To make the most of our mobile windows

In the Message version of Matthew 6: 22-23, Jesus says, "Your eyes are windows into your body. If you open your eyes wide in wonder and belief, your body fills up with light. If you live squinty-eyed in greed and distrust, your body is a dank cellar. If you pull the blinds on your windows, what a dark life you will have."

I used to think this referred to people being able to stare into our souls through our eyes, as if they were windows, but I considered myself good at concealing my thoughts and feelings from others. Nobody uses my eyes as windows, thanks very much. The line which says, "Your eyes are windows into your body" might have been what confused me and got me thinking about Peeping Tom sort of behaviour from other people.

Perhaps if it read, "Your eyes are windows looking out on the world" I would have got the point quicker. It's all about us looking through those windows at what is outside, rather than other people peering in at us. Our eyes are the windows we're standing behind. We get to choose the things outside of those windows that we focus on. There's plenty of both good and bad to be seen, and the theme and flavour of our life will depend on what we choose to look at.

Recently I learned a bit more about the ancient eastern contrast between healthy eyes and unhealthy eyes. Apparently generous people who looked on others kindly, were said to have a 'good eye'. Those who were greedy, envious and covetous had an 'evil eye'. In this way, our eyes and our hearts are connected. When the eye focuses on something, it becomes the conduit which fills the heart with what it has focused on. So perhaps that is what Jesus meant, when he said that our eyes are windows into our body. We can take our choice and focus on either joy filled things which God values, self-pityingly on all the good things that belong to others and not us, or fearfully, on all the potential worst case scenarios which could knock us down.

Modern scientists have been saying the very same thing without even knowing there is a scriptural link. In 'The Mind that Changes Everything' Dr Ian Gawler explains that what we focus on significantly affects our outcome. If our focus is on something we fear or want to suppress, we give power to that very thing. (When we try hard not to think about a white horse, what immediately pops into our head?) What we turn our focus toward has far more importance than what we're attempting to turn away from, so he exhorts us to always focus on the positive, creative side of life, and when we realise we've deviated, to draw our attention back to where we want to be looking.

Today, I was mopping, sweeping and cleaning, annoyed at the kids for dumping towels and clothes on their floors instead of moving two steps to put them in the hamper. My mind was full of words like lazy bones, skunks and free-loaders. That got me thinking how I see red whenever they have the nerve to tell me I'm not doing the washing quick enough. And then, I thought how aggrieved they act when I express all this to them. It feels as if I can trace a thought from one brain synapse to another, and they grow into something steadily bigger as they move to the next one. It's enough to set up a bad mood for the rest of the day. Then I remembered what I was planning to blog about today. What's the point of focusing on all this, however true, when it makes me depressed and angry? Those are the moments to switch immediately, and choose to change my focus.

So often, I've seen different advice on what to do when we feel blue. I'm not talking about full-blown, clinical depression, but just the type of low moods we're all susceptible to at times. We could eat food that's said to contain happy-making properties, such as dark chocolate or bananas (or bananas dipped in dark chocolate). We could do some rigorous exercise or run to the shops to buy something brand new. Sometimes these physical changes don't even work very well. I often forget that the most simple thing, which happens inside my head and takes a fraction of a second, is simply to change my focus. When I do remember, I find it does work.

At least, if our eyes are windows, they are mobile ones. We're mistaken, if we think we're stuck looking at the same view all the time.

That narrow-minded attitudes are insidious

My son, Logan, is getting great at his favourite computer game, League of Legends. He sits up late to play and recently got himself high into the ranks of Platinum 1. They tell me that is nudging very close to a Diamond ranking, where many players actually have the potential to earn, or are already earning money.

Yet rarely does he get congratulated by extended family or friends, and I include myself too. We praise his sister, Emma, more for her various pursuits. Emma's ambition is to be a dessert chef, and she makes some luscious treats in the kitchen to take to events. She also loves her nature photography, and her art lessons. She puts a lot of heart and soul into all of this, and it's right that she should receive positive feedback. It's very easy to give, when her chosen hobbies are so easy to admire.

Yet a lot of work and passion goes into Logan's hobby too. To be as good at League of Legends as he is takes skill, coordination, reaction time, finely honed prediction skills and being able to liaise well with team members. It's taken a lot of work to rise in the ranks of the game as he has done, and very few have made it that far. His dad, Andrew, likes the game too, but has got no higher than the Bronze level, which is much lower. There are thousands of players across the world. It's equivalent, in its way, to people attempting to be masters of Chess.

