082 The Discrimination of the Invisibles

Humans definitely tend to being narrow-minded, stuck-on-themselves creatures. We always have to discriminate someone. Whether it's folks of a different race, belief system, opinion, outward appearance or from another country than ours, another soccer team, age-group, or whatever, we tend to reject and antagonize them.

Whoever or whatever's not like us isn't cool.

One species or party we specially discriminate against is the invisibles.

It's probably the one thing we hold most against God: "It's His own fault if we don't believe in Him. Why can't He make Himself visible, like everybody else?"

That's not what we actually say or think consciously with those words, but that's the way we act.

"Why should I give any marbles to God when I can't even see Him?" "Why should I be interested in His strange, invisible Kingdom, when all that interests me right now is what I can see, touch and feel and caters to my physical cravings?" "Why the heck should I be interested in anything that doesn't live up to those qualities?"

Especially members of the younger generation, who have had impulses from the media cater to them basically non-stop since the moment they were born, find the invisible realm to be extremely "boring," to say the least. Well, y'all know what I think about boredom...

What I mean is, it's pretty tough trying to get folks interested in the Spirit World these days. At least the good side of it. But is it really God's fault that we seem to be more interested in His opponent and find whatever he has to offer a lot more intriguing? Is God really that boring? Or is something wrong with our appetite?

Probably a lot stems from wrong concepts, too. Our classical concept of God includes the notion, for instance, that He doesn't like or approve of some of the most fun and delightful things in life. We consider that we have to be "bad" if we really want to have some fun.

There's a lot of jokes going around about "no place to meet old friends like hell," and that that's supposed to be the place where most of the fun is happening.

Well, not in my opinion, nor my idea of Heaven, which, as far from the norm as it may be, is only a fraction of a shadow of what it really is and is going on there... Whereas some of the reports I hear about hell tend to be rather disappointing, to say the least.

So, what's the score with God's invisibility trip, and why can't He just make it easy on us and show Himself? Like Phillip, one of the disciples said, "Just show us the Father, Lord, and it's enough!" In other words, "Show me God, dude, and then I'll believe for real! All doubts finally eliminated."

Sure enough! But that would be a wee bit too easy! We'd all be so intimidated, surely you couldn't speak about "free will" anymore. We'd all know that "Woe is us" if we didn't behave & follow E.T.'s advice to "be good!"

So, God made some rules to this game called life, and in order to be a winner in this game, you just can't be as dumb as to only believe in what you see.

The way to score is by means of a magical, mysterious ingredient called faith. It's by faith that we can skip that bummer called death, for instance. Faith is also what makes God like us. So much, in fact, that He'll adopt us when we've got it and calls us His own children. Whereas without it, it is impossible to please Him (Hebrews 11:6).

Faith is like a secret super weapon in this game of life, comparable to some of those computer games where you can pick up certain super powers in hidden corners that will enable you to kill like 10.000 monsters at a time, instead of just one or instead of you being eaten by them...

It is described as "the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Actually, the word "substance" here comes from the original Greek word "hupostasis" which means title deed. You own the thing you hope for, if you have the faith for it! And Luther translated the word "evidence" as "not doubting." You don't doubt the existence of the Invisibles, including their Head Honcho.

Well, the good news is - that whole shebang called Spirit World isn't going to stay invisible forever. Sooner or later we're going to see it. The only question is, how surprised or shocked are you going to be? How strange & alien will it all feel to you? Or are you going to feel right at home?

So, one mindset that's going to help you prepare a little bit, is to get rid of that discriminating attitude against invisible folks. They're really not that bad. And boring? Man, you have no idea what you're talking about! In fact, you have no idea what fun really is, compared to what's happening out there!

Computer games & Action thrillers are only cheap counterfeits of the Real Thing that's going down all around us in the invisible Realm. The problem is that just because it's invisible, we figure it's not real, when in fact it's a lot more real than our finite, temporal world, and the problem isn't with them, it's with us. We just can't see'em. But you will, if you start believing... and, well, even if you don't. It just might take you a bit longer.

