On the Challenge of the Old Testament GOD! (Part 1)

 On the Challenge of the Old Testament GOD! (Part 1)

By Gary L. Clendenon, 2011

When you read the Old Testament, you may very likely experience and face a “Crisis of Faith”. There are a lot of gnarly things in there that can leave even the greatest scholars speechless. So, obviously, I don't have all the answers. I will gladly share what I believe, but I also warn you: This side of Heaven, there will be some things that there are no answers for, and if you are going to read the Old Testament, you need to be aware of that.

Old Testament Scholar Alden Thompson says something like: "If you can't handle reading the Old Testament, like my wife can't, then don't read it—or just read the good bits."

My personal secret for reading the Old Testament is that I read it knowing that I believe in GOD and that GOD is a loving GOD. If what I read doesn't make sense to me or seems to argue against a loving GOD, then if I can't make sense of it, I put that story on my mental “Later” shelf until someone or some book enlightens me on that story. Or, I wait until Heaven when all questions will be answered.

The best guide I have had through the Old Testament is Alden Thompson. I recommend his books which can answer some of your questions. I will share some of his words with you now:

"In brief, the movement from Old Testament to New Testament is the movement from an emphasis on God's power to an emphasis on His goodness; from fear, threats, and violence, to spontaneity, joy and gentleness; from the God who kills (Sinai) to the God who dies (Golgotha)

. . .

Beginning in the Garden of Eden, God steps back, allowing sin to produce its "natural" fruit, a selfishness that ends in violence as demonstrated in the experiences of Cain, the flood, and Babel. Then, starting over with Abraham—whose family worshiped other gods—God leads His people back on the long path from violence back to gentleness. Through the careful use of violence, the language violent people understand the best, God—yes, you heard right—God nudges them toward the gentle Jesus, God's great ideal—Jesus who never killed anyone; who never struck anyone. ...the move from Old Testament to New Testament is simply the move from power to goodness, from fear to joy, with Jesus the clearest revelation of all. And many of us have to follow that same path in our own personal experience."

~ Escape From the Flames by Alden Thompson, pgs. 29-30.

More quotes, different book:

“If you want to know what God is like, look at Jesus. He never tried to explain any of the "problems" of the Old Testament, even though He often quoted from it and clearly cherished it as God's word. The New Testament clearly establishes these three truths: (1) the Old Testament was Jesus' Bible; (2) the God of the Old Testament was Jesus' God; and (3) Jesus Himself was the Yahweh God of the Old Testament, Yahweh in human form. They tried to stone him for that.

But if Jesus was the Yahweh God of the Old Testament in human flesh, and if God is like Jesus, then only one conclusion fits the story of an incredibly patient God—patient like Jesus—who knows the horrifying effects of sin on the human heart and mind. His goal? To bring His lost and wandering children to the peaceable kingdom where no one will hurt or destroy in all God's holy mountain and where even animals are vegetarians.

But that can't happen all at once. En route to the peaceable kingdom, God has to reach people where they are and speak a language they can understand. That can be troubling for us until we realize it was exactly what those people needed, so that they, too, could take a step closer to God's new earth.

Jesus came to earth to make that new world possible. And His wonderful example of gentle love is the one we need to follow. You don't have to understand all the shocking stuff. Maybe you should be aware of it, but you don't need to dwell on it. Jesus Himself just ignored it, drawing from His Bible the good news that made Him who He was. According to the book of Hebrews [1:1-4], the revelation of God in Jesus Christ is better than anything God had ever done before.

So whenever you wonder what God is like, just look at Jesus. And keep it up."

Beyond Common Ground, by Alden Thompson, p. 37-38

CLICK BELOW FOR PART TWO:

https://notesfromthegc.blogspot.com/2022/08/the-baddest-god-relating-to-god-of-old.html

"When I Fooled the World" (A Song by Me!)