So why aren't extended family and friends as impressed with his conquest as we are with what Emma does? It surely comes down to two things which are closely connected; cultural bias and stigma. Those of us who live in English speaking countries are often surprised to learn what huge followings these computer games have in countries such as South Korea. Over there, they actually televise matches of Starcraft and League of Legends on prime time TV, as if they are celebrated sports (which indeed, they are for them).

The experts of these games are household names. They earn huge pay packets and sometimes retire with physical injuries because of the repetitive strain of being so keyed-up on their game. And the boys tell me that family expectations are way different over there. An Aussie or American parent may say, 'It's very important that you raise your maths and science grades. We want you to be a doctor.' In South Korea, a bossy mother may be more likely to say, 'I want you glued to that computer chair practising your game. We want you to be a League of Legends star! Don't get up until you've reached Gold.'

This cake was made by Emma and Jarrad for Logan's 18th birthday last year. It's a map of the League of Legends terrain.
 
There is a natural respect for games such as LOL in that part of the world which we just don't have in Australia. Logan has been known not to even mention his achievements at family or church gatherings, because people give off vibes of disapproval. They may say, 'That's all very well, but what proper hobbies and work are you doing?' Members of the older generations often don't try to hide their distaste at all. 'All those computer games are making our young people go to the dogs! It breaks my heart to see it. Your sensibilities are being worn down with all that pointless killing stuff. It's turning our young people into savages. What's the world coming to?' It never seems to occur to them that they are actually being rude to rubbish a young man's hobby in front of him. He doesn't stand there, criticising their stamp collections, lawn bowls or whatever else.

I definitely agree that there is a problem if playing the computer games is all these young people do with their time. But the same goes for reading novels, which is my own chosen leisure time filler. Anything done excessively until it becomes an addiction is too much, but that doesn't make the hobby itself intrinsically bad. And many of these young gamers are students with other outlets. Also, I believe studies have shown that people who play computer games in their spare time have not had empathy erosion any more than anybody else.

My way of thinking has been challenged. I've been on the receiving end of narrow-minded judgments myself, by some Christians who have dismissed my fiction writing as pointless and frivolous. Remembering how it felt, it surprised me one day, to hear myself echo that very same attitude with regard to computer games, when I said something like, 'If only you'd devote that much time to your school studies, instead of this stuff.'

People who buy into the stigma are short-sighted and don't realise that their hearts don't need to be broken by changing times. I've visited the Christian Gamers Guild website, which contains many interesting essays designed to give concerned parents a broader outlook about the subject of computer games. And I'm glad to see novels such as "Motive Games" by L.D. Taylor being published. This is a Young Adult novel set in the up-and-coming world of the computer game design and manufacture industry. It's a clever murder mystery showing that intelligence and honour are tied up with the industry, instead of the opposite, as many people seem to automatically assume.

Basically, I've come around to see that refusal to change with the times is not gracious, and is also a bit silly. I don't want to be counted among those who are old-fashioned, blinkered in their outlook and behind the times. I don't want to spout my mouth off negatively about something of which I know very
little. I want to be open-hearted enough to congratulate my son for a well-earned achievement instead of rolling my eyes. We're hoping he'll get up into Diamond soon.

That God is better than Wifi

Leanne Payne, in a book called "Believing Prayer", writes that modern people suffer a severe split between our heads and our hearts, without even knowing it. Our culture trains us to be separated from our own hearts. In the seventeenth century, Rene Descartes attempted to ground all human experience in his own confidence in reason, and his attitude has stuck. After all, they didn't call it 'enlightenment' for nothing.

She goes on to say that many of us are anxious to accept head knowledge about God to feel that we have a handle on Him, while we don't understand the powerful ways we have at our disposal to actually 'know' Him. These ways emphasise such things as intuitive knowledge, gut feelings, imagination and those things which can't easily be explained in words. Just the sort of thing that traditionally gets shunned by many of our universities' most highly esteemed intellectuals.

As a result of growing up in this climate, many Christians find it hard to believe in one of the basic tenets for believers, which is the presence of Christ within us. I can certainly relate to that. I always felt that Jesus was foisting a wishy-washy substitute on us when He said, "It's better that I go, so that the Helper may come and live within you."

