I am a Pipe March 23, 2009
Posted by tkneller in Ponder This.Tags: blessings, conduit, God, kindness, pipe, pump, Spirit, valve
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It just hit me one day, not long ago — I am a pipe! I’m not a valve or a pump, I’m just a simple conduit!
I don’t need to work really hard, or pray really fervently (pump). It’s not up to me to decide who will receive a blessing today (turn on or off like a valve). I am just a pipe — always in the right place at the right time to do exactly whatever is in front of me, whatever will bless or encourage or lift up someone around me. There’s no struggling, no thinking “oh, I’ve got to try really hard to be God’s special servant today;” I am not a pump for Spirit.
There’s no deciding who to be kind to, and no “turning on the power;” I am not a valve. I am a conduit and all I have to do is be wherever I am, be conscious and alert. I suppose I wouldn’t be any good if I got clogged, or sprung a leak… “Getting clogged” would be trying to keep God’s blessings all to myself, as if there aren’t enough to go around. “Springing a leak” would be letting Spirit, or blessings, go in a direction other than the one I’m pointed in… like trying to be somewhere I’m not, wishing I were somewhere else right now (we all do that sometimes, don’t we?). But it’s not a serious problem because it’s not like I’m going to waste blessings — there’s always plenty more where that came from!
And the other cool thing: everything is a blessing! It’s not like “being a blessing to someone” is hard! It’s just being a little caring, kind, or thoughtful. Smiling when someone says good morning, and even letting someone be kind to me, or compliment me, graciously accepting it and absorbing it. Have you ever tried to give someone a gift who refuses to accept it? Not much fun in that, is there?
And believing that I am always in the right place at the right time takes so much pressure off! I don’t need to rush to be here or there, I am already exactly where I am supposed to be!
So that’s all! In the beautiful fountain of life, I am a pipe, not a pump or a valve. I simply conduct the good that the Universe wants to pour out on everyone!
Simple like borcht. 
God’s Travel Agents March 12, 2009
Posted by tkneller in Ponder This, poetry.Tags: God, grace, love, poetry
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Like travel agents,
Handing out brochures for places
They’ve never been,
They speak of God’s love,
Grace and mercy.
Those who spend too much time
Still focusing on earning salvation—
Faith without works is dead, you know—
Believing that grace is really only needed
By hookers and drug dealers.
But oh, how wrong they are!
Grace and Love flow
Like rain in a downpour,
Like water in the ocean,
Like air in our lungs.
From the lowest to the highest
We’re all the same in God’s eyes,
And we’re all drenched in Love.
- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - -
One day it struck me that evangelists are a bit like used car salesmen. So I wrote this poem. Far better to experience Love and keep your mouth shut, than to try to sell something you don’t really know about.
Ideas about God – Omnipotence February 28, 2008
Posted by tkneller in Ponder This.Tags: aurora, free will, God
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I received the most beautiful gift just now! I was coming home from work, walking out to my car, and looked up. What an amazing display of aurora! It was faint across most of the sky, with the stars in the background, but then as I turned around, I saw a wonderful bright band towards the west–a ribbon of dancing, shimmering energy! Wow! I know, I shouldn’t be this excited; I’ve seen displays like this before, but it takes my breath away every time! I was mesmerized, and wanted it to never end.
Seeing the awesomeness of the northern lights reminds me of God–how can it not? It is so amazing, awe-inspiring… I am at a loss for words! I just start trying to think up more synonyms for “awesome.” I guess that’s what God’s power is like–awesome beyond words! He created the universe, and although it is unimaginably vast, he’s found in every part of it… so huge, yet found in the smallest snowflake or tiny amoeba. There is order throughout all of nature (although it might look chaotic on the surface), and that’s a clue about his nature and power, too, I think. Very orderly, yet with lots of room for creativity and unstructured beauty. It’s interesting how so many things are symmetrical, like basically all flowers and animals, but also things like matter and anti-matter (and many other particles), and the galaxy, although not perfectly so. The solar system isn’t really symmetrical, since all the bigger planets are farther away… but when you learn some planetary dynamics, and how solar systems are formed, then it makes sense too. So, much of his creation is nice and orderly.
And then there’s us humans. We aren’t very orderly (although at least we are symmetrical). We are mean when we should be kind, thoughtless when we should be attentive, blunt when we should use tact… We don’t seem to be very good examples of God’s nature at all, do we!! Well, there’s a reason for that! For all God’s power, there is just one thing he cannot do: He cannot interfere with the free will he’s given us. That’s what makes us different from most of his other creations (the jury’s still out on Chimpanzees and cats). He can break any other law he wants, the laws he created, like the laws of physics, or chemistry (although he doesn’t do that terribly often), but he cannot break the law of free will. We can choose to do whatever we want–to be whatever we want. If we’ve chosen to be miserable, God cannot make us happy. To force happiness on us would take away our free will, and that’s simply impossible, even for a second. If we want to be happy deep down inside but don’t know how, that’s different! That he can help us with, because he sees our hearts, our deepest desires, our unspoken needs. But that’s getting into his omniscience, and that’s a topic for another day! So, we should take this gift of free will seriously and be careful about what we choose!
