Quantum Spirituality

As I considered my thoughts and feelings this morning something occurred to me. One part was an analogy from quantum physics and the other is a truth I have heard before that fits so well.

As I have spent time over the past few months sharing myself on this blog there has developed naturally an assumed expectation that I have had to deal with; that is that I am expected to regularly contribute to it or people will become impatient with me and I will feel bad about myself. This may sound infantile, and probably is, but since I am becoming more aware of my own feelings and more frequently stopping to check them for validity, this is what I have found.

I have then wondered what to do with this feeling; how should I relate to it? Of course, there is always the possibility that it can develop stronger into a compulsion, even a false god, that constrains me to “perform” to “look good” to others. While that is certainly a temptation I want to guard against it strenuously for I have far to many false gods already that need to be expelled and I certainly don't need another one to deal with. But to take the opposite approach in response to this insight by simply refusing to write to spite this compulsion is also counterproductive and immature. I have dealt with other compulsions that way and with very dissatisfying results. The main reason, as I have related elsewhere on this site, that I am doing this at all is to place myself in a position of more openness and transparency where I will learn to be willing to be more vulnerable and honest. Of course, being vulnerable just for its own sake might be silly, even dangerous. It most certainly opens me up to immense potential pain which I'm rather certain may come sooner or later. But as I am learning even more clearly in this book I am reading right now about words, being completely honest with all my words and actions is crucial to being able to relate to God effectively as well as to anyone around me on a very meaningful basis. It really is the only way I can develop healthy bonds at a heart level with anyone – and heaven knows I need a lot more of that.

But as I began to ponder this this morning I was reminded of a strange phenomena that scientists have observed in quantum physics. They discovered that certain particles behave very differently when they are being “watched” than when they are not. This is almost mind-blowing and raises a lot of questions, even of how the scientists figured out that this was happening in the first place. But it is certainly a very curious fact that I think may apply to other areas of our life as well. After all, God has place within all of nature revelations about Himself waiting to be discovered and applied by those who are willing to accept His wisdom.

I feel like this same phenomena seems to be true in my spiritual life at times. I have noticed that in my growing awareness and my relationship with God that if I try too hard to observe it, quantify it, capture it in words or writing that it seems to become more unstable or even elusive. It feels like the relationship itself almost resents being condensed into predictable patterns of expectations. This makes sense to me when I think about human relationships and how we feel when others develop expectations of what we are or how we will respond to given stimuli. It cramps our freedom to change, to surprise, to love in unexpected ways. It really reflects the counterfeit system that the whole world operates under and that God is trying to save us out of into His family of love.

This brought me to the second idea closely related to the first. Typical religious thought has largely placed God in a box, and our tendency is to expect God to relate to us in predefined ways either of our making or from things we read in the Bible. While it is true that God declares that He does not change (Mal. 3:6), this does not imply that He will be predictable and always relate to given situations the same way. In fact, to many careful observers, it has been seen that He seldom, if ever, responds to similar situations in exactly the same way. But this is really wonderful good news. This is really one of the most important ingredients of a healthy, dynamic relationship. When our friends become predictable they also start to become boring. We were created for limitless growth and ever-increasing joy and intimacy for all eternity. God never intended us to rest satisfied with boredom and accept it as the norm. He built into all of us a craving for something better, something deeper, someone to share love with at an ever-deeper level and even ever-increasing numbers of people to enter into relationships with. So why do we think we can predict what God will do in response to our desires, our prayers, our deepest longings?

I think it goes back to our penchant for trying to form God into our own image and the natural bent to selfishness inherent in our sinful natures. We are afraid of relationships where we can't be in control of what the other thinks of us. That goes back to my sudden awareness of my image management problem I wrote about last September. I not only want to manage what others think about me but I tend to want God to do things the way I think they should be done instead of trusting in His heart for me without knowing in the slightest how He will relate to me in this situation. Sinful thinking demands to see evidence and proof before trusting in His ways; it refuses to believe He really cares for me consistently and that His words in Jer. 29:11 really are true and always apply to me personally. This deep-rooted doubt always seeks to sabotage the truth about God and will never be satisfied or change its opinion. It is the essence of the fallen “flesh” that lives inside me and constantly seeks to push me to independence, pride and self-protection.

When I really think about it, I really like the fact that God is in many respects very unpredictable – that is, in regards to how He will express His constant love, compassion and protection for me. Sometimes it will at first appear to be the opposite of His character and I will be tempted to doubt His character again. But that is also the very nature of wonderful surprises even in our relationships with each other. The very essence of surprise is that it is unexpected, unpredictable. But surprises from those who love us deeply will consistently in the end reveal more deeply their love and the bonds between us and the memories we cherish.

And so it is with God. The Bible is full of stories of God's surprises in all sorts of situations and circumstances. If anything, the stories of the Bible remind us that God has limitless options of how to intervene in our emergencies and supply our needs and desires. I believe that understanding this is a step toward freeing our minds, for enabling us to break open the box that we have attempted to confine God in and allow Him to bless us and discipline us according to the nature of His true character of love. It is part of the unclogging of us as channels that God desires to use to pour His blessings through to others. As someone has so aptly said, “Let God be God”.

The above principle of quantum physics applies just as well to God. I believe that when we try to predict what He will do for us in any give circumstance that He may well sometimes do it differently just to prevent us from putting Him deeper into our box. As I read recently in My Utmost, one of our greatest problems as Christians is that we do not really believe in God as being Almighty. For if we did, our problems would not terrify us like they do presently.