"Huh, I'd far rather have you," I would have told Him. "Which would you prefer? A real flesh and blood friend and hero who gives you definite counsel you can hear and facial expressions you can see? Or the chance to blunder along, trying to guess where the vague impressions inside your mind are coming from? It's a no-brainer. How could I possibly think the second option would be better?"

It seems I was stuck in post-Enlightenment thought. When we deny and downplay our insubstantial impressions, of course they're going to get blocked. Perhaps the carnal mind and those things which can be measured with our five senses have been elevated to where they shouldn't be, which is a supreme position. Maybe we need frequent reminders that the spiritual world is, in fact, more 'real' than the physical world. Our trusted physical/sensual world has it's beginning in the unseen spiritual world, after all. Our persistence in putting feelings first results in feelings of loneliness and futility. We assume that if sensory experiences are not forthcoming, then God isn't with us.

For years and years, I never really understood what carnal thinking meant. I assumed it just meant that people are shallow thinkers, but it really means that we tend to live our lives based merely on the evidence of our five senses. Perhaps the automatic minds of many in the twenty-first century are carnal. Carnal people get browned off with prayer, because we assume that nothing is happening and we're just talking into thin air. Or we start, but then give up too quickly, for this same reason. 

I've certainly been there. Sometimes I'd stop praying altogether for long stretches of time, reasoning that I'm doing a foolish thing. As I can't feel anybody here, it feels as if I'm a grown woman, talking to a pretend friend. Ridiculous. I won't pray until I have some tangible evidence that I'm not wasting my time. Well, Leanne Payne's book suggests that we frequently need to remind ourselves that He really is there, closer than our next breath, faithfully listening to us, whether or not we 'sense' Him.

I bought that book last year, during a holiday to Victoria with my husband and our two youngest children. With these ideas in my mind, we were driving around Ballarat at night wanting to get onto the internet. We had Emma's laptop and my new Ipad mini with us in the car. (It's way different to holidays in the 70s and 80s when I was a kid with my parents). So we were looking for Wifi hot spots. We spotted a KFC outlet, parked on the street in front of it, and managed to log on. Andrew paid the rent while Emma checked Facebook. Then, as we were driving, she was able to tell us where other hot spots were, for future reference. 'That cafe over there has Wifi, and so does that Taco Bill and that Maccas.'

Well, it's quite amazing, when you think about it. All I could see on the street were shops, restaurants and old gold rush era buildings. You can't detect Wifi signals with your physical senses, but they are there nonetheless. At our last house, a cheeky neighbour kept managing to latch onto our internet. Our big boys, Logan and Jarrad, kept trying to block him, but his name would keep popping up, sucking the internet time we'd paid for. And at our current address, the kids quickly realised that we are easily able to tap into our neighbour's internet if we ever wanted to. You can't see or sense internet or Wifi signals, but boy, do we benefit from them! In those moments when I'm feeling that God might not be real anyway, it helps to think of Him a bit like Wifi, but far better, because we don't have to drive around a city trying to find spots where He is. He's always present everywhere and we can always connect freely and easily.

So those times I've stopped praying because it feels ridiculous may be even more ridiculous. It's like somebody walking into KFC where they've seen there's free internet and choosing not to turn on their phone, tablet or computer, because they can't see or sense the Wifi signals.

To prevent reading indigestion

I've been reading a book by Eugene Peterson, whose name many of us may recognise as the author of 'The Message' Bible translation. He believes that writing is intended to change our lives, rather than simply stuffing information into our brain cells. Reading should be a ruminative and leisurely experience, as if we're actually eating.

On a few occasions in the Bible, people were told to physically eat books. In Revelation 10:9-10, the Angel of the Lord tells Saint John to eat a small scroll, which turns out to be as sweet as honey in his mouth but bitter in his stomach. I used to think that was a weird, symbolic occurrence which I couldn't understand, but can't help remembering that both Jeremiah and Ezekiel before John, were also told to eat books on earlier occasions. I've been told that the Bible never wastes words, so when something unusual happens more than once, it's evidently quite important.

Okay, when we eat food, we take it into our bodies where it gets digested and makes its way to our bloodstream and our cells to be assimilated as part of our bodies. We all know that this is why we're counseled to eat healthy, rather than junk food. And we're probably all familiar with the slogan, 'You are what you eat.'

