So, here we are at the beginning of a new year. Everyone is making a big deal about the new year and new chances it brings. What has today consisted of for me? Begging for enough to pay the bills.
Now look, I don't want to get too far into how bad it is right now because wallowing in self pity is not what I want. I want to document the absolute lunacy that is my life right now.
How is this lunacy Max? Everybody has to stretch to make ends meet. (this is my imaginary mother or other apologist for the pain crowd)
First of all, no, no they don't. I know there is a better state of being I have been there. It can be constant, and it is very real. People live in it. I hate it when the excuse for why I should have to withstand whatever painful stuff comes my way because other people have to. Lots of bad things happen to other people. Other people get in car wrecks, get cancer, live in 3rd world countries, don't have enough to eat, are homeless, are unable to find any paying work, have other horrible diseases and conditions I have not listed here. Not one of their pain means I should be in it as well. If you mean to justify that I should feel okay about my problem because other people have had it, I could save you some time. I could save you time because pain as a human is a constant since before time was time, before the written word and before we had language.
This song popped into my mind while thinking about the issue of owning the same misery as others:
The point I am trying to make is that if sharing made it better, things would be wonderful because many my age are poor, and struggling with the same issues. Many are worse off! What joy I should have not to be them. I cannot be them, I can only be me. I cannot properly experience the joy of having not been raped by a family member, which I imagine to be the ultimate in psychological agony, because it has never happened to me. I'm not going to go make bad things happen so I can be overjoyed they are not happening.
I do not cry out in pain because I feel I am alone in said pain, because I would be much louder about it in that case. If I found some new and original way to be in pain I would write a book about that and make tons of money because something new would be worth sharing with the world. Something new is a rarity in this world.
I cry out because there is some inner working that believes it should be better. Part of that is that God has promised these huge unanchored claims of what he is going to do. They are unanchored because they come with stipulations (almost everything does).
Stipulation 1: the methods of delivery
In his word(biblical law) it is a common stipulation when God sets about to bless or curse someone that he reserves the right to do it his way. A good catch all verse is Isaih 55:8-9
It is written:
"8 For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways," declares the LORD. 9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways And My thoughts than your thoughts"
But what does that mean for us? For us this releases God from a literal interpretation of any single promise or guide for what he says he will do, which is a mercy in some ways. There are some very specific promises you can attempt to claim and he will fulfill after his own way and in his own fashion. Some examples:
Malachi 3:10
It is written:
"10 Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in My house, and test Me now in this," says the LORD of hosts, "if I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you a blessing until it overflows."
Take that literally and it says if you tithe you'll have so much more than enough that you won't know where to keep it. This is a quite serious promise of God oft quoted around offering time to remind us of our tithing duty which most of us do regardless of what they say.
I have had many preachers say it is unusual for God to tell his followers to directly test him on something. I have tested this and I am sad to say things are not overflowing in the present. Part of this is timing which I will deal with in the next point. But a larger part is that God will bless the way that he desires to, in ways he feels are needed. The overflow is at a timing to his liking and in a way he desires to move already. You don't get jack in the way of say so.
Another verse I have mulled over many times.
Matthew 7:8-9
It is written
"Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 8"For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.…"
These are the direct words of Christ, there does not come a higher authority to make a promise such as this. Theological scholars believe that Christ (the word) is the doing part of the trinity. In the beginning the word was with God and the word was God. So when the part of God that gets stuff done says "Ask and it will be given" you need to listen to that. Yet it is still within the law of God. The lord will do it his way, I assure you of this. Many things I have asked and some are yet to be answered, some remained unanswered by his grace, and others happened just as I prayed them. The third category is the smallest in my answered prayers. How rarely he has done exactly what I asked of him. I don't deny that he has done good work, but I do remain frustrated that he does not answer in the way I would like.
Now on to my second point which is timing. This is the point that I think causes the most confusion among people like me. We're confused because it really bothers us and we don't want to understand. Yet we have no choice. If we intend to live in his word and as his people we have to understand the stipulations and limitations of what we receive.
God does things in his own timing and frankly it sucks, particularly for American believers.
Our problem as Americans is wrapping our minds around two concepts at once. The first is as I have said God does things in his own timing.
Habakkuk 2:3
It is written:
3 For still the vision awaits its appointed time;
it hastens to the end—it will not lie.
