"thoughts arrive like butterflies.."

To be more introspective and also see what’s out there, why does it seem near impossible to deal with the concept of God? I grew up a Christian in a country of non-Christian majority. I sincerely believed in God all through my life, but some how it always seems like I have had to take a dual stance on God when it came to day-to-day matters.

When I think of all the good things that happened to me all through my life, I feel extremely grateful to a higher power, in my case the God that I believe in – God the father, Jesus Christ the son and the Holy Spirit. I feel overwhelmed by how much I am blessed. When I go to Church, I listen to a sermon with an open heart and see what I need to do to be a better Christian.

On the other paw, I work as a software engineer, where I work fundamentally on the basis of Logic. I have learned to be very logical in building software solutions and solving problems. And I have learned and seen that it works perfectly that way.

Now why do I have such a hard time reconciling these two facets of my world? When I do my work, it seems only natural that I do not involve the God concept. It’s what is logical. And it works well, totally relying on Logic. At the same time, when I am being helpful to others, go out of my way to do what I feel is the right thing, I feel very good in my heart and I sincerely believe that God is watching and I may be blessed for all the good that I do and I may be forgiven for all the bad that I do.

Now why isn’t this enough according to a lot of respectable preachers? Have I not evolved enough as a Christian? Am I thinking like a 13 year old kid, when I am more than twice that old? Have I been stuck in too simple a logic, which I am refusing to come out of? Do I not get it? Am I not following it right? Do I not have the intelligence to pursue the more intricate but absolute and fundamental aspects of God and still make it in this world? Do I have to separate myself completely from the worldly things, to be a good Christian?

Or are they all feeding me lies? Are all the statements made - that I have to turn myself around completely to be a Christian, just mere attempts to make a powerful statement?

Now when you go to Church and you listen to a sermon, you pretty much hear this almost every week. That, to be a Christian means that you have to make a complete turn around. That is a very powerful statement, when you say it. But it could mean very different things to different people. At what point do you stop turning around? I haven’t heard one sermon that defined this clearly.

When you preach to others do you also take responsibility of making the people understand? Or is it enough to make a very categorical and absolute statement and leave it to interpretations. Isn’t it necessary to make a good breakthrough? Isn’t it necessary to resolve an issue? Isn’t it absolutely necessary that you address all the issues that you raise?

This is not to say that I haven’t heard an intelligent sermon at all. There is one Church I had attended a few times in Northern Kentucky, and I believe that the preacher there is truly blessed. If anyone is ever qualified to be a preacher I believe this man is. I truly saw him addressing the day-to-day things in life, within all the right contexts.

In contrast, I reluctantly listen to some radio sermons. Most of them seem like they are coming out of the preachers’ past experiences. They don’t seem like they come right out of the Bible. Now, if the preachers really want to pour their heart out, shouldn’t they write a song and just play it to the public and see who gets it? Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam does that and does he do it well! Believe it or not, he’s got some great song writing in there. He is pouring his heart out, in such a cryptic way that when you actually read about what it’s really about somewhere, you feel unbelievably akin.

So, why take the podium and preach as if that’s absolute? If you are preaching a sermon, shouldn’t you believe that people take it seriously and so word things responsibly? Does everyone have a right to preach? Should it be left to the listeners to determine who is actually worth listening to? If that is the case, what’s the basis used to qualify?