Open box policy

The theme of God outside the box (outside the temple, church, service, etc) has risen its provocative head many times during the heated and engaging discussions of my biweekly bible study. We all concur and deliberate over the events of Gods movement in the bible outside of the containment of the temple. "But of course," we all pompously think and speak aloud, "how absurd the priests were to think that God could be controlled and contained by the temple." Our own boxes invisible to our searching as we have grown so familiar with them, so comfortable and worn. Then God takes you by the hand, if he is in a gentle mood as sometimes he kicks you in the butt, and leads you over to the spot where you have kept the box. He picks it up, blows the dust from its top and places it in your hands. "Sorry," he says, "it's a very nice box I'm sure, but I just don't fit in it."

I’m honestly afraid of anything in the category of “signs and wonders.” I’m very suspicious of any and all personal religious experience of this sort. I’m a skeptic when I hear most testimonies of miracles or signs. I tend to think that it isn’t true, is exaggerated or won’t last [...] I believe that religion, as a human phenomenon and by its very nature, creates a world where people believe that things happen that haven’t happened. The line between fact and reality goes very thin and takes a good bit of the week off [...] Am I frightened by the unordered, uncontrollable aspect of God the Holy Spirit? Have I fled to the security of God working through chapter and verse so that I can understand him? Does my skepticism give me the illusions and delusions about God that keep my feeling safe and in control?
read the full article here

These words might as well be mine. So often we get used to experiencing God "there," that we don't see when God is "here."As well, there has been so much misleading in the church using flash and flare that as a protection I feel my cynicism has often categorized babies under "bathwater".

I hope I can have a more open heart and a stronger belief in God beyond the page.