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Permalink Reply by Dr. Bruce R. Arnold on 12th mo. 2, 2011 at 4:03pm

What if God wanted this Meeting to wait for 5 years before hearing His voice? The Israelites wandered for 40 years in the desert -- are we so much better than they? In waiting to hear the Inner voice, it must be said that we wait on God's time. "To everything there is a season" means many things, but it certainly means that we don't plant when the ground is lying fallow, but lying fallow is not a bad thing to do.

Waiting is not inactivity. It is very active. It doesn't look like much, but it isn't apathy.

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Permalink Reply by Forrest Curo on 12th mo. 2, 2011 at 9:43pm

Dr. Bruce R. Arnold said:

> ....In waiting to hear the Inner voice, it must be said that we wait on God's time...

I'd put it, rather: that this "God's time" is not some arbitrary decision, but what God's wisdom recognizes as the time people will need to "ripen",  for that "voice" to work according to God's purposes.

People's efforts to hurry that time... can just be part of that ripening process, whether it's working towards their own ripening or somebody else's. I've had all sorts of people telling me things I didn't understand at the time-- but later I recognized them as belonging to God's "voice."

"The Harmonious Hand is now holding

Lord Krishna's ring, the eagle's wing,

the voice of mother, everything..."

[Incredible String Band ~ 1968]

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Permalink Reply by Karen Mercer on 12th mo. 6, 2011 at 3:28pm

Indeed those things have happened, and as Beth pointed out, Christians can be some of the most hypocritical people going.....liberals as much as fundamentalists. But keep in mind that those things were done by people who had strayed from or warped teachings. Capitalism as we know it could not have existed if Christians had not begun to ignore teachings on moneylending when they began to drift away from tradition in favour of "enlightenment". Muslims are forced by their beliefs to be both more cautious and inventive in finding ways to get capital investments because they didn't just chuck the whole idea  when it got inconvenient.

Because we are  Westerners, we tend to see the world with us at the centre. Because Christianity is the majority religion here, historically and still, we see it's faults up close and personal....whereas the flaws of other faiths are a bit more vague and shadowy. Excepting perhaps the Taoists, every faith has fought with some other it sought to replace, whether physically or idealogically. Every faith has battled heresies and factionalism...indeed, some of the worst battles in any religion may be invisible to outsiders, as they are against other sects and varients within the fold. We see the horrible onging battles between Catholics and Protestants because they are on our doorstep, and miss the ones between Sunnis and Shias much less between Satmar Hasidim and Lubavitcher Hasidim (or Messianic Lubavitchers vs non-Messianic Lubavitchers). I suspect that people in other religions feel burdened by their changing God concepts too, and were it not for the fact that we have so much power and control and export our problems all over the globe, they would probably utterly fail to notice our issues.

Because we are post-enlightenment and post-modern secular humanists who distrust and are suspicious of religion and it's role in starting wars, we tend to attribute to religion many battles in which the real cause is political, cultural, social or economic. For example the oft cited "Irish troubles" which actually began many centuries ago when both sides were equally both Christian and Catholic. Religion is often the bulwark against letting in unwanted social changes that are difficult to fight directly...what the people are truly defending is not the idealogy but the lifestyle that keeps things sane in an often insane world.

Ray McIntyre said:

Very few of those religions, Karen, carry quite the burden that it does in Christian circles. Need I remind followers of the Prince of Peace of the wars started in His name? Who told the rich young ruler to "give all he had to the poor", how much damage has been done to nations and peoples under the guise of Christianity-endorsed rampant capitalism?

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