The God who hides
and our sins sweep us away like the wind.
Yet no one calls on your name
or pleads with you for mercy.
Therefore, you have turned away from us
and turned us over to our sins.
At the end of this chapter (64:11-12) Isaiah says:
The holy and beautiful Temple
where our ancestors praised you
has been burned down,
and all the things of beauty are destroyed.
After all this, Lord, must you still refuse to help us?
Will you continue to be silent and punish us?
God’s answer is in the following chapter (65:1):
The Lord says,
“I was ready to respond, but no one asked for help.
I was ready to be found, but no one was looking for me.
I said, ‘Here I am, here I am!’
to a nation that did not call on my name.
It’s one thing to openly turn from God and pursue idols. But that’s not generally what we do today. We find more subtle ways to reject God.
I remember having conversations with a former missionary and Bible translator who had become disillusioned and angry and posted a 50 page diary of his descent into secularism on an atheist website. It was a heartbreaking experience. He was very, very bitter.
As we talked, I found that he was simply unable to see certain things, even though they were right in front of his face. In his own way he was experiencing what Isaiah writes about - the God who hides.
As I talked to him I became personally convinced that he was searching for his preconceived notions about what God should be, and he wasn’t open to changing those notions. Ironically, most of those notions had come from the church.
Are we worshiping our *idea* of God instead of God Himself? If we are, the real God may hide His face. Or we can turn to God with the knowledge and confession that our conceptions of Him are not the same as the real Him, and open our hands and our hearts to the sometimes jarring discoveries we make about Who He really is.
Perry Marshall
“…searching for [his] preconceived notions about what God should be, and [he] wasn’t open to changing those notions. Ironically, most of those notions had come from the church…”
So many of our “preconceived notions” of GOD …
ARE childlike images & explanations that were crafted as lessons for the early years of Sunday School …
Lessons that …
As we grow into Our Rebellious Years/Decades …
We normally reject as being just so much–NUNSENSE–
AND BECAUSE THE REJECTION of The Immature Ideas of GOD Often Occurs LONG BEFORE Mature Understandings&Insights Have Formed … A GAP … a.k.a. “The Crisis of Faith” or “The Agnostic/Atheist Phase” Is A Feature of Many
–If NOT Most–
Post-Modern Adult Christian’s Faith Formation.
Like so many of GOD’S IRONIES …
DEEP & TRUE FAITH PRACTICALLY REQUIRES A CRISIS of REJECTION IN ORDER TO … “HATCH” …
WHEN WE REJECT OUR IMMATURE NOTIONS of GOD …
And Decide To LIVE OUR LIFE WITHOUT THAT …
List-Keeping, Good-Children-Rewarding&Bad-Child-Punishing …
SANTA …
And Start Living Life …
Free As A Bird of All Those KILL-JOY RULES …
And We’re … OUT THERE & DOIN’ IT “MY WAY”
Sometimes …
LIFE/DEATH or NearDeath …
Comes along and …
SMACKS Some REAL SENSE into US …
And We FINALLY GROW UP Some …ahem…
More Mature Understandings of GOD&ManKind …
It’s How We’re Made …
If We Are Taught Well In Childhood Then …
We Will Recognize TRUTH When We Encounter IT* …
…and not simply reject it out of hand …
&/or think that it’s a “SIGN” that …
We Must Be Going CRAZY & Are In Serious Need of Meds!!
* IT = “Inconvenient Truth”
Hi Mary,
Thank you for such a wonderful comment on this post. I agree wholeheartedly about the immature rebel and mature understanding. I faced this in my own life only a few months ago. Before Perry announced his spiritual series I was skeptical and angry and wanted answers that I simply couldn’t find. Ever since he came out with the series I’ve been reading and reading and reading. And I always found myself saying, “Wow. That makes sense.” or “Wow. I understand that now.”