So what does God mean when He says He never changes? It is His character, His love, His loving-kindness that is everlasting. The part that we can absolutely count on even if the universe were to disappear is His heart's passion for us to be with Him and be close to Him. And the more we indulge ourselves in this kind of thinking the more we can experience the reality of it in our lives and even in our relationships with others.

Empty Words

What is really going on in our corporations, churches and other organizations in all of the motivational training, management consultants and marketing fads? We hire the latest gurus with the latest lingo and fine-sounding verbiage that they have uncovered as publicly recognized symptoms of integrity. Then they teach us to memorize and parrot the new company slogans and clichè's and insist that we conform our communications to the latest pretension for success.

However, this is all done primarily as an external exercise to create the appearances of integrity and hopefully convince the customers, onlookers, potential converts etc. that we are the real thing, that we have it all figured out, that we have the best system in the world. Great emphasis is put on conformity and cooperation and appearances, but very little attention is paid to inward character, accurate disclosure and transparent honesty. In fact a great deal of effort is put into PR – image management to carefully camouflage all our imperfections, mistakes and downright deceptions. We are building a wonderful looking facade on unstable foundations of sand.

When I starts to become apparent and widespread that our words and catch phrases are in fact meaningless and shallow, the pundits are ready with another fresh round of programs, slogans and clichè's to merchandise to us. This is really part of the great and long-running campaign of Satan to render all words meaningless and all people mindless. It is in concert with his fundamental strategy of control through deception.

This tactic emphasizes the supremacy of external appearances above all else and at all costs. And the cost soon becomes apparent – it is our souls and our integrity and even our value for truth itself. It deceives us into believing that we can expect others to believe our words which in fact are calculated to deceive. But we eventually start losing sight of the fact that we are being deceitful and begin wondering why others have less and less confidence in us. It becomes more difficult to accurately communicate with others as our words slowly lose all their power and effectiveness.

About this time we then resort to a different tactic to get our way, to control others and look out for ourselves. We turn to threats and intimidation and then try to use force to back up our new vocabulary. But while these words may be true to a greater extent than our empty promises, we have long since abandoned integrity itself and have come very close to losing our souls completely to the disease of Meaninglessness.

Tragedy Stikes

I just received a phone call a little while ago that my daughter's father-in-law was killed in a diving accident while he and her husband were diving together today down in the Florida Keys. We talked to her a few minutes ago and she says her husband is blaming himself and is really falling apart. They were down there this week for vacation and it has turned into a very traumatic event for them. I would like to invite anyone reading this to take a little time to pray for God's presence and comfort for them. As I thought about this I realized that it was one year ago yesterday that my own Dad died at home with us, though it was very expected unlike this tragedy today. But just a few years before that my Mom was killed in a car accident that put me into a few days of sleeplessness and numbness so I think I can relate to their feelings at least a little bit. I have been covering his paper route until they get back but I think I may need to do it a little longer since he may not be recovered enough yet when they get back home to be able to handle it. Arrangements have not been made yet, but we expect the funeral will probably be next week sometime and will be held in Illinois.

Three Crosses

The three crosses represent the triune aspects of a human being created in the image of a triune God. The violent, angry, cursing thief on one side represents our sinful flesh that dwells inside us and compulsively urges us toward sin and away from life and God. Jesus on the next cross represents the new nature, the new heart that God implants in us that is perfect and untainted in motives and desires. The third cross represents our will which is choosing which of the other two he will embrace and join. He starts out with the fallen attitude of the flesh but the longer he observes the compassion and forgiveness and holiness of Jesus under overwhelming pressure and abuse from the flesh and all of Satan's forces, he is forced to decide whether to accept His grace and cast himself on God's mercy or to join the flesh in accusing God for all the suffering and injustice around him.

Cost of Raising a Son

As heard on the BBC this morning in a letter from one of their listeners responding to a previous broadcast-

A very wealthy man asked his father how much it cost to raise him. At first the father did not bother to give him an answer as he did not think the son was serious. But over ensuing time the son became very insistent that his father let him know how much it cost to raise him. When asked why he wanted to know, the son said that he did not want to be bothered or have anything to do with a matter after he had paid off a debt.

So one day the father was sitting outside the very luxurious home of his son and his son repeated the question. After thinking for a while and giving it very careful consideration the father asked the son, “What's that?”

The son replied, “That's a bicycle.”

The father repeated, “What's that?”

The son again said, “That's a bicycle, can't you see?”

The father again asked, “What's that?”

The son began to get irritated at this point. After several more repetitions of the same question by his father the son was ready to scream.

Later on when the son was entertaining visitors in his spacious living room and his wife was working in the kitchen, the old man went down to the pond and put both his feed into the mud. Then he walked into the house tracking the mud everywhere even though the wife had just cleaned everything. The man went into several bedrooms and even put his muddy feet on the beds.

A little later the wife came out of the kitchen and noticed the muddy footprints on her freshly cleaned floors. She followed them to discover the old man playing on their bed with his muddy feet. She rushed to her husband in the living room and exclaimed, “Has you father gone mad?”

At this the son became very agitated and asked his father what in the world he was doing. At this, the father replied, “I am just trying to show you how much it cost to raise you because you wanted to know.”

Just then the visitors turned to the son with amazement and asked, “Did you really ask your father that question?”