Scottish theologian and storyteller George MacDonald wrote, “I believe that there is nothing good for me or for anyone but God, and more and more of God, and that only through knowing Christ can we come near to him.”

How much of God is enough?  Can you have too much God?  Many people go through their day with a token God (or god), not really throwing themselves into their creed, but allowing God to intervene for some inane event or favor. Others eat, breathe, sleep or even die for their deity, denying some of the most precious pleasures that God’s creation holds.

How do you get more of God?  Praying?  Reading your Bible?  Going to every gathering that your church offers?  What about just living your life, conscious of the fact that God is in his Heaven, and all is right with the world?  Is that just a cop out?

Jesus said, “No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6)  How do we do that?  Accept his teachings?  Pray to him to put a good word in to God?  Receive him as our Lord and Savior because he died on the cross to atone for our sins?

What about the bazillions who don’t even believe in Jesus?  Are they doomed? Is all of their searching for God futile?

I guess it all comes down to what you believe the character of God to be.  If he’s like most of us, forget about it.  If he’s a furious Father, always prepared to smite, then who can be saved?  Maybe he seriously wants to know what each of us thinks.  Maybe he can’t get enough of us.

Sometimes I wish that I could order my spiritual life as I order my daily physical life.  I’m quite orderly — almost to a fault.  I make notes, lots of notes.  Reminders, thoughts for future blogs, my own calendar and to-do list on a computer spreadsheet.  I keep my desk orderly.  I put my shoes and clothes away (that’s my wife’s fault — she trained me).  I schedule everything.  I was an attentive enlisted man in the Air Force, and the pattern continued when I got out.  Give me a drill sergeant, and I’m quite content.

Then at other times I wish that I was more carefree.  Stopping to smell the flowers or find interesting shapes in the clouds at the risk of missing the next appointment.  Of course I could schedule those things, but where’s the fun in that?  But on to my spiritual life.

On my list of things not to do I don’t want to be mean, pretending, false, unfair, self-pitying, cowardly, fearful or anxious.  I also want to avoid self-love or possessiveness.  That’s a tall order.  I wonder if I wrote those things down and reviewed them each day, perhaps I could measure my progress, maybe even make a chart.  Even as I write this for fun, I’m seriously playing the idea in my mind as a possibility.  Somebody, please stop me!

How much does God really intervene in our lives?  Is it my conscience telling what to do, or not do, or is the Holy Spirit tapping into my brain waves?  How can I be sure that it’s not just me rationalizing in order to satisfy my selfish desires?

Even lists can be constructed toward my wants rather than needs or duties.  Sometimes I just want to throw out those stupid lists and let my thoughts run free, meeting each challenge as I round the next curve.

But then I would forget to check my blood sugar, take my pills and … what was the other thing?  I’ll have to check my list.

I was asked the other day why I chose the title, “Framed By Faith,” for this blog.  Actually, a lot of thought went into it.

I wanted the site to be truly non-denominational in content.  I say truly because in my experience most so-called non-denominational church services would make you think that you’re in one of the many types of Baptist churches scattered liberally around our country.  You would have to double-check the bulletin or the sign out front to make sure you really were at a non-denominational church.

Quite simply, to be a denomination you must have more than one local church that believes the same thing about the Bible, Jesus, etc..  What further designates it as a denomination is if they have at least an annual regional or national meeting, which may or may not include a governing body.  A non-denominational church may believe exactly the same as their brothers and sisters down the street, but they are different because they don’t answer to anybody.

Inter-denominational groups also don’t answer to anyone, but they create a statement of faith that takes what they like from various denominations.  And they try to get along with everybody.  Usually.

I have found myself not fitting into anybody’s category as far as organized church goes.