It has truly helped me understand why I am how I am and how to change certain things if I so choose. That freedom can sometimes seem like prison. Considering how few people even dig this deep. But knowing the Truth has helped me to weather many storms. Case in point. Two days ago I mistakenly placed my laptop in a puddle. Dropped it is more like it. When I went to turn it back on it literally fizzled and died. This laptop had all my video, audio, notes, and everything else a laptop would have after owning it for four years. But when it happened, I started laughing. Something that would’ve broken me only a few months ago is now so hilarious that I don’t even care. I’m gonna buy a new one tomorrow anyway. I’m growing and it’s showing.
Thank you Perry for doing what you do. And thank you Mary for giving me something awesome to comment on today.
And Thank You–Allen–For Your Great “mistakenly placed (i.e., Dropped) my laptop in a puddle” story … I Can Relate !!
I was once given three very profound statements at a time when I felt very abandoned and the silence from spirit was deafening
You are loved
You are never alone
Trust
So now I just trust even when things are going pear shaped and it seems there is no way forward – I know the love is still there and eventually the path opens …. once out of the lesson I needed to learn and I can see the gift of why I needed to go through it. When I trust I always come out ten times better off when I come out the other side too. I often find the greatest love is often found in the darkest hours, but we like to share the good times too!
Your post reminds me of a great book I’m reading called “The Hole in the Gospel”. It’s by the head of World Vision and it’s a very compelling read reminding us of what Jesus really called us to do with, for example, the Great Commission. It’s a reminder that God is found in obeying Him and that that sometimes takes us out of our comfort zone.
I can think of at least 4 stages in my life where I had to rethink my God-Concept. Each time was difficult to say the least. Yet each time offered a far broader and more liberating sense of who I was and my relationship with “him” and the universe. Yes, there were plenty of times when my spiritual life fell on fallow ground, but this was usually a precursor to a new awakening.
This reminds me of a story I once heard. A lady who knew the Lord, but felt far from Him for some time comes into a pastor’s office, and starts telling him how God seems to be distant from her. That no matter how much she read her Bible, or prayed, the Lord would not let His presence be known. She was crying, and very upset over this, and desperately looking for an answer as to why the Lord seemed so far away.
The pastor looks at her, and says…”Liar”.
“WHAT? How can you look at me, crying, desperately wanting to hear from God, and say that I’m a liar?! What kind of pastor does that?”
He replied, “James tells us that IF we draw near to God, He WILL draw near to us. You say you’ve been seeking Him, and that He refuses to draw near to you. I say let God be true and every man a liar.”
She began weeping harder, and confessed that she hadn’t REALLY been seeking the Lord with all her heart. She was just going through the religious motions.
This story always encourages me that God will be found, but only by those who seek Him with all their hearts. He does indeed hide Himself from the proud, and the half hearted, but only to cause a genuine desperation for Him that stirs in us a ravenous pursuit of His presence.
I recall a missionary sister saying once something like: “God is near we are often fearful of simply turning around and recognising Him is case we might not like His challenges.”
He may hide his face but He is always near.
My general observation is that God hides from those who first hide from him. It starts in small ways: being critical of others, neglecting prayers, neglecting scripture study, being overly enamored with material possessions and self-righteousness. Then when God’s presence is not as available as it was previously, God is blamed, and the person turns away even more.
There was a Spanish Christian Mystic in the 1600′s named Miguel De Molinos who wrote about this particular experience extensively in his book called The Spiritual Guide.
St. John of Cross also spoke of this condition. He called it the “dark night of the soul.”
St. John of the Cross is referenced heavily in Green’s book “Drinking from a dry well” which is provocative – and very appropriate to this convo.
Please, send me the free mini-course, “9 Great lies of sales & marketing”
Thank you!
RIGHT ON.
And I have to agree with Mary as well that our preconceived ideas are so often formed in Sunday School, where everyone in every picture is always smiling and happy – even the guards coming to take Jesus away to be scourged and die on a cross. Why do we allow sunday school to be a place that teaches such lies? The message of the cross is that love will triumph – but in the midst of real struggle and difficulty. Sunday School teaching sets up a crisis for teenagers who are old enough to begin to realize life is not a happy-go-lucky experience. People either leave the church or pretend the difficult realities don’t exist, stunting their intellectual and spiritual growth.