Peterson suggests that the same is true of what we read. We're meant to chew and ponder, to mull over healthy books until the words strike a chord and become absolutely true for us. He's speaking especially of holy scriptures. The truth gets into our imagination and spirit, and becomes part of us. It's a similar sort of process to actual, physical eating. It's surely more than just a good analogy, as we know there's a strong link between the mental, spiritual and physical parts of us. I believe that something grasped strongly in the mental and spiritual planes, does become manifest in our physical bodies.

At the same time, I've been dipping into another book. Coincidentally, they complement each other. The author, Ruth Haley Barton, describes the serious scripture study she did as a young adult at Bible College. She discovered that it helped improve her grades when she got really good at memorising verses, filling in blanks, ticking chapters off a 'Too Read' list, and coming up with clever, gimicky, creative ways to impress the staff and fellow students in class. One day, it dawned on her that she was tired and what she was reading seemed lifeless to her. She realised that she was approaching scriptures as a tool people were using to rein her in or coerce her to their way of thinking. And it was a very subtle shift. Those purposes totally squashed the greater purpose of reading them, which she believes is similar to what Peterson said, to allow it to sink into her heart and soul, becoming part of her make-up.

She had to re-train herself to chew slowly and savour each word, letting its meaning sink into the deeper part of her, instead of rushing on to the next chapter to complete whatever assignment she was working on. She learned to allow change to take part at deeper levels of her being as she slowed down and meditated on those words.

I found myself nodding, "Yes, yes, yes" time and again. That's the way many of us are taught to function. We are even given recommendations of books which help us to speed read. I remember facing a thick pile of old British classics on the English syllabus back when I was a student. There was no way we could have read them all with the attention they deserved, and I'm sure the lecturers secretly wouldn't have expected us to. They were just trying to cram as much into a semester as possible.

I see the same habits in my 19-year-old son's approach to his studies. We aim to develop techniques which enable us to read as little as possible for the best grade possible. Barton says we get pretty good at cramming information into our heads to keep there just long enough to regurgitate onto exam papers. I thought it was an interesting choice, that word 'regurgitate'. Getting back to the physical analogy, it's like eating so much and so fast, we can't contain it and throw up.

So that's how I was when I was a student, and I had to ask myself if I'm still like that. I've got to admit the answer is often yes, even though I can try to convince myself it's for the best intentions. I like to read several blogs, along with interesting articles I stumble across through Facebook or Twitter links. I instantly see many of them will take some time to read. It's evident that it would take all day if I was to read them all carefully, so I find myself skimming hurriedly to get the highlights, gulping down the points that seem most important. Sometimes I don't even finish them. With books also, I want to find out what will happen next or what life-changing advice may be contained within the pages, so I gallop ahead. And it does give me something similar to physical indigestion when I eat too fast. I'm bloated in the head instead of the belly.

I'm taking these books as a wake-up call and training myself to chew more slowly, when it comes to both food and whatever I'm reading. It'll be worth the effort, I'm sure. Although these authors were focusing mostly on Bible reading, I think that what I've spoken about in this blog will apply to a broader range of good books.

*If you're interested in reading those books I quoted, here they are.
1) 'Eat this Book' by Eugene Peterson (It's a great name)
2) 'Sacred Rhythms - Arranging our Lives for Spiritual Transformation' by Ruth Haley Barton
3) 'Choking on a Camel' by Michal Ann McArthur (This is a good novel about a heroine who finds herself grappling with just this sort of thing. It'll stay in my memory.)

that Fear is False Evidence Appearing Real

My son, Blake, and I were reading about Prince Henry the Navigator for a History lesson. Henry was the fourth son of a king of Portugal in the Middle Ages. Knowing he'd never inherit the throne, he got to please himself and follow his own interests, which happened to be love of the sea and exploration. Henry built fleets of ships, intending to send them south, down the West African coast. He hoped to build relationships with the native west African people. Sailors had to learn to read star maps and old archaic astrolabes and compasses at a school of navigation set up by Prince Henry.

His problem was fear. Not his own, but that of the sailors. Nobody had ever been very far south before. Africa was known as "The Dark Continent" because of its mystery and possible danger, and that part of the Atlantic Ocean which Henry intended to launch off into was known as, "The Sea of Darkness." Sailors were certain they'd run into savage sea monsters and fierce whirlpools. Some thought that as they sailed further south, the ocean would become so shallow that their ships would get fatally wrecked on the sea bottom, or that strong currents would pull them off into nowhere, never to return. There was also a strong belief that the sun down south would be so scorching hot that the seawater would boil them alive.

