The Gospel and Idolatry — Tim Keller

-

This message has been very timely. I have been trying to reconcile these two things in my life:

1) The need to be content with God alone. The need to praise God in good times and bad (like Job). The need to seek God first, and not just so He gives me what I want.

2) The desire for companionship, marriage and family.

On the one hand I felt that God would not place these desires on my heart if He did not plan to fulfil it - because God is a loving God and He does not do things just to be cruel or to mock (Ephesians 6:4). But on the other, I am 38 and have never been in what I would consider a proper relationship, and certainly have never been in one with a Christian. So at some points, finding it so difficult to reconcile the two, I questioned the very core of these beliefs - the existence of God himself. If these two things are inherent to what I believed of God, and these two things were irreconcilable, then did God actually exist? But God has been gracious enough, to lately provide me with a third concept which perhaps bridges (for me) the first and the second, which was that until I understood how not to let relationships, marriage and family become an idol in my life, He would withhold that from me, so as not to give me something that would only destroy me and my family.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

This.

-
"You don't want your daughter to be like me." I said to my colleague one day. He peered over and replied "Not like you? You're a successful interventional cardiologist." I am indeed, but it has been difficult to exist in this vortex of a world. I feel as though I have climbed to the top of a mountain of skulls and bones. The road has left me weary. I have been running too long and I cannot breathe.  When I look behind me, I see broken dreams and brittle relationships. Is that a mirage? I am unable to lose the criticism, insinuations and bullying. Does anybody see this? My world is a battlefield, and I am not sure if I want to be here.  I lay in my bed, trying to find peace in the confusion of how I could be so right and yet also so wrong. In the workplace, I have to be assertive, confident, logical, and fundamentally masculine. In life, I must be warm, patient, nurturing and compassionate.  It is hard enough to embody one side or the other - but to strive t...
Read more

The real reason relationships fail

-
Image
This comes from a great video I watched recently. It is linked below and I found it very insightful.  There are Four Basic Negative Emotions in all people.  - Anger (amygdala) - Disgust (insula) --> something that will hurt you. telling you that you should avoid it. It is biologically directed towards pathogens, but politicians use this to control people. Eg Wuhan virus, or republicans vs democrats - Sadness (dorsal anterior singular cortex) --> stems from losing something or someone you love - Fear (amygdala) Negative does not mean bad. It means these are the things that signal threat to us, from the outside world. Contempt is a combination of two negative emotions - Anger and Disgust When you express contempt / disgust, it is interpreted by the brain of your partner as "you think I'm a pathogen, and I need to be cast out". Even if you dont mean it. So dont roll your eyes, dont be sarcastic. When you are feeling that coldness that comes with Contempt, that is when ...
Read more

Yet Will I Praise Him

-
Image
So Adelaide today has been a little nasty and essentially has said that I won't be entered into their allocation pool because I don't meet the 'Standard' for English requirements. I tried to reason with them and offered to sit for the test but they want it by June 29th and the next possible test date is June 30th. I asked if they would be happy for me to sit for that test and send it in, they just read me the 'Standard' again. Unyielding. I called the Medical Board of Australia and they did the same. I was a little bummed at first - I mean, not getting a job after graduating from med school is unheard of in Australia but you know, I've always said that sometimes God closes unsuitable doors. That's fine. Adelaide was a backup.. an option.. it was another door I was looking at and thinking.. maybe? I'm not saying it was necessarily a stepping stone because sometimes you go somewhere and it changes your direction. You can find your future in places...
Read more