Hello Friends. I fell in love with the song "Viva La Vida" (by the group ColdPlay) the very first time I heard it. It was the MUSIC not the lyrics that I fell in love with and ever since then I haven't been able to get it out of my head. So, I did what I do and wrote some new lyrics that made the song more personal to me and very autobiographical. Here's a link to a karaoke version if you want to follow along with my song:

When I Fooled the World
by Gary L. Clendenon (c) 2009
Adapted from "When I Ruled the World" by ColdPlay

I used to rule the world
Knees would rise when I gave the word (1)
Now in the morning I sleep alone (2)
Weep for the feats I used to own

I used to cajole with "nice"
Feel the tears in my subject's eyes
Listen as the crowd would sing
"Now he's Courtesy King, long live the king!" (3)
One minute I held the key
Next the walls were closed on me
And I discovered that my castle stands
Upon pillars of salt, and pillars of sand. (4)

I heard the lure of S.M. bells ringing
University choirs were singing
Be my mirror, my sword and shield
I was a missionary in a foreign field (5)
For some reason I can't explain
Once I'd begun it was never,
never an honest word
That was when I fooled the world. (6)

It was a wail-ful and wild wind
Blew down the doors to let me in
Shattered pillows and the sound of drums
People couldn't believe what I'd become
Revolutionaries wait
For my head to find its mate (7)
Just a lonely heart that's learned to sing
Oh...Praise to the King! Praise to the King!

I hear New Jerusalem bells a ringing
Heaven's Calvary choirs singing
He my Mirror, my Sword and Shield
My Emissary died for me to be healed
For a love I just can't explain
I know St. Peter will call my name
No longer a dishonest word
That was when I fooled the world. (8)


Whoa-o-o-o (x4)

(Whoa...) Hear New Jerusalem bells a ringing
(Whoa...) Heaven's Calvary choirs singing
(Whoa...) Be my mirror, my sword and shield
(Whoa...) My Emissary died for me to be healed
(Whoa...) For a love I just can't explain
(Whoa...) I know St. Peter will call my name
Never a dishonest Word
But that was since He rules the world.

FOOTNOTES:

1. I taught for 10 years.

2. I was divorced in 1998.

3. I was named "Courtesy King" all the years I attended Laurelwood Academy.

4. In 2001 my life came crashing down. I ended up in a Treatment Center for one month.

5. "S.M." = "Student Missionary", went to Indonesia and China.

6. It was in the treatment center that I learned about my facade--since I had even fooled myself!

7. A Sioux Indian saying that I learned in my Recovery is that "The longest journey is from the head to the heart." That has been my experience. This section of my song dedicated to my experience with the personal growth workshops called "Foundations" (https://foundations1.com/)

8. In the Love of GOD through Jesus I have found my salvation from fooling the world with "Nice-ness". Now my goal is to be "Real".

My Story: Work, Marriage and After!

 My Story: Work, Marriage and After!

By Gary L. Clendenon (c) 2020

Growing up in a dysfunctional SDA family and System (See Footnote 1), I learned the following things:

1. I had to be perfect to get into Heaven. Anything less than perfect was not good enough.

2. Negative thoughts and emotions were not to be allowed as they were Sinful.

3. My job as a Christian was to Love and be Nice to everyone I met, and if possible save all from Hell.

Over time, I developed and perfected a facade which I used to interact with other humans. It was a GOOD facade. I got awards for it and even fooled myself. (See Footnote 2)

Underneath the facade was a boatload of shame for all the sinning I had done in my life, a HUGE amount of fear that I would be discovered and exposed for the fraud that I really was, and a body and mind completely filled with the OVERWHELMING stress of trying to keep the facade going, trying to be perfect, and shoving down and burying all negative thoughts and emotions completely.

I managed this facade well through my high school and college days and took it into my Marriage and first job as a Teacher. The completely foreign job of being a “Man” and a “Husband” AND the task of PERFECTLY managing 120 students and my Coworkers and a Boss all day was COMPLETELY OVERWHELMING to my system. I didn’t know this at the time or understand it at all. I had heard the first year of teaching was the hardest, so I stubbornly pushed through that year—hoping things would get better.

I was completely in over my head. Because of how I was trained growing up, with the three “Life Commandments” I had learned, what was I to do? There was one other factor: GOD had called me to this job and had promised His help to get me through it.

For years I gave ALL of myself to my job, even grading papers over vacations. I never allowed the Truth of what was going on inside of me out—even to myself. And rather than admit the job was too much for me, I slaved on. I was not a workaholic, but more of a perfectionist. I knew no other way.