The result was that Prince Henry would pour funds into his navigation school and pay for expedition after expedition, but the ships would return after a short time, full of woebegone sailors who were simply too frightened to go far. They'd reach a certain point and then decide to turn around and head back up to Portugal. It was years before a brave explorer named Gil Eannes pushed through, and discovered that the sea further south was actually pretty similar to that up north.

I've heard that a suitable acronym for the word FEAR may be False Evidence Appearing Real. This was certainly the case for those nervous Portuguese sailors! For them, that part of the Atlantic Ocean along the western coast of Africa might as well have been a boiling cauldron full of seething, heat-resistant monsters, because their fear made it true for them.

It's easy to shake our heads at their fear in retrospect, but I had to question whether our fearful moments may be the same. Over the years, I've experienced several fearful predicaments and maladies which turned out to have no basis in reality. But boy, was I scared when I thought they did! It might as well have been true, during those times. Not long ago, I was out walking and almost stepped on an old, squashed paper cup from Gloria Jean's, but as I glanced down, I thought it was a dead, black crow. Relief came when I saw my mistake, but by then, my heart was already thumping hard, my pulse racing and my skin recoiling. The fear-disgust response had already been set off, so as far as my body was concerned, that old cup might as well have been a bird carcass.

Life is too short for unnecessary fear. It steals peace of mind which we may otherwise enjoy. I've been wondering how we can short-circuit limiting fear and have lives of faith instead. I think it all comes down to not just giving lip-service to what we say we believe, but truly believing it. For many of us, it may be faith in a sacred text. For me, it's the Bible. For years, I declared that I believed the promises to be found in the Bible, but in moments of fear, I had to question whether I really did.

I love the thought of an invisible realm around us, protecting and caring for us. The Bible tells us that this realm, although invisible, is a reality. I love how we're told about the unseen forces of angel warriors in 2Kings chapter 6. The prophet Elisha's young servant (maybe the hapless Gehazi) was filled with fear when he saw the hostile army of Aram surrounding them. He wondered why his master wasn't terrified, but Elisha simply said, 'Don't worry about it. There are more on our side than their side.' Then he prayed for the young man's eyes to be opened. It happened. The young servant saw that the whole mountainside was full of a strong, angelic army protecting them. He understood that they'd been there all along, only they'd been invisible to him until that point. Of course, that was all that was needed to help him relax. And it's the same for us. Invisible doesn't mean that this force of love and protection isn't a reality for us too.

So in the light of this, we've got to get it into our heads that the notion of being alone, unprotected, uncared for and vulnerable is FEAR, False Evidence Appearing Real. Our five senses, and what we read and hear from others who are using only their five senses, isn't all there is to know. I like that perspective.

to focus on my favourite story

I've started of a program of reading through the Bible in a year, with a lovely group of ladies. Things to take note of seem to pop up all the time. I always seem to be jotting something down.

For example, consider Bible hero Jacob, as an elderly father, when he arrived in Egypt with his family, was reunited with his son, Joseph, and introduced to the Pharoah. The ruler asked how old he was, and this was Jacob's reply. 'The years of my sojourning are 130 - a short and hard life, not nearly as long as my ancestors were given.' (Genesis 47:9-10)

Our natural instinct may be to negate his opinion about the shortness of his life, but I was thinking of the bit about it being 'hard'. It's an interesting statement, coming from a man who was chosen, just like his father and grandfather, to be abundantly blessed.

He was visited by an angel and the ground upon which he lay was promised to all of his descendants for years to come. His cheating uncle didn't want to take him off the payroll, because it was obvious how abundantly his flocks and herds were being blessed while Jacob worked for him. Jacob inherited a birthright that didn't start out being his. He was clearly given precedence over his older twin brother, who didn't value the things of God as highly. He had twelve fine, strong sons and two women who loved him. (Well, at least two. Those maid servants may have been fond of him too.) At the time of his return to his childhood land, he was very wealthy, and he made peace with his brother. When we hear anything like, "You'll be like Abraham, Isaac and Jacob," we get excited, thinking that means great things will happen to us.

Yet I can understand how Jacob could make the claim he did. A blessed life doesn't mean sitting around in the lap of luxury being waited on. There may be a lot of hard work, along with some hardships at the hands of others. We each have more than one story we can tell, and Jacob's life is a prime example.

