My World View!
In the beginning, I had more questions than answers. I’ve never taken the time to discover what it was that I know, believe, think or understand about our existence. All I had was what I remembered from everything I learned.
Most Christians believe you need to read the bible to be in the will of God, and the guidance you receive from the Holy Spirit is dependent on what you know of the biblical text. However, I grew up in a Rastafarian household and though reading the bible was common among Rastas, it wasn't practiced in our Home. Even then, I always felt guided by something and searched for meaning in what I was hearing and feeling. I explored Catholicism, Mormonism, Jehovah's Witness, and tried to make sense of Rastafarianism. It’s what was available to me simply as a result of proximity and upbringing. It could be said that my "Rhema" was developed from the bits and pieces I learned along the way, but it felt bigger than that. When I started reading the bible, what I observed was that much of what I felt and understood about life, and myself were present in and supported by the text.
In my later adult years, I learned of the Reticular Activating System. I developed a belief in the power of the brain and the RAS as much as I do Rhema. The RAS filters out the irrelevant and brings only the relevant information to our conscious mind. So as I studied scripture, I often found the answers to my questions. As we read the same chapters and books over and over, our brain receives it differently as we find relevance in the content. I later discovered I had the same “answered” experience with any book I read or source I searched.
So, more questions. Was the RAS explaining a spiritual phenomenon or is the Rhema explaining a scientific phenomenon? Does God speak to us first through his Word that we then apply? Do we need to turn to a text to validate and understand every word from God? Can God's Rhema word to us as an individual stand on its own?
"Rhema" means the spoken Word of God for the "Now".
It is God's specific Word to you, at a specific time, for a purpose.
Now, there is still very little that I know, but much that I believe.
I believe in a divine and supreme entity. A God.
I believe that humanity was created by something greater than us.
I believe that Mankind was made to serve the purpose of God, though unknown.
I believe God is the source of knowledge. The knowledge that we pursue and the knowledge that pursues us.
I question man’s understanding of God as the judge of all men and God as sovereign, as we are limited in our thinking and understanding.
I believe that if there will be judgment, we will be judged according to what we believed and our own experience with God.
I believe that this divine entity exists in each of us and creates a different purpose and experience in us within the greater purpose.
I believe that we experience the same god and call it by a different name.
I believe we interpret our same God experience differently.
I believe that we do not understand or accept another man’s calling and purpose when it doesn’t align with our own experience - we make it wrong.
I believe man’s need for community and belonging creates religion and this searching for oneness and sameness forces us to identify similarities in our God experience and label it Christian, Muslim, Baptist, Seventh-Day, Science.
I don’t believe one man’s belief is better, good, or bad.
I believe in free will, choice, and desire as much as is allowed by our divine experience. Can I choose not to die, or to die sooner?
I believe that the consequences of our choices impact this current state of our being.
I don’t know if I truly believe in a life after this one, but I hope for it. I hope there is more to this existence than passing time and shallow experiences. I hope that we don’t just keep dying and starting all over again.
I believe that prayer is more about hope combined with the power of the mind to create the solutions we need. Also, our chosen way to communicate to our divine.
I believe that the pursuit of pleasure by one man creates pain in another.
I believe in the Bible as much as I believe any other book to have been written from a man’s own truth and experience - which is true only for the purpose it was written and of the knowledge as it was known.
I believe just as a man searches for community and sameness, we search for answers and tell stories where there are none.
I believe that every stroke of the pen is guided by each man’s god experience, none purer or truer than the next. My journal, your letter, his book, their blog, all a divine guided experience, an extension of the Bible.
I believe that the divine and supreme entity communicates with us and is not dependent on man’s writing habit.
I believe our understanding of good and bad is limited by our humanness, guided by our internal views, and therefore we can make nothing good or bad, and everything good and bad. Just more unknown.
I believe we judge others by our measure of morality and lack of acceptance. We judge others harshly on the same acts we commit with understanding and acceptance for ourselves.
I believe there is value in pursuing an understanding of scripture to identify patterns of human experience to help predict our own future, but not as a source of the only truth.
I pursue devotional study in my search for truth. I don't pursue the bible in search of fact, but more so for a conversation with God.
I struggle with defining myself as religious, spiritual, or Christian, and have always felt that what I have is a relationship with my experiences and conversations with what/who I call God.
Whether a story in the bible is true is insignificant. What matters is that the message I need to receive from God is delivered.
I believe analysis leads to doubt, and doubt can lead to search, discovery, and confirmation.
Only I can discern whether the word received is from God. If it is good or bad. Peace or fear.
I believe “the gut feeling” is a divine experience.
I believe much of what is experienced today is covered in the Bible. Answers to life's questions and challenges. Healing. Guidance. Peace.
If I am able to reference what I understand of the bible in my life, life feels simpler. The burden is lighter. Expectations are adjusted. The path is clear.
It becomes increasingly challenging to answer these questions. It may be too early in my search or something I may never know.
What is my calling? My mission?
What is my promised land?
What is my gifting, my ministry, my place
How will I serve people?
What is my role and how do I fit in?
This scene from Marvel’s Captain America simplifies our battle with God, mankind, ourselves, our expectations, and understanding. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrKi8idPCSo
Steve Rogers: You just can't stop yourself from lying, can you?
Nick Fury: I didn't lie. Agent Romanoff had a different mission than yours.
Steve Rogers: Which you didn't feel obliged to share.
Nick Fury: I'm not obliged to do anything.
Steve Rogers: Those hostages could have died, Nick.
Nick Fury: I sent the greatest soldier in history to make sure that didn't happen.
Steve Rogers: Soldiers trust each other. That's what makes it an army. Not a bunch of guys running around shooting guns.
Nick Fury: The last time I trusted someone, I lost an eye. Look, I didn't want you doing anything you weren't comfortable with. Agent Romanoff is comfortable with everything.
Steve Rogers: I can't lead a mission when the people I'm leading have missions of their own.
Nick Fury: It's called compartmentalization. Nobody spills the secrets, because nobody knows them all.
Steve Rogers: Except you.
Nick Fury: You're wrong about me. I do share. I'm nice like that.