Prayer Pt III & Views of Salvation

This last bit on prayer was about to be a comment, but I think it warrants its own post.

I think its sad that the general view on prayer favors the lengthy to the short and concise. That is to say, if someone where to pray something extravagant - like the kind I've talked about below and have had comments on - most people wouldn't think much of it. However, if the blessing given over food were simply something short (and sincere) such as "Thanks, G." it would probably be looked at with disdain and the subject of gossip for a bit.


Now then, on to salvation. This past weekend I had to pull a couple of shifts - a 12 hour and a 6 hour, Saturday and Sunday respectively. On Sunday I was speaking with another chaplain - who hasn't come to the dark side just yet - about the various views of salvation. Among the mainstream variations, there is the view that:

1) God's grace is irresistible - that is, one cannot refuse to be "saved" because God's power cannot be thwarted and thus, can always change a sinner
2) Therefore man has no free will in regards to salvation, because it would be impossible to choose "hell".

A common objection to this - and one of mine as well - is that this must mean that if the classical sense of hell exists, and souls will be lost forever, God does not desire to save everyone contrary to 1 Timothy 2:4 [God] wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.

But lets back up to #2 as well, which is where I'd like to focus. I maintain that it is indeed possible to have free will in regards to salvation and yet still be unable to resist God's work. Take this analogy:

God places you, or orchestrates it so that you walk under, a thousand ton rock. The rock is let go and just before it squashes you, you still have the free will to make any decision you want. However, it's a thousand ton rock, and as such, you won't ever be able to resist it turning you into a pancake.

Not the most earth shattering discussion I know, but it was a small bit that popped into my mind Sunday: Irresistible grace being compatible with free will.

On prayer (Pt II)

This is a continuation of my black sheep post below. I promise I'll post a few more black sheep traits "soon" - if not for anything else, a mini confessional >:)

Back to prayer: Let's take a peek a Job's prayer, as sort of an "arrow shooting" prayer right to God.

Job 42:1-6

1 Then Job replied to the LORD :
2 "I know that you can do all things;
no plan of yours can be thwarted.
3 You asked, 'Who is this that obscures my counsel without knowledge?'
Surely I spoke of things I did not understand,
things too wonderful for me to know.
4 "You said, 'Listen now, and I will speak;
I will question you,
and you shall answer me.'
5 My ears had heard of you
but now my eyes have seen you.
6 Therefore I despise myself
and repent in dust and ashes."


That's pretty straight forward to me. No flowery praises, other than a quick one at v. 2, but even that is more a direct response to God's lecture to him. Vv. 3-4 are a repeat of God's challenge, and then all Job's respose comes down to Vv. 5-6. His entire petition is wrapped up in about 5 seconds.

I like that.

A lot.

Vista is pants (PC Magazine editor-in-chief may switch!)

Saw this blurb on a board I read. Thought I'd repost it here:

PC Magazine editor-in-chief Jim Louderback today chose to express his frustration with Microsoft's Windows Vista operating system as he passed down the publication's leadership to his successor, Lance Ulanoff. Louderback said he is tired of Vista's broken features, and that he may even switch to Linux moving forward. "The litany of what doesn't work and what still frustrates me stretches on endlessly," Louderback wrote. The former editor-in-chief, who is assuming a position as CEO of a company called Revision3 to experience a change in scenery, lists numerous buggy features in Vista which include sleep mode, unreliable networking, and general slugishness when compared to the older Windows XP in many areas.

"I could go on and on about the lack of drivers, the bizarre wake-up rituals, the strange and nonreproducible system quirks, and more. But I won't bore you with the details," Louderback said.

"The upshot is that even after nine months, Vista just ain't cutting it. I definitely gave Microsoft too much of a free pass on this operating system: I expected it to get the kinks worked out more quickly. Boy, was I fooled! If Microsoft can't get Vista working, I might just do the unthinkable: I might move to Linux."

Here





Take sleep mode, for example. Vista promised a new low-power sleep mode that would save energy yet enable nearly instantaneous resume. Poppycock. The brand-new dual-core system I built a few months ago totters off to sleep but never returns. I have to cold-start it to bring it back. This after replacing virtually every driver inside. It's gotten so bad that I've actually nicknamed it Chip Van Winkle. And I've nicknamed my primary Dell notebook Philip Marlowe.

But it's not just the long sleep. My home notebook acts as if it comes from Starbucks rather than HP. It used to snooze—but now, after a recent Vista update, it never goes to sleep at all. Its new nickname: Compuccino

and here


We don't care about quality control. We don't have to care. We're Microsoft.

The Black Sheep Chaplain

That's me - and I say it simply because I'm not the typical chaplain at all. I had been thinking about it a little more and more the past week, and today at morning report simply solidified the thought even more.

Let's just start with the obvious before I move into some new material. I'm an adherent to Universal Reconciliation. This means that for some reason, my peers continuously want to label me as a Unitarian. They aren't very good listners it would seem :)

Now then, let's move on to prayer. If / when I give them on behalf of others, I do semi stick with the language that most people are familiar with, simply because I don't want to stir the pot too badly for a patient that is say, 80 years old, a die hard Catholic, and would just fallback dead if they had an inkling of what their chaplain had done at one time.

The very specifics of it, I feel it a little silly at the language used time and time again, or some of the content that seems to need to be thrown in time and time again. For example, this morning started out with something like "Father in heaven, we give you thanks that you are an awesome, powerful and strong God, and..." Such flowery language gets thrown around a bit later and near the end too.

Does God really need us to tell Him how strong He is constantly? I'm not saying that taking a disrespectful or degrading stance would be better, but it seems a like lip-service in a sense. Let's contrast this with a parent / child relationship. If my little boy (once he grows up a little and starts talking) came up to me and said "Dad I sure am glad you are big and strong" it would be cute the first time, but if he did it every day, I'd be getting a little suspicious. Is he trying to get something out of me and thinks that by buttering me up I might be a little more inclined to shell out? Or does he think he has to say that in order to be a good little boy and me to love him?

So if God knows our every thought, isn't it more than enough to just keep tucked back in your mind, "He sure is a pretty kick ass for God"?

I will fess that I'm pretty guilty of this the following as well, but I was reading someone else's thoughts in that, do we really trust God in prayer as we say we do? Or do we just pray and some how hope it works out? I would wager that most are in the latter, and that most includes all the super church goers, pastors, chaplains, religious types, etc. And for that claim, I offer the question (coming from the one I was reading): If we really trust God to provide and answer prayer, why can't we pray about a subject just once?

That is a fantastic question. Does God require ten prayers to help us find a job? Or are we just too insecure in thinking, I'll pray about this once (my personal version would be, "Hey God, I could really use a job, thanks") and trust that it will all work out?

The previous would probably really freak out all my patients - not too mention generate some complaints headed to my supervisor. Imagine if I walked in a room, and after having a discussion, the patient / family asked for prayer and I said, "No. I think you guys have been praying a lot and there's no need for me to do anything. God has it under wraps."

So that's that on prayer. I'll go into more blacksheep traits next time, perhaps.

Imperial March

I love it:

300

So I finally got around to seeing this film. I thought I'd like it before, but I didn't think I would really, really like it. I'm glad we bought the DVD.

Anywho, made me proud to be a Greek.