Learning

So what's been my big discovery of the week? Well, I'm preaching this week on how Christ sustains all things (see Colossians 1:17-18, Hebrews 1:3a), and it has been sort of neat. I was looking at one paper (research), and it discussed how natural laws are God's normal ways of governing life, and that miracles are best thought of as God doing something unusual for a particular purpose. I thought that was a good way of looking at it. We tend to view the natural laws as the foundation of our world, but really it is God, through Christ, who sustains our world. The natural laws themselves are constantly maintained by Christ. And since he maintains them constantly, setting them aside, or doing something different (miracles) for a moment wouldn't be a big stretch or difficulty.

Fundamentally, it means that God is not a distant God who is "up there" somewhere and occasionally reaches into our world, but rather one who is very present, and active, in our everyday lives. What difference does that make to our understanding of God, or to our faith in his ability to answer prayers or do miracles?

On a completely different note, I just watched Kung Fu Panda last night. What a great movie! The trailers actually didn't look that interesting to me, but the movie itself was way better than my expectations.