If I would listen

If i would listen- what would God say to me? Well i have spent a lot of recent time listening and fully plan to devote more time to this listening thing- cause i have questions that need answers- fairly simple q's but they are so very important to me- that if God is the friend i know he is, The father i love him for being, and the intamite lover he wants to be- then he has got an answer that will bring peace to my heart...

I have a good frind- probably one of the best friends ever (cause shes totally amazing). She is having a rough time cause she is going to a christian school where the dominant philosophy is that "people are useless wastes that our sin is all we are, that we are wretched to a point of disgust to God, nothing good in you, you worthless piece of shit-" need i go on? See there is a couple things i see wrong with this- and its basic weslean theology- (she said this to me and it grabbed me like a clinging earwig and just hasnt left my mind) If we TRULY have free will and our God is good and has made himself a choice for us- then we choose him; there must be something good in us that we would choose a good God.

God loves us- and true we are only able to enter into his courts by his grace because we do sin and skrew up and remove ourselves from his presence, will, and holyness... but that dosnt mean that were worthliss and so desparaging that we couldnt see Gods beauty and that he didnt create us "Good". Read genesis- Adam and Eve didnt cease to be the beautiful people God made them- and it probably broke his heart in a way we will never understand when they chose to sin, but he then spent the rest of the HUGE bible and on until now ages upon ages persuing and desireing and maddly chasing us back to his heart.

Another friend of mine asked me some hard questions- well im always up to a theological challange- not that i know anything about anything really- but he asked questions to the effect of "do we desearve salvation?"

i dont think its about desearving so much- essentially well we were created for a forever that didnt need salvation- then we skrew it up- then God sent a savior because he loved us. no technically i dont think we "desearve" if God is holy and we are evil- i just dont think man is evil- we do evil things and are decieved by an evil being who we let rule us- but man is something God loves and out of his love he desires a relationship- and has done everything he can to give us that relationship. Am I desearving of Christ dying for me- NO! But i dont buy into the ideology that there wasnt something he saw in me that made him want to do it. (most of the time i dont know what... but then there is something isnt there... and thats encouraging...)

And these college age students at my friend's school- they are being ripped apart by a self defeating mindset that why in the world would they love and persue a God who "Only saved your wretched skin out of mercy, not that you are or could be any good ever."


one last thought- not saying being basically good stopps us from leaning toward a wickid person we can be, but we are not made of our uglyness- the native americans have an old idea that there are two wolfs inside a man's soul- one evil, and one good- constantly at war over who rules the man- eventually one winns- the one you choose to feed.