Hope you’re enjoying my “ideas about God” series!
P.S. I usually try to post only pictures that I have taken, but I don’t have any of the northern lights. Not yet… The pic below is from NOAA POES satellite (http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/pmap/) showing areas of intense electrical activity in the atmosphere! Red is most intense, and this view from space, generated by many satellite passes, is superimposed on a map of Earth. It’s pretty easy to see Great Bear and Great Slave Lakes, and of course, I’m not that far from Great Slave. Overall activity today is 8 out of 10!
Ideas about God – Omnipresence February 23, 2008
Posted by tkneller in Ponder This.Tags: devil, God, holiness
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I think a lot of people who believe in God don’t really believe in his omnipresence. Omnipresence means that God is everywhere–that there is nowhere, in space or time, where God is not. But many people don’t seem to believe this at all. Let me explain.
It’s easy to see God in good, beautiful things! Sunrises, sunsets, delicate flowers, the Milky Way… It’s also easy to believe that God might be found in good people. In bad people, people who are rude, selfish, criminal or evil–not so likely! But maybe you’ve even realized that we’re all human and as such, we’re all capable of being rude or selfish, but equally capable of being kind and loving. All the potential for good is in every person; not everyone has realized that potential or made any use of it! This is an awesome revelation! But what about people seen as truly evil?
Let’s discuss the idea of good and evil. You may have been taught that there is good and evil in the universe; God is good and Satan is evil. The two are at war and although God is more powerful, Satan is not to be trifled with. (God is trifled with all the time, and often treated with less respect than “forces of evil.”) You may have also been taught that God is holy and therefore cannot mingle with evil things (like sinners, demons and the like). Heck, sinners and demons are almost the same thing in some people’s eyes! Anyways, I think the idea of God being separate from evil comes from the Old Testament, where God lived in the tabernacle, in the holiest of holy places, where only the high priest could go, and he could not come in contact with unholy things! Talk about putting God in a box! Anyways, if he can’t be near unholy things, what does that leave? Isn’t everything that isn’t him unholy? So does that mean he can’t be anywhere?!?
Do you see the problem? Well, what if I suggest that there are no unholy things. Or, removing the double negative, that everything is holy. So, God truly is everywhere and in everything, including demons. Now you might be saying “whoa there, Teresa, you’re jumping off the deep end!” Well, I guess I have, because I no longer believe in demons in the traditional sense–that they are pure evil, battling God for control of the world. In fact, I’ve come to believe there’s no such thing as pure evil either, but rather see demons as lost souls, beings that have gone astray, who need to know God loves them just as much as you or I need to know. Crazy? I don’t think so. As long as you believe in evil and good–two polar opposites in the universe–you can’t believe that God is everywhere (unless God is evil, but that’s crazy). So what do you want to believe:
1. that God is omnipresent and good is everywhere in the universe
2. that evil exists and God is not in it (therefore God is not omnipresent)
3. that God is evil (please don’t pick #3)!
Whatever you choose will colour all your other beliefs about God–and life–so think carefully! By the way, it’s not that I believe there are no bad influences, un-loving people or negative situations, just that these things aren’t inherently bad or evil. In other words, at the core, the essence of everything is good. Including me! My soul is good! And it’s totally untouchable by evil, because evil is not real. It’s eternal and full of love, and that brings me a lot of peace.
Looking In December 6, 2007
Posted by tkneller in Ponder This.Tags: confidence, God, identity, peace, self-affirmation
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I’ve just had a brain wave, although I am supposed to be going to bed and my brain waving goodnight! Nevertheless, I’ve learned that it’s good to get these things out, and tonight my venue will be my blog!
The wave is this: why do we always look outside ourselves for peace? I could also say, why do we always look outside ourselves for love, or for happiness, or for affirmation? All these things are found within ourselves, yet we often look everywhere but inside! When everything else is stripped away, that’s where peace is. When we realize God created us, and we are amazing and awesome, then we feel loved. Happiness comes only from looking within and living in the moment, choosing to be happy. Affirmation? The external world is the worst place to look for it, because it’s so fickle – sometimes giving it, sometimes holding it in front of us like a carrot, and then yanking it away again. Self-affirmation comes from love and self-assuredness – the right kind of confidence, assertiveness and humility, based in proper self-love and knowing that God loves us too.