It is heartbreaking to feel that God is absent from our experience. I’ve come to realize that it’s not because he wants to hide from us… He is actually protecting us from continuing down the path of spiritual immaturity and eventual eternal judgement. If the only illumination when the path grows dark is through faith, then mercy reigns instead of judgement.
Perry -
I think James 4:2-3 says it all – or at least most of it. You have not because you ask not and when you ask you ask amiss. Combine this with a government that turns its back on God and more and more stands up for everything that is anti-God and anti-Christ. There is God and there is Satan. Whose side do you want to be on? For those who reject Christ all I can say is – Eternity is a long time to spend in hell.
When I am in grace and see God as “All That Is,” where’s the hiding? He is seen everywhere in everything. It is our limited mental concepts, demands or expectations that “hide” Him.
God hides openly in all creation.
Amen.
What about the possibility that, like your missionary acqaintance, you too are searching for your own preconceived notions of what God should be? (notions maybe also planted by the church) Maybe the reason he seems to be hiding and not responding is he’s simply not there; why doesn’t that make any sense. The arguments for a God are to me very lame – it really comes down to blind faith. Or possibly the concept of God is actually different than the typical Mr. Fix-It, Santa Claus figure in the sky listening to everyone’s prayers and ready to satisfy every human insecurity providing we do-the-right-thing or act-the-right-way. Could it be that our age-old concept of God is simply wrong?
Something I was reminded of just yesterday is that there is no “holding pattern” when it comes to our relationship with God. We are either drawing closer to Him or we are moving further away. So chances are great that during those times when God seems absent … it’s because WE have been drifting away. Whether we realize it or not. The best part? When we do move closer, He PROMISES to reciprocate. (James 4:8)
Great summary Perry, and a topic that many Christians go through but is not talked about all that much.
The Isaiah 65:1 scripture is especially profound. “No one was looking for me”, “No one asked for my help”. WOW. It is so true, like everything else in the Bible.
The story of the missionary is sad, but understandable. Funny how man distorts the Word, even some (or many) churches, but the Word itself is never contradictory or vague.
Thanks for the awesome posting,
Jim
Perry I erased the post I wrote because it was wordy but to be concise let me say this.I am not at all religious and make no alliances to any particular faith.But,I testify that whatever you want to call it,God,Allah,the Universe,(I really lean more toward the latter because of the indivisibility of it),has been with me since birth,It has never left me or left me feeling unbraced.Never let my adversaries have at me or left me to my own devices.sorry for rambling but I really don’t have the words.I see IT in all of us and everything.Thats my truth
Great post Perry.
The Isaiah 65:1 scripture was especially profound. “I was ready to respond but no one asked for help”,”I was ready to be found, but no one was looking for me.” Wow. And so true, just like all the Bible.
The story about your missionary friend is sad, yet understandable. Funny how man (including many churches) distorts the Word. But the Word itself is never contradictory or vague.
I will definitely reflect on this post as surely all of us can benefit by it.
Thanks for the awesome message pastor Perry,
Jim
Sometimes we mortals stumble over a very simple word. The first word in GENESIS is generally understood to mean:-
“In THE beginning of.”
The word can also mean “In A beginning of”
which affirms that there were MANY beginnings. Hence I read the first line in GENESIS to mean:-
“In A beginning of God’s creating the heaven and the earth” (That is, In ONE of the beginnings of God’s creating the heaven and the earth). King James, what have you done to us who search for Bible Truth?
This irrevocably changes the first line in GENESIS regarding theology, dogma, belief, and exegesis.
Which do you accept and why?
I’ve never found an especially persuasive reason to change “the” to “a”.
A possible analogy if I may..
Johnny cash performed a simple but ‘catchy’ song which went something like..
