KS, I know you didn't think you were going to enter into a word debate, but you see, I have come to expect this.
I think that was EP, not KS.
She did not have to ask---she had to look. Although she has often told us to ask Christ--assuming that she asked Christ anything is a total misrepresentation of what she does. She LOOKEd and he had something to SAY about his father. How ridiculous you are KS, to actually make the mistake of using the work ASK to completely change the context and meaning of EVERYTHING said by her. Why the difference is so unacceptable and vast, it changes everything. She LOOKED at Christ, and Christ SPOKE about his father. How could you ever come up with a verb such as ASK from that????? Sheesh.
There was no changing/flipflop/whatever. I looked first. I think most of us do. Not all. But I personally needed to see something first. Took me quite a while of looking before I realized that God was as CHRIST showed him to be. I certainly loved Christ, and I knew that His words (in the bible or anywhere else) were truth, over anything that contradicted them. But I did not make the connection between Christ showing God at first. At first, I said I loved God... but I think I was more scared of Him. (and too scared not to say that I loved Him)
I loved God later. Starting with when I realized God was something more than what I had always thought... because Christ loved Him. That was a defining moment for me. I think it was then that I could actually start to love Him. Because there is no fear in love. But I had not been looking at God through Christ, at all.
I prayed throughout all of this, asking for various things. But it was not until later, when i realized i could ask and perhaps even hear, that I DID ask to hear. I had also always been afraid to ask for God to send me holy spirit. First because I did not undertand what that was; second, because I was not sure that I had the right to ask, and third, I was not sure that I wanted it... whatever it was.
Of course, even if you do not want to ask or cannot ask... one does not need to in order to see that to see Christ, is to see the Father. It is right there in black and white. You can ASK, however, to be SURE... because the bible is not a perfect means of communication. Like I said earlier.
And she depended on lying scribes for the info in the first place. Without the efforts of these lying scribes, one would not even know to ask look to Christ. Which explains why people generally only find this Christ if he is already a part of their culture. Christ is biased that way.
To have heard about him... yes. Could i have otherwise... I can't say, because that is not the world i live in, and so who knows?
I did not just trust what people had written though. I saw truth in His teachings. Mercy and love in his teachings. Those spoke to me more than the mere words on the page.
And Christ is not biased; people are.
Peace,
tammy