I think if we spent more time looking inward, we might be a lot happier! But we have to look long enough to get past the little things that bother us, look waaaaay past the petty things we don’t like about ourselves right now, and go deep into the part of us that is only, simply, God’s child, his creation, loved and here on a journey of exploration. We need to disconnect from cares of this world, the busyness of the season, comparing ourselves, complaining about little things and worrying in general. Positivity is the key!
Well, that’s enough ranting… it’s getting late! Love y’all! Take care!
In a Fog September 27, 2007
Posted by tkneller in Ponder This.Tags: beauty, fog, God, love, peace, world
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Have you ever gone through a time in your life when you feel like you are living in a fog? It’s like things around you are distant, not entirely real… not literally hazy, but you aren’t focusing on what’s around you so they don’t seem clear. Maybe it happens early in the morning when you aren’t fully awake yet, or during a very stressful time in your life, which makes trivial things seem, well, trivial!!
Well, I am living in a fog these days – a fog of God’s love! You can laugh, but that’s what I feel like – like I am all bundled up in His love, to the point where circumstantial things around me that happen are not as real as they used to be. Where at any moment, His love is so real, I break into a smile, where I’ve got a continual song in my heart that lifts me up above my surroundings.
The really cool part is that anyone can be where I am – in fact, I believe God is found inside every living thing, and all we need to do it shift our perspective a little! It’s like standing before the most beautiful sunset, with colours and clouds, the ocean, trees – imagine whatever you can for the most perfect scene. And then imagine that you are steadfastly looking at your feet! Whether because you refuse to look up because someone else said “hey, you should look at this!” (i.e. you’re too stubborn) or because you can’t because your neck is stiff (i.e. you’re in a rut), or because you don’t believe the sunset is real… a change in perspective (not looking at your feet) completely changes your view of the world, and the beauty is visible and awesome!
Some things to think about, anyway! I’ll blog again soon about some excitement in my life, too… more love!
Teresa
Tent Meeting August 13, 2007
Posted by tkneller in Ponder This.Tags: Christianity, God, love, Meander River, ministry, radio, testimony
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Wow! July was a busy month – only one blog post! That’s pretty sad! What can I say – a lot has happened in my life! I almost don’t know where to start! I’ve been pretty busy with the various volunteer jobs I do, but I’ve also done a few memorable things lately! A couple of weekends ago, I went to a tent meeting in Meander River, which is a small native reserve about 60 km north of High Level. It was in a lovely setting, a grassy field along the banks of the Meander River (no surprise there), with the tent set up and various camper trailers around it, wagon-train style. J This is not my first tent meeting, by any means, and it reminded me very much of a tent meeting that was No Idols first gig (the band I was in)!! It was neat. I met a man who was sort of helping with the meetings, and he told me that the organizers and their team travel from the middle of June to the beginning of September (or end of August) doing these meetings all over northern Alberta, Saskatchewan, BC, NWT, and Yukon – they are so dedicated! After the music, which was played by a group even larger than No Idols – 11 musicians! – there was a brief welcome message, prayer and more music. Then they had a testimony time, which is church-talk for open mic! Several people talked, some were quite inspiring and a few were mini sermons – given by people who maybe had a hidden desire to be preachers, or maybe just wanted to take their turn on the soap box. Please understand; I mean no disrespect in anything I say in this blog, but I did find it a little humorous when people went up with their bibles and really did sound like they were giving a sermon! But, something interesting struck me during the testimonies and during the main message, which started about 2 hours after the meeting began. As is often the case at tent meetings or similar evangelical events, including some televangelists, the pitch of the preacher (whoever is talking) gets higher and higher, often feverish and panicky-sounding or even somewhat angry-sounding. It was a little hard to listen to – literally. The sound system was a bit too loud, but I think it is more than that. As I listened, I just felt slightly odd, but also a bit caught up in the fervour. But as I drove home, I was finally able to put my finger on what was really bothering me. How can you shout angrily about the love of God? That led me to the next realization: Not a single person spoke gently or peacefully, with love in their voice!! They didn’t talk about the love of Jesus or God! It was about the power of Jesus, the power of God to change us, but nothing about the love, which is the very first thing that makes the change possible. If you don’t know that God/Jesus loves you, you won’t believe that the power is meant for you, available to you, etc. I think the love is far more important than the power – Jesus did not say to “power God and power your neighbour as yourself.” He said to love!! I think it’s a real shame when the focus of any Christian event strays from the most important part – the love Jesus had, the death he died because of that love, and the love of God the father that surrounds us always!!
Maybe I’m just too far off the beaten track of evangelical Christianity, but that’s the way I felt after the meeting, although I still love and appreciate the people who work so hard to put the meetings on and give so much of their time and lives to this ministry. I try to love the person even if they are misled and not doing things in the way that I think they should be done – I say this last part because let’s face it, this is just the way that I see it! Who even knows if I am right? But I certainly have my convictions about this, and I can’t ignore them!
That’s it for now… next time, helicopter rides!! Woo hoo!
