Apologies and Scripture

So I wanted to apologize for not writing in the blog more often. The weird thing is that in the past few months I've written a good number of blogs but I never post them up for one reason or another. Anyway, I wanted to offer my apologies to everyone and guarantee a few blog entries when I get home. 

I'm leaving for Cornerstone tomorrow night and I am super excited. The community is going along with a few really cool high school kids. It's gonna be a great time and I pray that the LORD uses this week to draw us into a deeper connection with Him.

This is the Word of the LORD:

"Say to them, As I live, says the LORD G-D, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from their ways and live; turn back, turn back from you evil ways ; for why will you die, O house of Israel? And you, mortal, say to your people, The righteousness of the righteous shall not save them when they transgress; and as for the wickedness of the wicked, it shall not make them stumble when they turn from their wickedness; and the righteous shall not be able to live by their righteousness when they sin. Though I say to the righteous that they shall surely live, yet if they trust in their righteousness and commit iniquity, none of their righteous deeds shall be remembered; but in the iniquity that they have committed they shall die. Again, though I say to the wicked ' You shall surely die,' yet if they turn from their sin and do what is lawful and right-- if the wicked restore the pledge, give back what they have taken by robbery, and walk in the statutes of life, committing no iniquity-- they shall surely live, they shall not die. None of the sins that they have committed shall be remembered against them; they have done what is lawful and right, they shall surely live."

Ezekiel 33:11-16

Thanks be to G-D!!

Mike G.

Imagining G-D!

I'm not sure if anyone else does this but I sometimes find myself wondering what G-D looks like. I know that it's childish, but I can't help trying to imagine how He might look if I were to see Him.

I know that He isn't the benevolent old grandfather figure that I would occasionally seem Him portrayed as in those nice and peaceful pictures that hung on the walls of my old Sunday school room. I'm also betting that He doesn't look like the warrior G-D that the fundamentalists tend to view Him as, gleaming in polished armor and carrying a two-edged sword in one hand and an American flag in the other. I have a feeling that He would look a bit more regular, more human, than either of those pictures depict Him to be.

I wonder if He would look like my father, a 55 year old balding man whose smile never quite reaches his eyes, but still loves people all the same. Or perhaps, He might look like my mother, a frantic 51 year old woman with good intentions and an uncanny ability to help anyone she meets. Or maybe He'd look like me, an unsure 19 year old who thinks he knows more than he does and does more than he thinks.   

What I'm beginning to learn though is that G-D doesn't look like any of those, or even anything else that I might imagine Him to look like, but rather those are just persona's that I project on Him. I understand why we imagine that G-D looks sort of like us, but only more perfect and -most likely- on a larger scale. We are trying to make sense of the Incomprehensible G-D, who is beyond our finite understanding and intellectual ability. 

Believe me, I understand the temptation to try to make G-D fit into our motifs and temporal concepts but doing so is an incredibly destructive thing to do. I've realized that when I try to personify G-D, what I am really trying to do is to make G-d more human, and as the Greek Fathers have taught us, the minute I make G-D human is the minute I am no longer dealing with G-D. G-D is not my father and G-D is not my mother. G-D is G-D! Glory to G-D!

Mike G.

First Blog.

Hiya, ya'll! This is my new blog. Dig it!