If it seems slow, wait for it;
it will surely come; it will not delay.
This turns out to be a rather challenging issue to find verses on and the above verse most directly addresses it. Any long term follower of God will tell you he doesn't generally answer in the same day that you ask for stuff. This baffles non believers, because in some of the promise verses it seems like he said he would. However other verses refer to that his blessings and promises will be fulfilled in a specific season.
The second problem has to do with our nature as a rich country. It is in our nature to believe (with some backing) that more resources leads to faster delivery of whatever we seek to trade for those resources. We imagine an all powerful God, with the resources to create the universe and we cannot imagine how it is that he does not deliver when we ask, or shortly there-after.
This is perhaps one of the biggest reasons the Bible says that drawing near to God is difficult for the rich. For one, it is hard to rely on God when you can provide it for yourself. Second, your expectations are set differently when you are used to having more. I still labor under the expectation that I should have a dishwasher and be able to do laundry in my home. Not having that makes me feel incomplete, while others I know are not so burdened.
The desires of my heart are different from someone born poor. Someone born to a family of little means would be content just to own a house, a car, and maybe retire one day. That is up from where they started and that is very good. Meanwhile I am constantly feeling down from where I started. I started off in a family that was free to travel once a year. We went out to eat regularly. I went to private schools. We went to movies and plays often, and I had up until I moved out never lived long term in a rental property. We never had to scrimp to have enough to eat, or for clothes, or for gas. All of these uncomfortable realities are still new to me. They are still things I don't understand. I don't understand how many can work full time and not make ends meet, because growing up we didn't know that.
So my dreams of living entirely self sufficiently seemed to me like something God would have no problem with, but, well, I cannot say.
I am tired and frustrated of having just enough, or barely enough, I would like very much for things to change. Yet I continue pushing on, because the choices are give up or push on, and I have Christ within me so I push on. I don't see any other path that works. *sigh*
I wish I could just completely dismiss whether he will work. I wish I could find a way to explain him away, because it would be simpler. But in the process of writing this he chose to remind me who he is.... and so I wait. It hurts, and I don't want to, but given the choices I will abide in him.
So there is the issue that he promises better than I have. There is also the underlying believe in my philosophy that I can do better than this. Given my resources, my belief is that I should be able to at least achieve stability, if not the ultimate nirvana of total financial freedom. Now I'm not saying right away because I am more familiar with my limitatons, but eventually my belief is that it should be possible, on some amount of time in the order of years not decades.
This comes down to my basic understanding of the universe. In my understanding certain things are run in systems. Organizations, money, chemistry, organic science, engineering and physics are examples of such systems. Any system has rules. Any system with rules can be exploited to deliver anything said system is capable of delivering. Organizations can be exploited for power over people, that is not something I desire so I have not invested in that system. Chemistry can be exploited to make cool reactions. You get the gist. Therefor money should be exploitable to the point of creating a simple cash stream which I can sustain myself on and ignore money for the rest of my life. This is my dream.
To do that I have identified the goal, which is about two and a half million dollars as the amount needed to deliver a dividend of 50k a year inflation adjusted ad infinitum. How to raise it is where I am currently stuck. I have no interest at all in working 20+ years just to make enough to enjoy the remaining 40. That's poor math. I would be somewhat okay with working 10 years to enjoy the remaining 50 if God allows. I would prefer greater 5 years, and of course I would enjoy most one or fewer years.
Which is why I approached God with my request. With the promises made in scripture I thought it would be abundantly simple for him to grant my requests, namely a good piece of land and a good income so I could go about working towards my dreams. It has yet to come to pass.
It is my firm belief that if I study the problem for another year or two I might find a hole in it and be able to flip it around. The current amount needed to be generated (net meaning after tax, not gross before tax) is around six million. This allows for the purchase and refurbishment of the land I desire and to set up the fund to sustain myself. If we took the promises literally we might hope for more, since I have asked about other things. However, the problem stands that in today-world we are still struggling with much smaller problems, and as my doubts say "if God is there for such a big promise why are such small problems tormenting you?"
Because the dark forces want to bring me down, that is the only answer I have. I do not know what the delay is at this point. I do not know why I feel so alone, or what the source of my pain is (apart from poverty). I know who God is, and I know what he promises. So despite the stipulations I explained I wait for him to move.
