I haven't decided if I'm going to post this on my blog yet. What I write now may just stay here--in my journal. It depends on if I think what I write is worth posting, if what I write is too personal, whatever... What's on my mind? Well, the first thing that comes to mind is Ecclesiastes. Our church is teaching on Ecclesiastes. So far, we've covered chapters 1 - 4. It's been a refreshing lesson. Refreshing because Ecclesiastes is much different than the rest of the Bible. It's...honest. By that, I mean it's not sugar coated. I like that the author basically says that you could follow all the rules and do what you're supposed to do but bad things can still happen to you. All is vanity. The author also talks about our earthly gain, running the race, trying to get ahead. When we're done, we don't take any of it with us. So, it's a good read, and the teaching has been great.
It applies to what's been going on in my life. I failed at teaching. Yeah, I did. I failed. It was hard to admit it, but I did. There are some things that contributed to my failure. I think it starts with my pride. --I'm in the living room right now and there're distractions. I'm going to go to my office where it's quiet.-- So, my pride. Before teaching, I worked at Verizon Wireless as a call center representative. When people asked me where I worked, I would try to fluff up my call center position as much as I could. I would say things like, "I work in global support", or "advanced tech support", or "I'm an advanced tech support coordinator. I assist people with tech problems when they travel internationally." I would never say anything about working in a call center. Why? Because I thought I was better than that. I went to college, I earned my degree, and people with a BA in Economics don't work in a call center. At least that was what I thought. My pride overtook me. What's funny is that I always considered myself a humble person. I think I've said this before, but when you think that you're not a prideful person, that very moment you're full of pride. So, yeah. I was too good for working in a call center. I saw people advance their careers in that call center. Every time, I thought I was so much better than those people. I thought I deserved those jobs more than the people that were getting them. Yet, I didn't advance. I wondered why. I thought, "WTF?!" And as a Christian, I wondered why God wasn't blessing me. I wondered why I was going forward without a purpose.
Then teaching came to my mind. I thought I would get out of the call center. I would work on becoming a teacher, because I would feel that I have a purpose. Teaching would allow me to tell someone who asked what I did, and I would feel proud of it. I'm a public servant. I work hard and I don't get paid much. They would admire me for that. Those are all thoughts that came to me. Maybe people did think that about me... But, I had no idea. Teachers don't get paid, and they work supper hard. I didn't expect the pay to be as low as it was, and I didn't expect the work to be as hard as it was. It was humbling. I was humbled. My pride was sucked out of me.
So, now, I have to look somewhere else to survive. Teaching can't sustain my family. I have to look back at the call center. Here I am, back where I left off at Verizon. But, it's T-Mobile now. They were kind enough to start me where I left off at Verizon, which is more than what I make as a teacher... humbled. But now I'm motivated. I want to enjoy my toil under the sun, as Ecclesiastes puts it. I'm not in this life to run the race in the corporate world, it's unsatisfiable. Just like the wind...
So, there's that...
I'm also taking classes toward my MBA. Funny thing. My school signed me up for a class that doesn't apply to my degree program. So, here I am, four weeks in, working on a class that doesn't count. I'm going to call them on Monday to see if they can refund me and to see if I could drop the class. Sucks, because this is time I can't get back. I should be using this time to progress my degree. Funny. I was just talking about how I don't want to run the corporate race and now I'm talking about my MBA. I guess I'm a hypocrite too. That's okay.
Another thing that's on my mind is my diet. So, I struggle with my weight. I mean, I don't think I'm unhealthy or anything. In fact, my last doctor appointment said that I wasn't. I'm just not at a weight that I'm comfortable with. Being a parent and a husband, it's hard to find time to exercise. Hard, but not impossible. I need the will power. I'm working on it. I'm also starting a low carb diet. I got the idea from hearing the guys on The Bad Christian Podcast talking about it. Today I've had like 9 grams of carbs and a lot more protein. I don't know if this will help me...we'll see. What I do know, is that I love carbs more than I thought. I want my craft beer and I want my tortillas. I'm willing to give those up if I can get to a weight I'm comfortable with.
24 January 2016
19 January 2016
Holy Roller
I had something on my mind, but I got distracted and it's gone from my brain forever. I really don't know what I was about to say. Anyway, I'm in my office and I just read a bit of the chapter for my CIS 510 class. I'm listening to Glass Animals... I only have one discussion to participate in this week, so I can do a bit here and a bit there. I really should get this done on Thursday because Wednesday (tomorrow) is busy with community group.
On my way home from work, I was listening to "Ask Science Mike". It's a podcast I like with Science Mike, or Mike McHargue. I think that's how you spell his last name. Anyway, he was answering a question about Jesus and why he had to die for our sins. He brought up some really important questions. He also mentioned something that a lot of atheists would say against our idea of Jesus dying for our sins. I think the saying was, "God sent himself to die to save us from himself". I'll look it up on the internet now. Okay, yeah. God sent himself as a sacrifice to himself to save humanity from himself. Mike said in the podcast that it is an oversimplification of our faith, which I agree on, but there are some really important things to consider there. God sent himself, so the idea of the trinity...to sacrifice himself to himself...God the father turned his back on his son who bore our sins...to save humans from himself...because if we don't accept his salvation we'll burn forever in eternal conscious torment.
