| Thinking Outside the Box All people make decisions based upon how they feel about something and then seek to support those decisions with logical rationale. One of the biggest mistakes we can make is to allow our concept of God to be shaped by our limited perceptions. Let's get it straight: our minds are locked into a world where everything has a beginning and an end. God is infinite, eternal and not subject to the natural laws which govern the world around us. Reality then, is for us, a very small microcosm of what lies beyond. Have I lost you yet? There's a great book called, Inevitable Illusions, by Massino Piattelli-Palmarini, which is about this very subject. The subtitle of the book is How Mistakes of Reason Rule Our Minds. In it the author proves his point by presenting a simple question: "Now imagine that we take off in a helicopter from Los Angeles... without checking any chart, let's guess the "true" compass course our helicopter should hold if we want to fly to Reno, Nevada. What's your guess?" Go ahead and take a guess at it. We'll get back to that in a moment. We must learn to think outside of the box. Much of the way we think about our world is governed by how we feel, or on what we call intuition, rather than cognitive based reasoning. There's a movie called The Edge, where Anthony Hopkins plays the part of a billionaire who survives a life threatening test in the wilderness with his knowledge or as he puts it "thinking". People die in the wilderness because they give in to feelings of guilt, or "where did I go wrong" rather than applying thought to their situation. God puts it this way, "My people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge." There's your reason for Why Good People Suffer. The sad thing is many suffer needlessly, when all the time, God has made the way for them to escape. I'm not saying here that you will never suffer. As long as we are in these mortal bodies there will be suffering. I'm saying there is a God-given provision for deliverance in the midst of your suffering or trial. Our problem is we limit God by our feelings and perceptions many times and miss out... or die. That's why things like condemnation, judgementalism, legalism, guilt and ignorance can be such a counter-productive thing. They are man's unconscious attempts to put God in a box, to make Him managable, usable, convenient, at fault. We want to make excuses for why God didn't heal poor ol' brother Bob, or why we don't see miracles at work in our church, etc. And in so doing we limit God like the Israelites did in the wilderness. Yes, they LIMITED God! Read it for yourself! (Psalms 78:41). We continue to allow sin to plague our lives. We continue to suffer, groan and complain. We don't receive healing, or refreshing, or in-filling with the Holy Spirit or more importantly, God's direction for our lives. We think it's all up to God to do it. We say, "If God wants me healed then He'll heal me." But we lack knowledge... One more thing about our interaction with God and then we'll get back to the helicopter flight to Reno. There are things that are made clear by His word (the Bible); This is what I call No-Brainer knowledge. These would be, God's desire for all to be saved, healed, free from bondage, abstaining from sin, and filled with His Holy Spirit -- obvious components of God's will for us. The inobvious things concerning God's will for us such as, does God want me to fly to Reno or stay in Los Angeles, are areas where we need to defer to His counsel in prayer and receive His guidance. And I mean we really need to seek His counsel and we need to be sure it lines up with His stated will in the Bible! Supposedly the terrorists who hi-jacked those jets were instructed to pray that Allah would help everything go smoothly! Hopefully we know that wasn't God's will. Just because a prayer that you've prayed comes to be DOES NOT mean it's God's will! OK, on to our helicopter quiz: the common answers are... some 10 to 20 degrees east, but that is false. In reality to get from L.A. to Reno you would have to go 20 degrees west, or if you prefer, 340 degrees on the compass. In order to think outside the box we need to allow God's word to permeate our minds through meditation and overcome pre-conceived notions about the way things are. Religious mindsets must be cast down. In future studies we'll examine this in greater detail. Meanwhile, memorize, reflect upon and meditate in God's word! It could save your life... NEXT |