than paying any attention to me and mine.

Satan doesn't give a hoot about your wishes or your kites. Neither does God apparently. I doubt God is going to single you out as the one person who has no problems with evil. Maybe you'll get lucky though.

If this really is a war between God and Satan, we are all the victims. I don’t think it is a war however, indeed I think God allows things to happen for our benefit. To build us to be stronger, wiser and more resilient. We do not need Satan for this; we are competent enough at screwing up our lives. Satan is just opportunistic at taking advantage of the opportunity of our poor decisions.

I have a sneaking suspicion about Satan. The book of Genesis says that "the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals that the Lord had made." Now, snakes aren't particulary crafty. They may be more crafty that SOME of the wild animals, but they are after all, just wild animals themselves. What, or more accurately WHO, is more crafty than any wild animal?

I think maybe Satan is like the Internet. You can't point at the Internet and say: "There it is", but it would certainly be wrong to say that the Internet doesn't exist. The Internet is real, and it is practical and influential. What is it? The Internet is something that grew out of a bunch of individual computers communicating. If you were to turn all those computers off, all over the world, the Internet would truly no longer exist.

There is a war. It is God versus me. I am the petulant child, pressing my feet against the ground, stiff-legged and stiff-necked. I may seem that way to God. At least this is what I think.

God loves all of his petulant children.

O.K. enough of that.

No one has infuriated me this week. (I know, I have issues, do you? {Rhetorical question})

I have lots of issues. Issues of "The Amazing Spiderman", issues of "Marvel Two-In-One", issues of "Captain America"... is that what you're talking about?

I am therefore going to change my philosophy from “those people are evil” to “those people were injured by an evil person.” See the loss, not the evil. Too much evil, too much loss.

"Though I lay dying I am content in the knowledge that I will finally meet someone worthy of my wit. Oh, and either those curtains go, or I do."
- Oscar Wilde on God

I hope I am this clever when I pass through the valley of the shadow of death.

Life: it isn’t just Yin and Yang.

It's Yin, Yang and Yahoo!