POSTED: "YOU CAN'T PUT GOD IN A BOX"

"Then was brought unto him one possessed with a devil, blind, and dumb: and he healed him, insomuch that the blind and dumb both spake and saw.
And all the people were amazed, and said, Is not this the son of David?
But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, This fellow doth not cast out devils, but by Beelzebub the prince of the devils." (Matthew 12:22-24)

I came to Facebook somewhat later than most people I know did, but I've now been on Facebook for over two years. I started my blog, "The Blog of Bob Baril" back in 2006. In those days, although there were some very famous political blogs, a lot of people still didn't know what a blog was, and most people didn't know anybody who actually wrote a blog. Of course, seven years later blogs are extremely common and I know scads of people who write blogs of their own. When I was pastoring, some people were very critical of my blog because it was not strictly a "religious blog" nor a "Christian blog". Probably about half of the pieces I've posted on this blog (which was originally in the old "AOL Journals" and then moved to Google/Blogger a few years ago) have been Christian focused and typical of what you might expect a minister to write, but about half have been "anything but"! A number of years ago, I wrote a post slamming an airline I felt had not treated me right. Average people write things like that all the time, but I was told by some disappointed people that writing that piece was "beneath a minister of the Gospel", and honestly, maybe it was. I have written humorous and silly pieces. I wrote one piece about my favorite songs. I have written pieces about talk radio and about politics. On Facebook, just as with my blog, I have posted some very inspirational Christian writings and some just plain silly garbage. How many ministers perform comedy videos on youtube, and then promote this on social media? I HAVE!!In retrospect, I sometimes wonder if I would have been better off "acting like a minister all the time". Maybe. I did experience the closing of the church I pastored for many years and I have been essentially out of full-time ministry for three years, so maybe my critics do have a valid point. For better or for worse, that stuff is all out there in cyberspace and will probably be there (should the Lord's Second Coming tarry) long after I have passed on from this life.

Some of what I've written and posted has truly been drivel. Every once in awhile, though, I write something that is (I think) Godly, profound, and important. I wrote something like that last Friday and posted it on Facebook. This is exactly what I posted on Facebook:

"I am uncomfortable with people who 'have God all figured out'. We will NEVER have God all figured out because He is God! We DO get all sorts of helpful insight and direction from the Bible, God's Holy Word; but may we never become like Pharisees, condemning others and forgetting our own sins and faults. Something I often say is 'You can't put God in a box' and the longer I've been a Christian the more I've experienced how TRUE that is."

Some of you know that I was taken very physically ill just a little over a week ago. It was a very scary experience. Among other things the medical people were looking for after I was admitted to the hospital was cancer. I have been very blessed with good health. I was diagnosed as having a chronic lower gastrointestinal disorder. I do not have cancer. An experience like that does cause you to do a lot of thinking and reflecting and to realize how very little control you really do have over things! I will say that as I sit and re-read what I wrote on Friday I feel even stronger about it than I did then, and I feel so strongly about it that I hope whoever preaches my funeral someday reads the words of that posting because it's something I'd like to say to everyone present at my funeral someday. It's something I feel that passionate about! I can't tell you what triggered that statement off, but I did have a conversation with someone recently that so grieved me I felt I had to post those words. I have been a "born-again Christian" for over forty years. As much as I hate to admit it, at one time, I was very much a modern-day Pharisee. I was very much "holier than thou". I had become very self-righteous, condescending and judgmental. When I was in my twenties, I wrote one letter to the small town newspaper in Canton, Massachusetts criticizing the local Unitarian minister, and I wrote another slamming the behavior of a young man who wore a tee-shirt containing a large, profane slogan. I even wrote a letter to The Patriot Ledger(Quincy, MA) castigating Halloween trick-or-treaters.

Today, I'm embarrassed that I wrote that stuff and that it was published. (I don't know if it's also in cyberspace or not, but I don't even have the heart to look for it!) I also became a crusading right-wing Republican activist. In 1988, I displayed a "PAT ROBERTSON FOR PRESIDENT" sign at the exterior of my residence. I'm not quite as embarrassed about that as I am about the letters I wrote to newspapers, but the fact is, like so many on the religious right, I was furious with those who didn't think and behave exactly as I thought they should behave. My honest feeling was, "God wants these people to toe the line, and I do, too!" They were going to "toe the line" even if they had to be forced to do so!

It's ironic I felt that way because the message I was believing and proclaiming was a far cry from the Gospel of grace and mercy which led to my salvation in 1970! It was during the first few years of the 1990s that I gradually shed this kind of thinking; and I began to understand that such self-righteous thinking has nothing to do with the Gospel of Jesus Christ! I suspect many of my liberal friends are having a good laugh over this piece, as they say "Amen" and rejoice that I "saw the light" regarding my thinking. To my good liberal friends I say, "Not so fast!" My experience is that there is only one thing worse than a right-wing idealogue and that's a left-wing idealogue. I get so tired of the condescending and smug political postings on Facebook from both my right-wing friends and my left-wing friends. There's so much wrong with most of them at so many levels, but it's the liberal ones that are the most condescending and judgmental.

Lest this piece "go all over the place" and I really don't want to do that, I'm now bringing back primarily to my Christian friends. It's so very grievous that so many people really think they have God all figured out! One of our professors at Central Bible College (who later taught for many years at the Assemblies of God Theological Seminary), Dr. Benny Aker, refused to teach any Systematic Theology classes! Dr. Aker would teach Greek, Hermeneutics, and any Bible class, but he believed for man to have broken theology (that is, the "Study of God") into an academic discipline which was studied and taught systematically was very foolish indeed! Benny Aker is absolutely right!

Devout Christians harangue that "God would never choose a woman to be a leader", but what about Deborah? They harangue that God would not want utterances in other tongues to take place during church services, but what about First Corinthians chapters twelve and fourteen? They harangue that God can never use anyone who has been divorced, but what about the Rev. Charles Stanley? They harangue that God would never use a young person to correct an older person, but what about the advice Paul gave to young Timothy who, although Timothy was a very young man, was a leader and a pastor? It goes on and on. Think you have God all figured out? You don't. I don't either!