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The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

When President Roosevelt (FDR) spoke these words at his inaugural address, the country was at the bottom of the Great Depression.  He went on to describe fear as the “nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”

We all have fears, some more than others.  Even those who appear to be fearless are, in reality, able to keep their fears in check.  The causes of fear are endless, from ablutophobia (fear of washing or bathing) to zoophobia (fear of animals).  I recently confirmed that I have a touch of claustrophobia when I visited an inmate at the county jail.  Entering into a small, locked room, I spoke with him through a glass and telephone.  Ten minutes into the conversation I got dry mouth and had to pee.  And I still had 50 minutes to go before they would let me out!

The Bible documents a number of instances involving the fear of men, animals and elements.  Jesus said that we should not fear men, but rather “fear him who, after the killing of the body, has power to throw you into hell.”  (Luke 12:5)  My fundamentalist friends assure me that the verse doesn’t mean that we should be afraid of God; we should respect him and recognize his awesome power — a sort of healthy fear of him.

While I recognize God’s omnipotence (the power to do anything he wants), I would rather approach him as my perfect Father, the one whom I can run to, and cling to, the one whom I trust to rout my fears. Oftentimes I get comfort when, faced with a fear, I cry silently to him, “Your will be done.”

I suspect that I will never achieve fearlessness this side of death, but my hope is that I am approaching it, ever so slowly, and will overcome it, even if it be at the other side of death on my continued journey.

Another thing that helps me is the thought that others are facing greater challenges than I, and that when I reach the other side of the fearful event, I wonder why I should have feared it at all.

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Okay, so the Unitarian thing didn’t work out.  It might have been the email I received, inviting me to the Heathen Hoopla, where I was to dress as the god, goddess or demon of my choice and bring something to beat on as I dance around the campfire — in the middle of summer!

When we went the first Sunday, we were asked by the greeters to not judge them too quickly on just one service.  That should have been a clue.  I gave them three services.  So when I suggested to my wife that this may not be right for us, she was greatly relieved because she felt the same.

I was trying to pinpoint what was so uncomfortable about my brief Unitarian Universalist experience. While we were encouraged (in their literature) to share what we believe, we found that no one there was sharing what they believed.  They seemed to almost bend over backward in their political correctness with regard to religious tolerance.

I know what I believe.  God, Jesus, Holy Spirit.  These were being replaced with Mother Earth, heathen hoopla and humanism.  While I applaud their emphasis on human kindness and expressions of love, the concentrated effort to avoid references to God, Jesus and Holy Spirit were uncomfortable.

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My pastor called last night. Funny, I called her my pastor; I never joined her church. My wife and I attended that church off an on for quite a number of months, worship services only. No Sunday school, no church dinners or Bible studies. The timing of her call couldn’t have been better because we had decided almost that very day that we wouldn’t be going back.

That sure made for a somewhat uncomfortable conversation. She was pleasant and gracious; I made small talk. She countered with small talk. Even though I wasn’t prompted, I readily confessed that we had missed last Sunday because of a family reunion, which was true. Then I thought, “What do I say next —

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I don’t mean why are you HERE.  I’m not referring to the 51 unique visitors to this blog who spend an average of 7 seconds each, checking in.  I mean why are YOU here — on this earth?  If you don’t believe in God, then you don’t have a clue; you’re just an accident that has already happened.  A big bang.  A mutation from a single-celled organism.  An apostrophe.

BUT – if you believe in God, then you may have a lot of work to do.  Because he certainly had a reason for causing you to exist, and it would behoove you to determine how you fit in with this amazing creation.

The poet W. H. Auden said,

We are here on earth to do good to others.  What the others are here for, I don’t know.

He’s got a point.  If your focus is on your role in this world, the others will take care of themselves. How many of us are more concerned with what others think of us, what others are enjoying, how others have offended us or what they have that we don’t?

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The heart is an amazing organ.  No bigger than your fist, it beats 100,000 times a day, pumping 2,000 gallons of blood through 60,000 miles of blood vessels — all in one person!  It’s the only muscle in your body that never gets tired.  While your brain tells your heart how much blood to pump in order to cover your activity, the heart supplies the brain with the oxygen-rich blood it needs to make decisions.