Love Is A Burning Thing
And It Makes A Fiery Ring
Bound By Wild Desire
I Fell Into A Ring Of Fire
I Fell Into A Burning Ring Of Fire
I Went Down, Down, Down
And The Flames Went Higher
And It Burns, Burns, Burns
The Ring Of Fire
The Ring Of Fire
The Taste Of Love Is Sweet
When Hearts Like Ours Meet
I Fell For You Like A Child
Oh,But The Fire Went Wild
I Fell Into A Burning Ring Of Fire
I Went Down, Down, Down
And The Flames Went Higher
And It Burns, Burns, Burns
The Ring Of Fire
The Ring Of Fire
Love Is A Burning Thing
And It Makes A Fiery Ring
Bound By Wild Desire
I Fell Into A Ring Of Fire
I Fell Into A Burning Ring Of Fire
I Went Down(down), Down(down), Down(down)
And The Flames Went Higher Higher Higher
I Fell Into A Burning Ring Of Fire
I Went Down(down), Down(down), Down(down)
And The Flames Went Higher Higher Higher
And It Burns
OoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooYaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
————————->>
How does this relate to your post Perry..?
Maybe sometimes the ‘burning ring of fire’ could be perceived as those thrust upon those who may be aiming to be perceived as a ‘God-Like’ figure or ‘Guru’ even!
Many so called ‘God’s’ presenting themselves in a short period of time as ‘THE GOD’ can confuse, overwhelm, burn and tempt believer’s to reconsider their belief.
In some instances, the ‘perceived’ atheist needs time to recover from the overwhelm of so called God Like figures and the burning feeling that the ‘ring of fire’ can present..
I think allowing TIME for those so called atheists to think, absorb, and process the onslaught of information that overwhelms them and who may well be the trigger for non-believers, will eventually allow the ‘athiest’ to rise either as a burning flame himself, or at least decide to ignite his own single burning flame with an attempt to give others light!
Something to think about?
;o)
————————
I wrote this ten minutes ago and I had to make a call, it even sounds confusing to me.. but fun!
Health Freak
Is it really God who is hiding here or have I turned my face away from the Light and Truth of God? I think it’s the latter.
God promised not to leave us comfortless. When His face is hidden to me, I’ve discovered it’s because of my choice not to see His Magnificence and Grace.
How do I know that it’s due to my choice rather than God’s action? I stop and note how I’m feeling and ask myself, “would a loving creator really do this to His beloved creation?” No, He would not so that leaves only one reason that I’m not connected to His loving presence – me!
The great news is that I can choose to turn back to God as a very present help in times of trouble (and times of joy, as well). I am comforted in knowing that God and Heaven are only a choice away and that He is closer than breath itself.
For scientific information on God and the soul look up
Dr. Marco Biagini using google search.
Yep, it’s our ideas of God that are so miguided (and manipulated), our ideas about who or what God is–including the ideas of “God Himself” and “worshipping God” and why we are going through such a difficult time on this planet.
This planet needs a complete overhaul on God and religion and nothing’s going to get better until there is this complete overhaul.
Praise God that you are writing about Him.
Perry, this most recent list has been such a blessing. Thanks & keep it up. Think you guys might throw an optin for list somewhere in this template in case my friends follow a link from me to your posts?
You can send them to http://www.perrymarshall.com/spirituality
Good post Perry.
I’ve been a Christian for many years and have struggled the last few years with this kind of “wilderness experience” where I don’t feel God’s prescence the way I used to.
Cheers,
Greg
I’ll suggest two radically different perspectives on this question:
1. The book “Naturally Supernatural” by Bill Johnson
2. The book Drinking From A Dry Well by Thomas H. Green
Perry, Thanks for another great post. One small note: I think you may be referencing the wrong book or author in your reply to Greg (April 28 / May 1). “Naturally Supernatural” is written by Gary Best, not Bill Johnson. Bill Johnson has several excellent books. Perhaps you are talking about his book “The Supernatural Power of a Transformed Mind: Access to a Life of Miracles”.
Oops yes you’re right.
For much of my life–as a catholic–the members of the Faith Communion into which I was…
born &
raised &
left for 8 years of my “college + 20-something” stage &
returned to on my own accord…
have been accused by Fellow Christians of…
among many other things–
following practices and beliefs that are not Biblical.
Much sound & fury has been vented…
and ink spilled and trees felled and even lives lost in acts of wars waged…
over the many years unto decades unto centuries that these arguments have smoldered & occasionally raged.
