Posts Tagged: a God without borders
“The Contentment and Joy of Beginnership”
Do you feel like a beginner in an area where you should be a master? Well, join the human race, dear heart! “Impostor syndrome” (which is often a result of feeling like a beginner) is something we all struggle with in one way or another, in one area or another. Feeling like a beginner is not generally a comfortable feeling.
However, at the ripe old age of seventy-two, I have realized that I can choose to be contented and even joyous with the feeling and the reality of being a beginner.
Here is an excerpt from my 12-step report to my sponsors and accountability posse this morning:
“Dear ___________________________________,
. . .
Today, by God’s grace, I am cultivating awareness of God. Good things for me and for others will come about as I consistently do this.
It was a good affirmation, but I am not sure how much I followed through on it. I am a beginner at cultivating awareness of anything. However, Thomas Merton said that God loves beginners. I hope Merton was right, and I suspect he was.
Today, by God’s grace, I am content and joyful to be a beginner. By the end of the day, I am planning to be a little further along on my beginnership.
Daryl”
I thought that I might be coining the word “beginnership”, but I was quickly disabused of that notion. While it is not yet an official word, it was used in an article in Forbes Magazine in February of 2022 (https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesbusinesscouncil/2022/02/09/the-power-of-beginnership-as-a-business-leader/?sh=1cfff9f17bf8, accessed 04-24-2023). So much for originality!
Some Buddhists also speak of keeping “a beginner’s mind”. This strikes me as being incredibly wise.
And why is it wise to recognize and cultivate beginnership? The answer is simple: Because we all are beginners. If we begin to think otherwise, we are already off the path of wisdom and into a thicket of bad results.
I had a fascinating exchange of emails with a student. He was responding to one of my comments on his assignment. His email invited me to think more deeply about the whole matter of biblical interpretation. I was able to encourage him, I think, by admitting that I myself am a beginner when it comes to interpretation. I also raised his grade a bit for his prompt and thoughtful response.
If the Bible is God’s Word, as I believe that it is, then we should not find it difficult to believe that we are beginners in interpretation. After all, if God is infinite (in other words, if God has no boundaries), then we ought to be humble beginners in trying to understand what God has said. We can be content and even joyful in our beginnership.
“No Boundaries to This Promised Land!”
“You are my promised land.” (Zach Williams, “Let the Redeemed of the LORD Say So.”)
I was reading one of the most boring sections of the Bible this past Sunday morning before church. When I went to worship at Hyde Park United Methodist Church, the section of the book of Joshua that records the dividing up of the land that God had promised to Israel suddenly became a lot more interesting.
The praise band was leading us in the song “Let the Redeemed of the Lord Say So.” I had heard the song several times on K-Love Radio, but had not paid much attention to the words. May God have mercy on my inattentive soul!
“You are my promised land,” the singers sang.
And I immediately thought of Joshua and the dividing of the land. Boundary lines in the promised land were all over the place. But God is infinite—or so the theologians say. And if God has no limits, then there are no boundary lines in God. And if God is our Promised Land? We have no limits either in exploring this promised land.
I have not yet watched the final show of “The Good Place.” However, I’ve read some analyses of the last show, and if I’m understanding things correctly, the show turns on the fact that Heaven is hellaciously boring. That probably is what a lot of people think. Mark Twain has Huck Finn pretty much say that in one of his books.
However, if God is infinite, if God has no boundaries, we can explore God for eternity, and never reach the boring border. There is no border, and no border lines. No borders; no boring!
DOWN TO EARTH BELIEVER
- DTEB, “Getting Christ and Ourselves Back in Focus” November 11, 2024“Col. 3:1 ¶ If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Col. 3:2 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. Col. 3:3 For you have died, and your life is hidden […]
- “Search Me!” October 27, 2024“Psa. 139:23 Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! 24 And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!” (Psalm 139:23-24, English Standard Version) I am participating in a Bible study, and this is a prayer […]
- “Christian Speech” October 26, 2024“Eph. 4:29 Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.” Foulkes, in his excellent commentary on the Book of Ephesians, writes the following, which I quote at some length: “29. Now the […]
- “God is in the Details” October 11, 2024“The devil is in the details.” (A general saying, often quoted by lawyers, reporters, and negotiators.) “God is in the details.” (Me, almost certainly not original.) “Luke 12:7 Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows.” (Jesus) God does not micromanage, but God […]
- “Grandma’s Pump” October 8, 2024When I was a little critter, I would stay at my grandma’s house for a night or two sometimes. I liked this for a lot for many reasons. One thing I liked about staying with her was that Grandma’s house was much more technologically advanced than ours was. For one thing, she had indoor water—sort […]
- “Wearing the #14 Wrong-Side-Out” October 5, 2024Pete Rose, #14, is dead. Many of the old guys with whom I play softball watched him play and appreciated him greatly. I do as well. He was one of the greatest players who ever played the game. Yes, he admitted (eventually) to betting on baseball. But many of us still regard him as one […]
- “Passing Along the Love (and a Link)” October 4, 2024Several years ago, a friend of mine put me onto a daily meditation by Richard Rohr and friends. I don’t read them all the time, but I probably should. They are good! I thought that today’s writing was especially good, and I also figured that this would be a good way to post something. I […]
- “Witnessing Versus Being Witnesses” September 19, 2024“Acts 1:1 In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach, Acts 1:2 until the day when he was taken up, after he had given commands through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. Acts 1:3 He presented himself alive to them after […]
- “A Bathroom Prayer for Hurting Hands” September 11, 2024A week ago Sunday, my hands were hurting so badly at church that I went to the bathroom to run hot water over my hands. Arthritis perhaps, or carpal tunnel, or general orneriness—I don’t know why my hands hurt, but they do. They have for years. So, while I was running hot water over my […]
- “Waiting and Seeking” September 10, 2024“Lam. 3:19 ¶ Remember my affliction and my wanderings, the wormwood and the gall! Lam. 3:20 My soul continually remembers it and is bowed down within me. Lam. 3:21 But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: Lam. 3:22 ¶ The steadfast love of the LORD […]
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