Guilty Bystander

Imagine a remote country, a city, a house that God doesn’t know about. A place where there is no God. A place where God doesn’t hear prayers, a place where God’s help is not available.

Would you like to be there or live there?

Lately I’ve been thinking about somewhat human-centered view of Christianity, and I come more and more to the realisation that we, humans, actually need God. God created us in such a way that we, each one of us, need God.

If you are an atheist, you believe that God doesn’t exist. Or do you? Are there people that 100% sure that there is no God? I’d like to meet them. I’d like to know how they feel when facing death. I’d like to know how they manage not to pray when their life is in danger. Humans are made in such a way, that we want God to be there, just in case. In case everything else fails.

God is like a hospital. We may spend our lives trying to prove that hospitals are useless or they don’t exist. But when the need comes, we all run to one and demand to see a doctor.

We are made in a way, that even though we may not believe that God exists, we still want him to be there, just in case.

Imagine a place where you are 100% certain that there is no God. A place where God doesn’t hear prayers. You’d be too scared to go there. Even if your prayers are never answered in this life, you still like having that prayer option available. Just in case.

Life is like a boxing ring. Thoughts are fists, light and quick. Words are a fight. The ropes around the ring are prayers.

A lot of people are watching the fight. Friends - cheering and supporting. Bystaners, indifferent, betting on a winner. Enemies, wanting you to loose.

There may be a lot of people around, showing their support, but at the end of the day, you’re on your own. You do the fighting, no one can really help you. There maybe a lot of people screaming your name, but you still feel lonely, just about to run out of your last drop of strength. You may hear instructions, do this or do that… Everyone seems to be an expert in boxing.

There are times you start loosing, and even think of giving up. But there are close friends who are willing to bend the rules. They jump into the ring and sometimes take the blows that are aimed at you, just to give you time to recover. They hurt and bleed there with you. They feel awkward, but they stick by your side no matter what. They didn’t call a week ago, to ask if you wouldn’t mind them doing that. At times like that, they don’t care what you say or what others think. They just know that they have to be there for you…

Life is like a boxing ring. Thoughts are fists, light and quick. Words are a fight. The ropes around the ring are prayers. I will fight till the end and the belt will be mine.

Why do people pray or why do we need to pray, if God (who knows everything) already knows what we’re going to pray about? Apart from the obvious and orthodox answer that we need to pray because the Bible tells us so… let me think around a little.

This is a somewhat human-centered view on why I think it helps to pray. Talking. That’s it. Talking helps.

We all know that talking helps to work through life problems and enjoy life’s joys. Often, we actually pay big bucks to go and talk to someone (think: shrink). You often hear “oh… thank you so much! I feel so much better after talking to you!”

So, here it is again. Prayer helps, because we talk (or think).

When we pray we talk to someone from whom we know we can’t hide anything. When we pray, we talk to God, who knows more about us and our problems than we do. When we pray, we can’t lie. When we pray, we are honest to God in our wildest desires, secrets or regrets. When we pray we talk.

Talking, just by itself, helps us to work through things. Talking to someone who understands, to whom we don’t have to explain things (and who doesn’t ask questions and doesn’t interrupt) - helps even more. Talking to someone so powerful like God, leaves us with an off-chance that He my actually hear our prayer and help us (i.e., do what we ask).

It’s often said that we need pray to find out God’s will for our lives. When we pray, we talk. When we talk we work through issues. When we work through issues we see common sense. Common sense is often the right answer. So, God’s will may be just the same thing as common sense.

Why is it all matter? This is the question that’s been bugging me a lot for quite a number of months now. Some say I’m going through an early mid-life crisis, others say I’m just depressed. I say, I’m just asking questions. Why is it all matter? Not often we feel “allowed” to ask such questions . Everyone either doesn’t think about life or just pretend that everything is ok. Or.. maybe people think about life but just too scared the name things what they are. So why is it all matter? Why people find talking about personal issues so difficult? Why people find hard talking about death. Even after someone died. It really bugged me when my mother died, no-one who came to me, actually said the word “died” as in “sorry to hear that your mum died”. They all say, “sorry to hear about you mum”. What did you hear? Why can’t you just say it? Why is it so hard to talk about death when someone has cancer. Why people are afraid to ask their friends who have cancer, something like, “are you afraid of dying”? As if we don’t ask, maybe they won’t die, or as if we asked, the person would die sooner, than if we didn’t ask. The person with cancer certainly thinks about death, but why is it so hard to talk about it?

By why is it all matter anyway? Why is it matter to keep the lines straight, floor tiles exactly square, power sockets on the same level, socks that match? Why is it all matter?

Since Adam and because of Adam’s sin, we’re locked in into this mortal cycle, called life. Work, pain and more work, it’s all consequence of sin. The things in life matter in a way that because who we are in this life, we have certain affect on our friends and people around us. Because of who we are and what we do, we can make the life of each other a little bit that easier. We can share the burden of each other in this life. Taking it just one day at a time.

Believing in God and helping our neighbour, we’re turning from an egg-white and egg-yoke into a chick inside the egg shell. When we die and go to heaven, we’ll break out from the egg shell into a new, “real” life, we’ll become a chicken, a new creation, with a new body. We will finally be free.

It all matters, because of what we do and what we are can make the life journey of people around us a little easier. Who we are may help people see that the life actually starts when the chick breaks out from the shell. That’s the new life I’m really looking forward to.

Lately we’ve been talking with friends about what it would be like when we get to heaven. A few very interesting questions poped up.

1. Will there be children in heaven?
Assuming that we will have some sort of physical appearance, will we be subjected to aging while in heaven? Often the passage in Isaiah 11:6 is used to describe what it will be like in heaven:

The wolf will live with the lamb,
the leopard will lie down with the goat,
the calf and the lion and the yearling together;
and a little child will lead them.

If there will be children, it means that there will be young adults… older… old people. People will get older, children will grow into adults etc. Interesting what kind of body this will be to be ok to grow older infinitely…

If one day is line a thousand years, it will be one really long day! If someone wanted to meet you at 9pm, you’d have to wait a few hundred years for that 9pm to arrive!

2. Will there be food in heaven?
Unless our new bodies will be powered by solar panels (and there will be enough sun for that)… we’ll need something to sustain them. Will there be food? If there is no evil and no death, will everyone be vegetarians?

Thinking about heaven gets me excited. I think it will be an interesting an a strange place at the same time.