To the 3 books cited in these posts:
1. “Naturally Supernatural” written by Gary Best
2. “The Supernatural Power of a Transformed Mind: Access to a Life of Miracles” by Bill Johnson
[Thank You--Dr. George for clearing up the note of confusion.]
3. “Drinking From A Dry Well” by Thomas H. Green
I’d like to add a webpage from gotQuestions?org:
http://www.gotquestions.org/Catholic-Biblical.html
As someone possessing catholic-trained eyes…what I see here is a clear example & evidence of one of the things that Jesus Christ instructed us NOT to do.
In attempting to Answer the Question: “Are Catholic beliefs and practices biblical?” … The writer of this page cites:
Mark 7:7
Ephesians 2:8-9
Ephesians 2:10
2 Corinthians 5:17
1 John 5:13
Titus 3:5
Ephesians 2:8-9 (again)
Galatians 3:10-11
Romans 3:19-24
1 Corinthians 1:14-18
Romans 10:13-17
Acts 16:33
Acts 16:31
Matthew 6:9
Luke 18:1-7
1 Peter 2:9
1 John 1:9
Acts 4:12
1 Timothy 2:5
Romans 4:3
Galatians 4:30
Acts 17:11
2 Timothy 3:16-17
…which may appear to be a good & impressive source of sound AND Bible-based teaching to Protestant eyes…but is actually a collection of scriptural “sound-bites” gathered together to serve & support the writer’s pre-conceived notions about Catholic beliefs and practices…
Precious few of these snippets are taken from The Gospels of Jesus Christ…most are taken from the Acts & Letters of the Apostles…who were still debating amongst Themselves & Others as to What–EXACTLY–Christ Meant…
Christ KNOWS What He Meant–but our understandings of His Words continue to grow & deepen & evolve over our own personal lives and over the Life of The Church…
Furthermore–The only longer & more comprehensive statement from Gospel Scripture that’s been included on this list–Luke 18:1-7–has gotten the “conclusion” to be drawn from These Passages clearly wrong.
Jesus instructed us to build on rock–not on sand.
All this chopping up of Holy Scripture in order to reassemble it in ways to suit your points is the functional equivalent of…
Taking The Rock of Scripture–
That Is–The Whole of Ordered Scripture…
Particularly the 4 Gospels of The New Testament…
Pounding IT Into Sand…
Stirring In Various Mortars…
Allowing A Drying Out Period…
And THEN Building A New House Upon This
Aggregate-based Cement.
My recommended reading…for what it’s worth is…
Magnificat Magazine…
Which provides each day’s Scriptural readings from the 3-year cycle of readings…as well as commentary from great Christian writers–drawn from a nearly 2000 year old stable of writers (not necessarily Roman Catholic)…as well as reproductions & analysis of great Christian artwork from down the nearly 20 centuries that it’s been produced. I can’t recommend it highly enough.
As a side note, I used to be naive, if you ever feel like that, just take the practical position of crossing your legs in a yoga position, and prey…Ahmen
It doesn’t matter if it’s the Buddha, Jesus Christ, Allah, Hindi or any other..
We ALL hold the truth..
All gods are within us all..
You ARE the truth..
You could even do something else..
I love to play music..
The yoga position of buddha works for me, it hurts at first as does your fingers whilst practising your guitar, but hey..
no pain no gain, right..
it makes you fitter, more flexible, and revitalises the mind and sole..
Dear son..
Thank you my friend!
Well put. I think a lot of christians get dissolusioned precisely because they have been taught that:
1) They are children of the king & therefore should live on this earth like royalty (in a material sense)
2) If they give to the church they will reap a huge financial harvest (but most give off their credit cards and wonder why they are always in debt).
3) God has a call on their life yet they look back and wonder why they aren’t rich and/or famous or successful in a worldly sense.
The idea of controlling God or being able to speak for God or knowing whatever is a common situation. In addition to “God hiding” it may also be known as “Why do bad things happen to good people”, “The rain falls on the unjust and the just”, etc. One of the most derisive issues that will just not go away in our church is the question of ordination of homosexuals. It often ends up as an issue of wright and wrong. This misses the point. I believe the point to be are we going to follow the command to love the Lord your God with all your heart and likewise love your neighbor as yourself or not. Are not the problems that you refer to created when we lose sight of that command.
