— Midweek Meditations:
thoughts, inspiration and encouragement
from ACF community members —
In the past weeks I was part of the Alpha Course at the ACF. We were talking about God, Jesus and the Bible and were listening to a lot of interesting stories. One of the questions that came from an answer was: Is it a good idea to believe in God? So far, there is no better answer than “Yes!”
I could finish my meditation here but there are some thoughts that I gave to the question and answer, and I would like to share them with you.
Some know that I am a teacher at a secondary school and at the University of Education in Freiburg. Of course, you might think that I teach subjects, subjects only; but it wouldn’t be me. I understand my job as a teacher to teach my subjects AND support my students in any way they need. So far about me. What does it have to do with the question above?
Both my students at school and university have similar questions. Some struggle to find a meaningful life because they don’t know how to deal with burdens. Some struggle to live a life in which God leads them. Some question the presence of God in this world, some deny that God exists at all. But they all have something in common:
They are in search for explanations.
They want to know why things happen.
They want to understand why they feel the way they feel.
They seek for hope in helpless situations.
They want to have someone to talk to.
If you believe in God or not, people (I would say most) want to live a meaningful life. They want to have answers. So, why do not decide to live a life with God and see what happens? And, the Alpha Course shows it, it is important to share experiences and stories with one another. In 1799, FRIEDRICH SCHLEIERMACHER (“Über die Religion”) wrote about a “secret” (pp. 95f). He says that there must be a relation between the outer world and what we feel inside, how we reflect the experiences. He continues that there was only one human being first, a lonely man who didn’t see the meaning of life until God realized that he had made a mistake himself. God corrected it and created a company (Schleiermacher calls the person “Gehülfin” which means helpmeet).
The world is nothing as long as we are alone.
We can’t make someone to believe in God but we are made to be social creatures, and we learn a lot about how to live with God from others. We learn a lot if we have other people to talk to and to share our inner world with them, our feelings, our experiences. Let’s believe that it was a good idea that God created more than one human and that he still sends us people to talk to.
The ACF Midweek Meditations
are written by a diverse group of our church members with the intention to seek God’s fingerprints in our lives. They range from somber to humorous and are inspired by all facets of live and faith. Written by ordinary people from all walks of life, they reflect a wide range of Christian backgrounds and spiritualities.
Each week’s text portrays the individual viewpoint of its author. They might not always resonate with everyone, and are not meant to be understood as representing the Anglican Church Freiburg as a whole. Yet, as a church that is aiming to ‘Build a Community of Grace’ we seek to practice learning from and listening to one another.
We pray that these humble ponderings add a small spark of blessing to your week.
Freiburg Anglican Church 