Needless to say, this took a huge hit on my marriage. When I got home every night from work, I was utterly and completely exhausted. I had nothing left for a relationship with my wife. And because of my pact to never say anything bad, and my fear of being exposed as a fraud of a man, I remained silent about what was going on inside of me—much of what I was ALSO hiding from myself!!

Unfortunately, my wife, who naturally had her own dysfunctional beliefs to deal with, had to try and figure out on her own what was going on inside of me. Over time, she tried out all possible scenarios in her head—including that I was having an affair—and finally settled on the one that fit her “Growing Up” beliefs born out of her woundedness: “She was a failure as a wife, I didn’t love her, and I was going to leave her—the same way her Father had left her.” Believing this to be true, she gave up and turned away from me. (See Footnote 3)

None of these beliefs were true, but our “Growing Up” beliefs are very powerful and completely influence our adult lives. She was not a failure as a wife. I did love her—as best as my broken and dysfunctional life would allow. I would have never left her. I was in it for the long haul. But, since I was unable to give her what was in me, she was forced to create her own version of our story.

When she turned away from me, I was saddened, of course, but as John Gray teaches in Men are from Mars; Women are from Venus, we men show our respect for another person’s journey by allowing them to go in their cave and work through their own problems until they figure them out. Being a good man, then, I respected my wife’s turning away from me as her need for some “Cave Time”. (I now know that this is the opposite of what I would have ideally done!)

So, there we were at night in bed. Me desperately needing and wanting me wife emotionally and physically, but turning away out of respect for her. And her, desperately desiring her husband emotionally and physically but turning away because of what she had come to believe about me and us—though completely false! Two people in the same bed, both desperate for the same things, but separated from each other by invisible walls of complete misunderstandings and miss-beliefs!!

Does it get any sadder than that? Well, yes, it does. Those misunderstandings and miss-beliefs continued on and grew into a complete separation, then a most devastating and pain-filled divorce. Then, for me, 20 years of loneliness and regret as a single man.

Here’s what I learned:

1. It was a poor choice for me to become a Teacher. It was the complete wrong occupation for a “Highly Sensitive Introvert”.

2. It was a poor choice for me to not rip off my facade of “The Nice Guy” and become real. (I later learned this in a Treatment Center for Codependency.)

3. If I had put my marriage and wife first instead of my job, I would probably still be married today.

4. I understand now why “Nice guys finish last.”

5. Men and Women come into a marriage with their own unresolved childhood baggage and beliefs. They are essentially two children attempting to live “Adult” lives.

6. Marriage is a gift that allows us to find out about our miss-beliefs about life and relationships and work through them, ideally, in a loving environment.

7. The best thing one can do for one’s marriage is to become aware of one’s own baggage and miss-beliefs and work on growing themselves up into reality. Working on the other person’s “issues” only sets the marriage back and further behind.

8. Men and Women do life differently, as best pointed out by John Gray’s works regarding Men are from Mars; Women are from Venus. Understanding these differences can save and even enhance ones marriage.

9. When we don’t share our story with another, they will create a story that will most often be far worse than whatever we are hiding inside.

10. Wisdom from Shrek: “Better out than in, I always say!” corresponds nicely with the saying “You’re only as sick as the secrets you keep.” (I was one sick puppy. :( )

11. Most people are not completely who we think they are. It takes a lot of work to truly get to know someone. We have to journey through their facades and masks to find the person hiding within.

12. Many of us don’t know who we truly are. Again, it takes work to find ourselves.

13. There are numerous tools out there to bring us into alignment with who we are and were meant to be: books, seminars, workshops, counselors, therapists. We can ask GOD to guide our Healing and “Growing Up” journey, and He will—as He has promised.

FOOTNOTES:

1. I am not bashing my family or my church (The SDA Church) here.  No family or organization is immune from dysfunction (Remember the Bible says our sins go to the 3rd and 4th generations (See Deuteronomy 5:9). 

2. For a musical version of this fooling story, I wrote a song.  Go Here to see/hear it.

3. This is my version and understanding of my wife’s story. You would need to check with her for her version. ;)