{"id":3593,"date":"2016-01-24T10:00:20","date_gmt":"2016-01-24T15:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/?p=3593"},"modified":"2016-01-19T10:23:51","modified_gmt":"2016-01-19T15:23:51","slug":"smart-and-stupid-ways-to-think-about-god-20160124","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/?p=3593","title":{"rendered":"Smart and Stupid Ways to Think About God — 20160124"},"content":{"rendered":"

As I stated in the last issue, There are some<\/em> ways to think about God, as human as they are, that are simply false. That\u2019s why the Bible, especially the Old Testament, talks so much about idols, or graven images. That\u2019s why, back in ancient times, making any<\/em> image of God was strictly taboo.<\/p>\n

God forbid we, in our bumbling human way, should create a picture so beautiful we pray to it as<\/em> God, instead of a representation of God. We must remember that we do not worship icons. We worship Who the icon represents. Sometimes we Eastern Christians have been accused of worshipping icons because we actually take time to venerate<\/em> them by kissing and touching our heads to them. We do not worship icons. They are used to remind us of the people WHO we remember as being real and part of salvation history.<\/p>\n

God forbid we should create an image, an idea, a theory, so captivating we mistake it for God Himself. That\u2019s truly the idolater’s error. When we do, we worship our creation instead of God. We worship our<\/em> idea instead of God. In essence, what this really means is we\u2019re worshipping ourselves!<\/p>\n

If we have a false sense of self, we cannot help but create a false god. If we have a false sense of values, we cannot help but create a god that\u2019s worthless. But rather then realize the problem lives in us, we pin it on God. Excuses, excuses! It\u2019s our dishonesty toward ourselves that creates our disillusionment with God.<\/p>\n

If we\u2019re serious about thinking about God, we also have to think more seriously about ourselves. If we really want to delve into the mystery of God, and get reliable answers, we\u2019ve got to look inward, find the real McCoy, the genuine article, our true selves. We\u2019ve got to have the courage to grow psychologically. To improve ourselves. To heal ourselves. It means to expose all our inner falsehoods to the light of day. We have to do a lot of personal work. And the more we clean up our act, the cleaner our view of God.<\/p>\n

But admittedly, if our view of God changes as we do, we\u2019re left with some very uncomfortable questions: What is truth? Whose truth is truth? Can we ever know for sure that truth even exists?<\/p>\n

I wonder how many of my readers have ever thought about WHO GOD IS? I do believe that all of us have an image of God (i.e., idea of God<\/em>) within us. Sometimes because of childhood experiences, that image may not be a healthy image.
\nWho is God for you? <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As I stated in the last issue, There are some ways to think about God, as human as they are, that are simply false. That\u2019s why the Bible, especially the Old Testament, talks so much about idols, or graven images. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3593","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ways-to-think-about-god"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3593","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3593"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3593\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3594,"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3593\/revisions\/3594"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}