Recent Musings:

God of life.

Wednesday, January 18, 2006

Been a while since I've written, but thoughts have been scarce. Today, however, I write about life.

I think it's important to make decisions for yourself that promote life - when I say life, I mean growth and opportunity and positiveness. In fact, I think God believes in the same principle; in fact, I think God calls sin the actions that do not promote life.

Here's what I mean. Several years ago, as I was enlightened to this understanding, I had a family member in the midst of a divorce. Being part of a church and religious family, this member was told that divorce was wrong because the Bible said so - God hates divorce.

As I was struggling through my own issues, I started interpreting the Bible in new ways, and also, the Bible presented itself to me in different ways. I started wondering why God hates divorce and why He says so; does the Bible say that God hates anything else?

I had started interpreting myself and my decisions in terms of what promoted growth and what didn't, what was a "life" decision for me and what was a "death" decision for me. I determined that decisions I made that didn't promote life would be sinful for me and would prevent my self from growing.

I realized, suddenly, that perhaps God revealed this "life" mentality to me, for as I applied the principle to divorce, I realized that divorce "kills" relationship, giving it no more opportunity to "grow" to new understandings, to deeper forgiveness or to second chances. Divorce is a decision that says: nope, this is done; there's no life left in this relationship.

God is a God of life and reconciliation and second chances, otherwise He wouldn't have presented Christ as a savior that forgives and loves and allows you to try again every day.

So divorce? The act itself isn't what's sinful; what's sinful is that two people have completely given up on reconciliation and second chances and forgiveness. Interesting, I thought.

And what about other "do not's"? Do not murder; do not lie; do not covet? If the "life" principle is applied to all these sins, one can see that these sins are sins that kill life and prevent relationships and forgiveness from growing and deepening. These sins kill understanding, kill second chances, kill new beginnings; these sins have no life in them. Murder is the most extreme killing, with an actual physcial death, but lying kills truth and prevents real honest relationship from happening. Again, interesting.

So now, when I'm up against a difficult situation, whether ethically or morally or emotionally, I try to choose the outcome that will promote the most life, for me and for the other. I do believe that God and the Bible encourage me, and you, to make decisions that promote life.