So, there's a lot there. And there's a lot of theology that I'm not qualified to dissect there. But, to start, Mike talked about the reasons Christians say Jesus died. There was one term that was used. I don't remember what that term was, but it says that Jesus died to take our sins. He was the sacrifice for us... Then he had another term that he used to describe another reason why Jesus died, I think the reason was to show that Jesus overcame death and evil. I'll have to give it another listen.
The part of the podcast that caught my attention the most was when he dissected the last part of the saying, the part that says, "to save us from himself". Because, if we don't allow him to save us, he'll send us straight to Hell to experience torture, forever. This is something that I've been thinking about a lot lately. The two other podcasts I like, "The Bad Christian Podcast" and "Unbelievable" talk about the topic of Hell occasionally. My view has been challenged to say the least. And this has also challenged my faith to the core. Does God send people that he loves to hell to experience this awful thing for sin?
Oh yeah, Mike was talking about how humans were made with a sin nature. We're defective. If a manufacturer makes a defective product, the blame is on the manufacturer, not the product. So, why are we expected to take the blame when we were made like this? There's a lot to consider for sure. I think that it's true that Christian thinking changes over time, and out interpretation of the Bible changes, too.
Here's what I think: I think that God is perfect. I think that God is the author of science and supernatural. I think that God made humans with the ability to reason and use logic. But, I also think that God made humans with the ability to get things wrong. I see a culture with people that have their heads stuck in the sand. They subscribe to thought systems and feel threatened when someone comes to them with a different way of thinking. This is me, I'll admit. I remember taking anthropology in college and feeling really threatened when they taught me evolution. Then they started talking about hundreds of thousands of years, then millions and even billions of years passing for our Earth to evolve to what it is today. I was told that this was all bullshit in church. But, then I thought, maybe I was indoctrinated with the bullshit. Was the pastor of the Pentecostal church I went to growing up a scientist? Did he complete research on species of animals and geology? I don't think so... And, not to pick on my childhood pastor, many Christians today are young Earth creationists and tell their kids that evolution is a lie.
I'm just saying that science is a group of people that wrestle with ideas. They are discovering, and they don't have agendas. They are trying to prove ideas wrong. When things can't be proven wrong by one person, then another person tries to prove it wrong. And when a bunch of scientists can't prove it wrong, then it's accepted. Who am I to say otherwise? And who are these Christians to say otherwise? I don't think evolution disproves the existence of God.
On my way home from work, I was listening to "Ask Science Mike". It's a podcast I like with Science Mike, or Mike McHargue. I think that's how you spell his last name. Anyway, he was answering a question about Jesus and why he had to die for our sins. He brought up some really important questions. He also mentioned something that a lot of atheists would say against our idea of Jesus dying for our sins. I think the saying was, "God sent himself to die to save us from himself". I'll look it up on the internet now. Okay, yeah. God sent himself as a sacrifice to himself to save humanity from himself. Mike said in the podcast that it is an oversimplification of our faith, which I agree on, but there are some really important things to consider there. God sent himself, so the idea of the trinity...to sacrifice himself to himself...God the father turned his back on his son who bore our sins...to save humans from himself...because if we don't accept his salvation we'll burn forever in eternal conscious torment.
So, there's a lot there. And there's a lot of theology that I'm not qualified to dissect there. But, to start, Mike talked about the reasons Christians say Jesus died. There was one term that was used. I don't remember what that term was, but it says that Jesus died to take our sins. He was the sacrifice for us... Then he had another term that he used to describe another reason why Jesus died, I think the reason was to show that Jesus overcame death and evil. I'll have to give it another listen.
The part of the podcast that caught my attention the most was when he dissected the last part of the saying, the part that says, "to save us from himself". Because, if we don't allow him to save us, he'll send us straight to Hell to experience torture, forever. This is something that I've been thinking about a lot lately. The two other podcasts I like, "The Bad Christian Podcast" and "Unbelievable" talk about the topic of Hell occasionally. My view has been challenged to say the least. And this has also challenged my faith to the core. Does God send people that he loves to hell to experience this awful thing for sin?
Oh yeah, Mike was talking about how humans were made with a sin nature. We're defective. If a manufacturer makes a defective product, the blame is on the manufacturer, not the product. So, why are we expected to take the blame when we were made like this? There's a lot to consider for sure. I think that it's true that Christian thinking changes over time, and out interpretation of the Bible changes, too.
Here's what I think: I think that God is perfect. I think that God is the author of science and supernatural. I think that God made humans with the ability to reason and use logic. But, I also think that God made humans with the ability to get things wrong. I see a culture with people that have their heads stuck in the sand. They subscribe to thought systems and feel threatened when someone comes to them with a different way of thinking. This is me, I'll admit. I remember taking anthropology in college and feeling really threatened when they taught me evolution. Then they started talking about hundreds of thousands of years, then millions and even billions of years passing for our Earth to evolve to what it is today. I was told that this was all bullshit in church. But, then I thought, maybe I was indoctrinated with the bullshit. Was the pastor of the Pentecostal church I went to growing up a scientist? Did he complete research on species of animals and geology? I don't think so... And, not to pick on my childhood pastor, many Christians today are young Earth creationists and tell their kids that evolution is a lie.
I'm just saying that science is a group of people that wrestle with ideas. They are discovering, and they don't have agendas. They are trying to prove ideas wrong. When things can't be proven wrong by one person, then another person tries to prove it wrong. And when a bunch of scientists can't prove it wrong, then it's accepted. Who am I to say otherwise? And who are these Christians to say otherwise? I don't think evolution disproves the existence of God.
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