Defining terms

Where is that famous verse, now we see through a glass darkly? But soon we will see face to face, suggesting a clearer view in the spiritual now abstract world. This in turns suggests we are in an unstable dream. This in its' turn suggest a world of change, a seemingly concrete world where we are constantly fooled by time.

Then again how can we envision a world without time? How can we trust our impressions? I am thinking it is impossible. We are always engulfed about with a spiritual shell forcing us to decide by faith only, since they are based on so few facts.

Sea of Lethe

So many conundrums! Why is it that with each new facts we learn, each now problem we solve, that we end up with more questions than we started? Nothing can be ultimately proved. There is no assurance anywhere on the horizon. All our learning plunges us deeper into the awareness we are only educating ourselves as to our expanding ignorance. There are more true impressions in the spirit than in the letter of the matter. Opposites attract or interact? Meanwhile the spirit of the matter remains steadfastly more true than the letter.

defining the problem of suffering

First, I divide a question in two and define a key word representing the problem. Then I proceed intellectually to the emotional. Many people do the opposite. They don't divide anything and they begin emotionally. Tackling the problem of suffering I did the same, and so I am extending now my fourth effort to untangle myself.


Without emotion there is no energy to suggest any change, which is why I think of it as Energymotion.  But if you just jump into your subject and go, where are you going? I call those affairs just rants. I start with intellectually and power my intellect with emotion. Next I divide my problem in two. My subject, my problem, was why I was uncomfortable with the idea of picking up my cross and following Jesus. Why should we suffer when Jesus suffered for us? Looked like all they were doing was doing what Jesus had already done as if they were Jesus themselves.

Figuring out how I was wrong is a real can of worms. But Jesus' own words several times telling us to pick up our cross and follow Him, put a real hole in my position after I stopped to recall Him saying that. I was wrong somewhere. I started with the emotional rather than the intellectual. So went back to my proven methods. Suffering for Jesus seemed contradictory requiring another word to define, worship.

So I defined suffering but that definition led my to defining worship which cause me to stumble. So I am beginning again with my fourth try. The cross is the symbol of suffering and suffering onto death. If one lives long enough suffering often enters the picture, and eventually we die. It is not a pretty picture stumbling down the road until I found I was once a man but twice a child.

So I've already defined suffering to some extent and next I will define worship and put them together to define suffering the next time,

if God is in control then......

If God does not draw you to himself then you then you are left to your own devices. I am always conscious of this strange fact I've observed in other people. They take rather firm and firey positions based on definitely flimsy facts. If they are based on the Bible it usually turns out many were not aware their foundation did not include most of the information they already should have known. When I mention that God has to draw you first or you cannot not follow Jesus they often get highly irate. Many fell away in the Bible when they heard Jesus express this view and these folks apparently would themselves had they been there. Where is that in the Bible? Well it is there alright and if they did not know that then they can find it themselves. (I can get as uppity and anyone else they quickly discover if they hang anywhere around here very long ;-)