Rob- GOD Did NOT Intend For “Matters of Faith” To Be “Rocket Science” And So We Find “Statements of God’s Rules” Delivered In Fairly Direct&Plain Wording.
Genesis 1:27
“God created man in his image; in the divine image he created him; male and female he created them.”
It’s been A PROBLEM that…In THIS Sentence…hearing “man” tends to spin the Readers’ thinking into picturing “a man–Adam”…when 11, 12 & 13 words later it SHOULD Become Clear That What Is Meant Is That “God created humans in his image…male and female he created them.”
As a “female member” of our Human Family…I have noticed that far more females are NOT confused by the semantics of this statement and “Get” that God created Males & Females as Complimentary Members of The Human Family Possessing Full Measures of Equal Human Dignity–Tho’ NOT Identical Parts…
While “males” tend to tune in ONLY to “God created man in his image”… ignoring the rest of the Yada-Yada-Yada… and Carry ON under the Mistaken Assumption That–
They’re THE Boss–God Said So…
And So–”Gender Wars” Are STILL Being Waged–Up To & Including–TODAY…
Which Brings US To Questions of Gay Marriage and the Ordination of Open & Practicing Homosexuals.
IF the sexual joining of male & female did NOT produce GenNEXT–THEN All The Marriage Traditions of 1000′s of Years Across 1000′s of Cultures Would NOT Have Been Formed In The First Place.
The Genetic Source of Each & Every Member of The Human Family IS–Male & Female…
AND–Marriage–Even If “Stuff Happened” And This Male & Female Pair Are NOT The Biological Parents of Any or All Their Children…
Never-The-Less–MARRIAGE IS A REFLECTION of THE HUMAN PERSON–THEREFORE–Marriage IS Male & Female…
Everything Else is just “roommates with benefits”…
“Practicing Homosexuals”–Whose Decided Orientation Is Toward Others MOST Like Them–Are NOT The Best Ministers To Those…ahem…Others… OUTside of Their Own rather tight Circles… After All–We Gals Are NOT Dumb–We KNOW How Many “Homosexuals” Think That They Have Been Called To Play The “Female Part” BETTER Than The Actual (inferior) Females Do IT.
I remind myself about an ex-wife of Picasso. After her divorce, she remarked “perhaps I should have learned Spanish?”
If you really love God, then learn Hebrew and its Grammar. The difference between “B” and “V” in the first word of Genesis is more fully understood by those who formulated String Theory – than by those who do not know that Biblical Hebrew is written without vowels. I am more convinced by String Theory and the current possibility of multiple Creations, than by the translations which uphold a single Creation.
Let me continue reading “The Cloud of Unknowing” that I may yet be wiser …
St. Augustine said in his Confessions: “See, I answer him that asketh, “What did God before He made heaven and earth?” I answer not as one is said to have done merrily (eluding the pressure of the question), “He was preparing hell(saith he) for pryers into mysteries.” It is one thing to answer enquiries, another to make sport of enquirers. So I answer not; for rather had I answer, “I know not,” what I know not, than so as to raise a laugh at him who asketh deep things and gain praise for one who answereth false things.”
If there is a valid scientific test for the idea of multiple beginnings, I’d love to hear it. Otherwise, it’s simply a matter of faith and St. Augustine’s answer above seems very appropriate. The current universe we live in is the one of immediate interest and the one the Bible was written to. It causes me no particular spiritual concern that God’s activities and ways go beyond what’s written in the Bible. In fact, I think that’s rather explicitly stated and why we’re advised to “lean not on [our] own understanding”.
RE: “I am more convinced by String Theory…”
Alastair- Your brief statements of these “new” insights reminds Me of the opening sentence in one of The Greatest Essays on Religion of Our Times…”Origen explains” by David Warren writing for the Christmas 2002 edition of the Ottawa Citizen…
“Christ came to save us in more ways than we can possibly imagine…”
http://www.davidwarrenonline.com/index.php?id=168
Look closely in any&EVERY Direction…And You Will Find Incredible Detail, Amazing Beauty & Irreducible Complexity…All Without End…Except that Our Time to study–IT ALL–DOES …eventually… Come To An End.