Now look, I don't want to get too far into how bad it is right now because wallowing in self pity is not what I want. I want to document the absolute lunacy that is my life right now.
How is this lunacy Max? Everybody has to stretch to make ends meet. (this is my imaginary mother or other apologist for the pain crowd)
First of all, no, no they don't. I know there is a better state of being I have been there. It can be constant, and it is very real. People live in it. I hate it when the excuse for why I should have to withstand whatever painful stuff comes my way because other people have to. Lots of bad things happen to other people. Other people get in car wrecks, get cancer, live in 3rd world countries, don't have enough to eat, are homeless, are unable to find any paying work, have other horrible diseases and conditions I have not listed here. Not one of their pain means I should be in it as well. If you mean to justify that I should feel okay about my problem because other people have had it, I could save you some time. I could save you time because pain as a human is a constant since before time was time, before the written word and before we had language.
This song popped into my mind while thinking about the issue of owning the same misery as others:
The point I am trying to make is that if sharing made it better, things would be wonderful because many my age are poor, and struggling with the same issues. Many are worse off! What joy I should have not to be them. I cannot be them, I can only be me. I cannot properly experience the joy of having not been raped by a family member, which I imagine to be the ultimate in psychological agony, because it has never happened to me. I'm not going to go make bad things happen so I can be overjoyed they are not happening.
I do not cry out in pain because I feel I am alone in said pain, because I would be much louder about it in that case. If I found some new and original way to be in pain I would write a book about that and make tons of money because something new would be worth sharing with the world. Something new is a rarity in this world.
I cry out because there is some inner working that believes it should be better. Part of that is that God has promised these huge unanchored claims of what he is going to do. They are unanchored because they come with stipulations (almost everything does).
Stipulation 1: the methods of delivery
In his word(biblical law) it is a common stipulation when God sets about to bless or curse someone that he reserves the right to do it his way. A good catch all verse is Isaih 55:8-9
It is written:
"8 For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways," declares the LORD. 9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways And My thoughts than your thoughts"
But what does that mean for us? For us this releases God from a literal interpretation of any single promise or guide for what he says he will do, which is a mercy in some ways. There are some very specific promises you can attempt to claim and he will fulfill after his own way and in his own fashion. Some examples:
Malachi 3:10
It is written:
"10 Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in My house, and test Me now in this," says the LORD of hosts, "if I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you a blessing until it overflows."
Take that literally and it says if you tithe you'll have so much more than enough that you won't know where to keep it. This is a quite serious promise of God oft quoted around offering time to remind us of our tithing duty which most of us do regardless of what they say.
I have had many preachers say it is unusual for God to tell his followers to directly test him on something. I have tested this and I am sad to say things are not overflowing in the present. Part of this is timing which I will deal with in the next point. But a larger part is that God will bless the way that he desires to, in ways he feels are needed. The overflow is at a timing to his liking and in a way he desires to move already. You don't get jack in the way of say so.
Another verse I have mulled over many times.
Matthew 7:8-9
It is written
"Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 8"For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.…"
These are the direct words of Christ, there does not come a higher authority to make a promise such as this. Theological scholars believe that Christ (the word) is the doing part of the trinity. In the beginning the word was with God and the word was God. So when the part of God that gets stuff done says "Ask and it will be given" you need to listen to that. Yet it is still within the law of God. The lord will do it his way, I assure you of this. Many things I have asked and some are yet to be answered, some remained unanswered by his grace, and others happened just as I prayed them. The third category is the smallest in my answered prayers. How rarely he has done exactly what I asked of him. I don't deny that he has done good work, but I do remain frustrated that he does not answer in the way I would like.
Now on to my second point which is timing. This is the point that I think causes the most confusion among people like me. We're confused because it really bothers us and we don't want to understand. Yet we have no choice. If we intend to live in his word and as his people we have to understand the stipulations and limitations of what we receive.
God does things in his own timing and frankly it sucks, particularly for American believers.
Our problem as Americans is wrapping our minds around two concepts at once. The first is as I have said God does things in his own timing.
Habakkuk 2:3
It is written:
3 For still the vision awaits its appointed time;
it hastens to the end—it will not lie.
If it seems slow, wait for it;
it will surely come; it will not delay.