This describes the same man. He was treated as second best by his father, who favoured his brother. In fact, he was given a name which meant 'heel' and had to live with it. He had to flee his angry twin for fear of being murdered, and never saw his beloved mother again. Tricked by his scheming uncle into working hard for twice as long as he'd expected, he had to leave by stealth. He lost his most beloved wife in childbirth. His daughter was raped. His eldest son slept with his concubine and the next two went completely bonkers and massacred a whole group of people in a town. He was tricked into thinking his favourite son had been savagely mauled to death by wild animals, and grieved him for years until he found out he'd been tricked.

Doesn't this show that even a blessed life may have its share of hardships? (It's also a goldmine for people who want to talk about sowing and reaping, getting back what you give, payback, or karma, to use a more eastern term. The one who agreed to play such a deceptive trick was later the subject of some devastating tricks, first by his uncle, later by his own sons. That's the subject of another blog post I might do one day.)

For today, I'm taking the challenge to focus on my favourite of the two stories which may describe my own life. I may be the baby sister who was picked on by school bullies, later suffered several miscarriages, and have had some financial hardships. But I'm also the same person who has a good husband, three excellent kids who make me smile a lot, the time to spend writing novels, which I really enjoy, and the good fortune to live in South Australia, a safe place where we can flourish.

What are your personal stories like?

Why people play these mind games

In the first couple of chapters of the Bible, God seems to advocate a style of parenting I've never thought highly of, the rhetorical, or leading question.

'Who told you you were naked?' Well, since He's everywhere, He would surely know.
'Did you eat from the tree I told you not to eat from?' Same as above.
'Where is Abel, your brother?' Come on! He knows the answer very well.

It's like a smug mother asking her little boy, 'Who ate the doughnuts?' when she can clearly see the chocolate icing around his mouth? I used to hate it when my parents pulled this sort of question on me. It seemed they just wanted me to fib my way into a trap so they could pat themselves on the back by calling my bluff. The parent figure comes across as gloatingly superior while the child now feels naughty and foolish, instead of just plain naughty. Why can't we just play it straight? Why make everything into a character test? It used to sadden me that God would stoop to this sort of silly mind game too.

When you do try to wriggle out of it, they are ready to pounce on you with their superior knowledge.
MUM: Who ate the doughnuts?
KID: It wasn't me.
MUM: Then go to the mirror and look at your mouth.

GOD: Where is Abel, your brother?
CAIN: How should I know? Am I my brother's keeper?
GOD: What have you done! Your brother's blood is calling to me from the ground.

Well, if that's the case, why not just say so? Surely the aim of the interrogator is either to make themselves seem smart or to make the guilty party feel even worse by showing them up as a liar too, on top of being a thief (or murderer, in Cain's case). Why do that? Surely it's no way to make people feel friendlier towards you.

Thinking long and hard about it, I've got to conclude that maybe it's good for us, to show up what is inside of us. Maybe the leading question is an effective technique when the answers come as a surprise to us. We discover ourselves doing the underhand, sneaky, sly thing when we're put on the spot. That's happened to me several times before. I'd been thinking of myself as a pretty good person, and then found myself in action telling the lies, making the excuses, running away, implicating the others. I realised that I wasn't as good as I thought I was, because I was caught red-handed. If they'd simply said, 'I know you took the doughnuts and now I'm going to punish you,' I wouldn't have realised that my natural reaction would have been to hedge around and tell lies. I might have been left feeling resentful and self-righteous. Perhaps naughty and foolish is the better option. The questions are not for their benefit but for ours, especially when it comes to God.

Later, in Deuteronomy 8:2, the Bible says, Remember how the Lord your God led you... to test you in order for you to know what was in your heart.

I do understand. This sort of test is not like an exam condition. God is not like the education department. The sort of test we're talking about  is the type that shows up cracks in architecture, or traitors in war time. In the long run, it's better to be aware of our own weaknesses, than to be oblivious of them. It's better for ourselves to be shown, when we're potential traitors and don't even know it. Perhaps God tests us because we're oblivious to the mixed allegiances and motives in our hearts. When we find out, at least we're in the position to deal with them. If you're a knight, it's better to find out that your armour has chinks.

I can accept this. I like it much better than the notion that God is playing mind games with us. The questions we receive don't give God any new information about ourselves, but it may reveal a lot of new information about us to ourselves. And being armed with this new knowledge has got to be a step forward, however hard to swallow at the time.