Tootired2care,
Fernando said:
After a spiritual awakening and intense journey, my conclusion is that God speaks to all of us all the time by way of our thoughts. We simply have to tune in and be more aware. Tuning in is accessible to anyone that follows the map - the full unabridged gospel message - embraces it, and yields to it.
The higher one's SQ or Spiritual Quotient the more evident it seems to be that the rush of helpful new or profound ideas, concepts and thoughts are from another higher source - although the flow is experienced as very organic/natural, subtle and gentle.
Religionists being physical, temporal, natural and carnal cannot transcend the time-space domain to tune into and discern the metaphysical (spiritual) since they have not been granted faith (a wide opening of our spiritual eyes).
I think he said this quite well.
I read a book that helped me “Letters From A Skeptic” by Dr. Gregory A Boyd
The man describes his experience to his skeptical father,
“a lot of the time when I pray I picture Jesus in my mind” these I think is a good way to recall what step he took and then you can think to yourself now what would Jesus be saying to me right now.
“I let him remind me of my worth and lovability in His eyes because of what He’s done for me on Calvary.” (Calvary is a place that which the crucifixion of Jesus is said to have occurred)
“I let Him heal my memories. That is how all the growth in the Christian life takes place-from healing on the inside, from resting in God’s love.”
“Asking for things –what’s called “petitionary prayer” – is simply one minor aspect of this total relationship. It’s not that God needs our petitions to be informed or empowered to do anything. You’re right” He’s already as good, as concerned, as informed, and as powerful as He can be. But because a loving relationship with Him is His highest agenda for us, He constructs the order of things such that a loving relationship with Him will be facilitated. And thus He ordains that some things will only be done through pray.”
“It might help to look at it this way. Because God has love as His highest agenda, He gives us some “say-so” in the universe. We must have this if we are to be self-determining persons, and He must have self-determining persons in His creation if He wants love to be the creation’s goal. We’ve already talked about this. So we humans have a good deal of power to determine the outcome of things, to have some “say-so” in our little corner of the universe.” He goes on in describing this genuine relationship and what it in tells.
Then to your other subject you brought up in more detail, in not experiencing anything but silence, his father says the same thing. His son goes on to tell him his reasoning of the matter of it being impossible to actually test the effectiveness of prayer… him being a professor of theology at a college, his very detailed in his reasoning and therefore I can’t write all of it out but the part that caught my eye was described here.
“But maybe this is as it should be. If petitionary prayer could be conclusively “verified,” it would turn god into a sort of cosmic vending machine. Make your requests, pull the lever, and abracadabra, you have your wish granted. But this defeats the whole purpose of prayer which is to facilitate a faith-filled relationship with the Creator. So it takes faith to pray, and faith to see the answer to prayer.”
“Secondly, I’d again reiterate that, far more important than knowing the mechanics of unanswered prayer is knowing that God’s on your side even when the prayer is unanswered.”
He gives a good analogy of how this works. An example of a family safe at home base (beach cottage), but there was a huge war going on a ways down and the family’s father was Captain caught in battle. The family had a radio line to the captain and could make their request. He would meet his family’s request as much as he could but “given the strategic warfare of the enemy, he cannot. And perhaps sometimes their requests are not even to their own advantage given the course the battle is taking.”
He mentions “But the unfortunate family in the beach cottage doesn’t have this broader perspective. They only know that the captain is on their side, that their requests are heard and are taken into account, and that sometimes their requests are granted and sometimes not. But they lacking has strategic perspective, have no idea why this is the case. They don’t have a purview of the whole battle. Their perspective is limited to the tiny windows in their cottage.”
This book inspired me to have faith again and I think sometimes we need reminders. I too, have felt the way you do, and still do in some ways have my doubts. I’m still in the middle of this book, but I thought this part was good and thought I’d share.