For Some… String Theory appears to be THE Answer that will “TOE” The Line… That is–BE THE “Theory Of Everything”…
For Others… It just reminds us of the old joke… About the Irish Widow who…when She died and Her Children cleaned out Her house…They found–up in the attic–2 Large Boxes. One was labeled “String” and the other was labeled “String Too Short To Save.”
The Origen article is great. I have a book of his writings, which is really cool to read. A snapshot of early Christianity.
Hey Freeman- Aren’t You cutting some corners…That Really Ought To Be Squared ??
IF–”It doesn’t matter if it’s the Buddha, Jesus Christ, Allah, Hindi or any other..”
THEN–Let’s add a few of those other “gods” to this list… Apollo, Mercury, Mars, Aphrodite, Zeus, W?danaz, Nerþuz, Wulþuz, S?wil?, Perfect Master Meher Baba, Bahá’í’s Bahá’u’lláh, Sif, Thor, Odin, Fagus, Cocidius, Lugus, Heng O, Cheng-huang, Itzli, Itzpapalotl, Ixtlilton, Jakkesgay, Kukulkán, Targitzan, Ra, Seth, Isis, Bastet, Brahma, Shiva, Devi, Vishnu, Ab Kin Zoc, Ah Cun Can, Ahnt Alis Pok’, Tarhuhyiawahku, Tlahuixcalpantecuhtli, Wisagatcak, Zotz and Eric Clapton…
I could go ON&ON&ON…but I hope You Get The Idea…
If You have NOT YET read/listened to Perry Marshall’s “If You Can Read This, I Can Prove God Exists” at Cosmicfingerprints.com… THEN DO SO. Perry provided a brief abstract that I’ve copied below:
“Just like all those 1’s and 0’s that make our modern world go ‘round, DNA is also a digital communication system. All the same formulas and communication theory that created our modern digital age apply to DNA too. In fact many methods that are commonplace in the information technology field have been adapted and applied to genetics research and the Human Genome Project.”
Your own DNA–a.k.a., Your Own Personal Instruction Manual For How To Build & Operate A “Michael Freeman”…Are God’s Instructions TO You & OF You FROM HIM. We All Have OUR OWN–Love Letters From God–Our Own Genetic Codes & Instructions.
Furthermore–Another of Perry’s Cosmicfingerprints.com article…”New Scientific Evidence for Existence of God” provides the discoveries behind the Scientific Confirmation of the–To Some–”Incredible Equation”…
BIG BANG = JESUS CHRIST
So–Between Genetics & Cosmology We’ve Determined That The Universe = Jesus Christ AND That Our Genetic Codes Have Been “Written” By An Intelligent Mind…
WHICH IS EXACTLY THE SAME OL’ STORY & NEWS THAT WAS REVEALED TO & THRU THE WRITERS OF THE OLD & NEW TESTAMENTS…Who Recorded God’s Word For us…and our posterity.
So Your next statement…”We ALL hold the truth..” is True…But NONE of Us Holds The Complete Truth–EXCEPT FOR JESUS CHRIST–Which Is Why… If You follow any of those “other gods”…your heading will require varying degrees of course correction…which a well educated Christian Mind does–almost automatically & nearly without realizing what “They Got Right”…That IS A Great Revelation To Their Fellow Travelers Who’ve Been Working From other maps.
Yes–There IS A LOT of Truth To Be Mined In Other Religions…
Especially Those That Have Stood Their Tests of Time…
But Make NO MISTAKE–At The Bottom of ALL TRUTH IS CHRIST…
Which Many Other Supposedly “Non-Christians”…such as Gandhi…
REALIZED BETTER & BEFORE Many So-Called “Christians”
So…Thank You–My Friend–For This Food For Thought…Including Questions As To WHICH of The Several “Meanings” For Sole/Soul Did You Have In Mind…Maybe ALL of THEM…When You Wrote…”and revitalises the mind and sole..”