As a metaphor heart is used to designate the center of things, the seat of emotions or the measure of integrity.  In ancient times feelings were often assigned to the gut or bowels, perhaps because of the movement we feel going on inside of us.  Combined with the pace or intensity of the heartbeat, the feeling in the “pit of your stomach” was a way in which to describe the emotional state that you were in.

Intellect is the function of the brain that processes facts and sensory messages, weighs opinions and references life experiences (memories) in order to assign emotion or generate apathy.  This is also an amazing process when you consider the fact that images, sounds or stories can trigger tear ducts, cause fists to clench, make chests to feel warm, bring lumps in your throat, turn your legs to rubber or simply urge your mouth to turn up at each end.

What role does the spirit have in all of this?

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I work in an office, and most of my day involves the use of a computer.  So an interesting thing happened to me today.  After an hour or so into my morning, I had just finished a brief meeting with someone and was making some notes after she left.  Suddenly, I couldn’t write.  My right hand became weak, my fingers tingled, and I couldn’t grip my pen.  When I tried to write, I couldn’t write clearly, and my hand would twitch or move in a different direction.

A stroke?  I wasn’t sure.  I had no other one-sided symptoms.  I shook my hand by my side and retried to write.  Still nothing.  I remember being more annoyed than scared, thinking I would have the tedious task of learning to write and type with just my left hand.  All this in a span of five minutes.  I work for a doctor, but I didn’t want to tell him because I figured he would want me to go get a CT scan, and, with no insurance and little money, that was seriously out of the question.

So I toughed it out, and a few minutes later, I attempted to write a receipt for someone, cleverly disguising the fact that I may not be able to complete the task.  But I did, however slowly, carefully guiding my hand through the motions — not some of my best writing, but legilble.  Still a few minutes later, and I seemed to be returning to normal.  My hand was tired, and a little sore, but now I had time to reflect.  Was it a stroke?  Carpal tunnel syndrome?  Then I remembered that I had seriously tried to beat my wife’s score in a Yahoo game the night before, which involved some furious clicking with my index finger.  So then I rationalized that I had just strained a tendon, and some wrist or hand movement this morning set the nerve off and running.

Then I wondered how my grandkids could click on those games for hours with no apparent discomfort — oh right, I’m almost 62 with gradually increasing arthritic hands.  Get a grip, Steve!  I did talk to the doc later about it, though, and he pretty much agreed with my self-diagnosis.

But for a fleeting moment I had experienced something that was out of the norm, accompanied by thoughts of life-changing consequences.  What does it mean to “get a grip?”  Some things won’t return to normal in five or ten minutes, a day, week or year.  What then?  I know that every beat of my heart, every twitch of my finger and every breath I take are under the purview of my loving heavenly Father.  Would I still be able to make this statement if it had been a stroke?

I hope so.  I’ve have three heart attacks, so I know something about life-changing events.  And I believe that everything we go through has a purpose; we just don’t always know what that purpose is, or if what we’re going through is meant to work a desired effect in us — or if someone else is being affected through our experience.

My prayer life is quite simple.  It daily consists of “help me” or “thank you.”  Everything in between can be attributed to meditation, or keeping quiet, in case he has something to tell me.  When the alien hand thing happened this morning, I prayed for wisdom and strength to get through it.  After it was over, I thanked God for giving me my life back.  I know that there are greater tests yet to come.  But each time I trust him to help me get a grip.

Yep. There it was, in the inspirational book rack. No time to thumb through it, but immediately my mind began to wonder. If it was easy, wouldn’t it quickly lose its purpose? Isn’t the reason for fasting that it is a concentrated time period in which we give up food to focus on something, someone — our lives, God? Wouldn’t making it easy diminish its effect, undermine its purpose?

Now, I weigh 300+ pounds, so there are many that would recommend that I begin fasting — and soon! I believe that’s called dieting, and even that makes me shudder, although I realize that addressing eating habits and exercise is in order.

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