This turns out to be a rather challenging issue to find verses on and the above verse most directly addresses it. Any long term follower of God will tell you he doesn't generally answer in the same day that you ask for stuff. This baffles non believers, because in some of the promise verses it seems like he said he would. However other verses refer to that his blessings and promises will be fulfilled in a specific season.
The second problem has to do with our nature as a rich country. It is in our nature to believe (with some backing) that more resources leads to faster delivery of whatever we seek to trade for those resources. We imagine an all powerful God, with the resources to create the universe and we cannot imagine how it is that he does not deliver when we ask, or shortly there-after.
This is perhaps one of the biggest reasons the Bible says that drawing near to God is difficult for the rich. For one, it is hard to rely on God when you can provide it for yourself. Second, your expectations are set differently when you are used to having more. I still labor under the expectation that I should have a dishwasher and be able to do laundry in my home. Not having that makes me feel incomplete, while others I know are not so burdened.
The desires of my heart are different from someone born poor. Someone born to a family of little means would be content just to own a house, a car, and maybe retire one day. That is up from where they started and that is very good. Meanwhile I am constantly feeling down from where I started. I started off in a family that was free to travel once a year. We went out to eat regularly. I went to private schools. We went to movies and plays often, and I had up until I moved out never lived long term in a rental property. We never had to scrimp to have enough to eat, or for clothes, or for gas. All of these uncomfortable realities are still new to me. They are still things I don't understand. I don't understand how many can work full time and not make ends meet, because growing up we didn't know that.
So my dreams of living entirely self sufficiently seemed to me like something God would have no problem with, but, well, I cannot say.
I am tired and frustrated of having just enough, or barely enough, I would like very much for things to change. Yet I continue pushing on, because the choices are give up or push on, and I have Christ within me so I push on. I don't see any other path that works. *sigh*
I wish I could just completely dismiss whether he will work. I wish I could find a way to explain him away, because it would be simpler. But in the process of writing this he chose to remind me who he is.... and so I wait. It hurts, and I don't want to, but given the choices I will abide in him.
So there is the issue that he promises better than I have. There is also the underlying believe in my philosophy that I can do better than this. Given my resources, my belief is that I should be able to at least achieve stability, if not the ultimate nirvana of total financial freedom. Now I'm not saying right away because I am more familiar with my limitatons, but eventually my belief is that it should be possible, on some amount of time in the order of years not decades.
This comes down to my basic understanding of the universe. In my understanding certain things are run in systems. Organizations, money, chemistry, organic science, engineering and physics are examples of such systems. Any system has rules. Any system with rules can be exploited to deliver anything said system is capable of delivering. Organizations can be exploited for power over people, that is not something I desire so I have not invested in that system. Chemistry can be exploited to make cool reactions. You get the gist. Therefor money should be exploitable to the point of creating a simple cash stream which I can sustain myself on and ignore money for the rest of my life. This is my dream.
To do that I have identified the goal, which is about two and a half million dollars as the amount needed to deliver a dividend of 50k a year inflation adjusted ad infinitum. How to raise it is where I am currently stuck. I have no interest at all in working 20+ years just to make enough to enjoy the remaining 40. That's poor math. I would be somewhat okay with working 10 years to enjoy the remaining 50 if God allows. I would prefer greater 5 years, and of course I would enjoy most one or fewer years.
Which is why I approached God with my request. With the promises made in scripture I thought it would be abundantly simple for him to grant my requests, namely a good piece of land and a good income so I could go about working towards my dreams. It has yet to come to pass.
It is my firm belief that if I study the problem for another year or two I might find a hole in it and be able to flip it around. The current amount needed to be generated (net meaning after tax, not gross before tax) is around six million. This allows for the purchase and refurbishment of the land I desire and to set up the fund to sustain myself. If we took the promises literally we might hope for more, since I have asked about other things. However, the problem stands that in today-world we are still struggling with much smaller problems, and as my doubts say "if God is there for such a big promise why are such small problems tormenting you?"
Because the dark forces want to bring me down, that is the only answer I have. I do not know what the delay is at this point. I do not know why I feel so alone, or what the source of my pain is (apart from poverty). I know who God is, and I know what he promises. So despite the stipulations I explained I wait for him to move.
No comments:
Post a Comment