081 What's Our Problem?

Our problem is that we think we're so smart and know anything, when we haven't really got a clue.

Our sin is our presumption to claim that we can actually see, when we are totally blind to what's right in front of our noses.

Our sin is our unbelievable pride.

We discover the miracles of life with our electronic microscopes and say, "Nah, that's nuthin'. Anybody could have made that, in fact, it probably

made itself."

We close ourselves off to true information that's all around us; messages from our Creator that constantly shout, "Look around: I'm right here!"

But we willingly choose to ignore Him. We choose to be blind. And as He said Himself, "None are so blind as those who refuse to see."

The complexity of the structure and modus operandi of a single cell and its integrated communication system that makes all life possible are the greatest known single source of information and intelligence in the known universe, but we just assume, "Aw, that's just a little blob of chemicals that came to life once when struck by a lightning."

I personally never saw anything drastically improve from non-life to life by being struck by a lightning, but I guess scientists who are paid for upholding a wobbly theory like Evolution are forced to live in a different reality.

It's our arrogance that blinds us. Its our indifference toward our Maker that deprives us of the privilege to live life to the full, the way it ought to have been lived. But we don't even know how to live, because we constantly choose the path that seems right in our own eyes but turns out to be the ways of death.

We congratulate ourselves for our "progress" and technical advances, when most of what those "advances" result in is more death, more suffering for others, ever greater pollution and the impending destruction of our planet, because with the same indifference and contempt we treat out Maker we naturally also treat our fellowman and our environment. The art of war is still what we're best at, and what our governments spend most of our money on. Wow, yeah, seems like we really have learned something.

Knowing what we were going to be up to, the Bible promised 2000 years ago that "He will destroy those that destroy the earth," when we were far from being capable of doing so.

Those smart alecs who are so dead sure they're smarter than everybody else, including God are taking us all along for a ride on their highway to hell, and most of us don't even notice it, and what's worse, most of us don't seem to mind. As long as we've got our fancy gimmicks to distract us, we won't say a word, no, won't even so much as raise an eyebrow. After all, our TVs, our Gameboys, our I-pods, our Big Macs and our BMWs are proof enough to us that the System is working. Who the hell cares about 10.000 people in other countries starving each day, or a bunch of Arabs killed by our guns? They're all terrorists anyway, right? Or, as one Abu Graib “war hero” put it, "Anything that wears a turban is guilty."

Yes, people, we're really enlightened. It only looks to me like most of us are going to get a big shock when God turns on the light for real, and we get a look at the way He sees things, namely the way they really are, and not the pitiful concoction of our imagination we currently call reality...

When I say, “we,” I’m definitely including myself. I frequently find myself afflicted with the same blindness to His views and REAL-ity, so I’m not just pointing a finger at everybody else. Like Jonah I frequently find myself inside the darkness of the belly of the whale due to my own stubbornness and insistence on running the opposite direction God tells me. But like Jonah I also have found out time and again that it’s true, that “Salvation is of the Lord.” When we call on Him when we don’t know what’s happening, or our own way of seeing things has driven us against a stone wall and we need Someone to pick up and mend the pieces, He always comes through.

People don’t believe me when I say “God talks to me.” They just figure talking isn’t included in God’s repertoire. That He’s incapable of communicating. That’s the arrogance I’m talking about.

How can we be so presumptuous to say that the divine Author of the entire, unfathomable sum of information that lies embedded in His creation, the One Who has brought forth the universe by means of mere utterance of His Words, should be incapable of communicating?

“Why should He bother with someone like you?” Because He loves me. Just as He loves you, and He would really like to surprise you pleasantly by filling you in on some essential details concerning life, if you’d just be willing to open your ears to His voice, your eyes to His views, and your heart to His loving vibes and give Him a chance…

(Excerpts from the chapter “What’s Up?” in the free eBook “The Deeper Meaning of Everything.”)