First Questions

My friend Wendy is working on some guest posts for this site.
Something I love about Wendy is that she is not afraid

to ask the hard questions,
and she's also not afraid to send me her really rough draf
in the middle of the night
that is more consumed with questions than answers.
There are too many people in the world who claim to have blind faith.
Blind faith is not what it's cracked up to be.
In case you haven't noticed
Jesus does a lot of healing in the pages of Scripture,
and that healing often comes in the form of giving sigh
to those who cannot see.
If we have questions, we should ask them.
If we know people who have questions, we should allow them to ask.
We can't learn anything unless we wonder...
And so, here's a list to start
courtesy of my dear, sweet friend who isn't afraid to put it out there...

*****

Has God made us and left us?  Has God decided we are just messing things up so badly even he can't help us?  Seriously? Is this about free will?  Do you want to live in a world where a deity forces you to worship him?  What would be the point, and would it be genuine?

Sometimes when you pray, doesn't it seem like God is ignoring you?  Waiting for you to take that first step?  Waiting for you to take that leap of faith? 

Why does God let bad things happen?  Why does a two year old get cancer?  Is that free will?  How did the child choose this?  If nothing is beyond God, did he choose this?  Or does he not care?  And when the mother prays and cries with all her heart and her child still dies, is God there?

Does it go back to sin?  Have we been separated from God from the first sin? When sin has nothing to do with something, what is going on?  Can God intervene?  Why doesn't God intervene?  Why does God intervene sometimes?  Are some people's prayers more worthy?  Is it random?

Does it all boil down to a chain reaction?  What if someone else exercises free will that takes mine away?  Are our free wills intertwined?

Are you frustrated?  Furious?  Confused?

Having faith is not knowing the answer.  Not being okay with it.  Searching.  Seeking knowledge.  Understanding you may never have the answers.  But ... it's okay to ask the questions.  And ... it's okay to be confused and angry.  It's OK.

A "Guest Post" of My Own

I was humbled and honored to be asked to submit a post for the Uncontrolling Love blog.  There may or may not have been a happy dance involved.  My post was published, today.  You can find it linked here.  I would love it if you would leave some comments and interact with me on this very important topic!

L.

When People Become Our Gods

Psalm 146, all of it, "Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord, my soul.  I will praise the Lord all my life; I will sing praise to my God as long as I live.  Do not put your trust in princes, in human beings, who cannot save.  When their spirit departs, they return to the ground; on that very day their plans come to nothing.  Blessed are those whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord their God.  He is the Maker of heaven and earth, the sea, and everything in them - he remains faithful forever.  He upholds the cause of the oppressed and gives food to the hungry.  The Lord sets prisoners free, the Lord gives sight to the blind, the Lord lifts up those who are bowed down, the Lord loves the righteous.  The Lord watches over the foreigner and sustains the fatherless and the widow, but he frustrates the ways of the wicked.  The Lord reigns forever, your God, O Zion, for all generations.  Praise the Lord" (NIV).

The other day I saw this quote,

I liked it immediately.  I am, certifiably, extraordinarily stubborn, and I like to save myself.  Just yesterday I sat down with one of my friends who has known me the longest, and she went into this long treatise about how I get when anyone tells me that I can't do something.  I just sat there and listened, because I know she's right.  It's awful.  I replayed the quote in my head a couple of times.  It didn't help.

Lately I get way too wrapped up in the need for affirmation from other human beings, and this is a really difficult tension for me to deal with, because I'm not used to it.  Although the people who know me best still see the fire in my eyes every time somebody says, "You can't (fill in the blank)," I have come to this weird place in life where I think twice.  I actually care about what people are saying to me.  Instead of just saying, "Yes I can," and steamrolling through whatever it is that I had planned, there have been more than a few times when I have found that I actually can't do something.  This is rocking my world a little bit.  I don't like it.

So here it comes...

I can't save myself.

I think this occurred to me a long time ago, but I wasn't quite ready to admit it.

Ironically, you can't save me, either.  And by you, I mean you.  And... everybody...

Except Jesus.

Which comes out sounding so incredibly cliché, and I hate clichés.  But I think this one is true.

There is a part of me that doesn't even know what to do with this, which is sort of stupid, since I have been a follower of Jesus for a really long time now.  This is nothing new.  It's just... hard.

This chapter of Psalms struck me, though.  It is so beautifully focused on the things that the Lord has done.  I want to be the kind of person who does things like that, not because I want to be God, but because I want to be like God.  When people see me, I don't want them to see me, at all.         

Exodus 13:8, "I do this because of what the Lord did for me" (NIV).

May these be my words.

 
L.

Confession: I Wish I Knew Everything

And I don't like people to tell me that I am incapable of anything.

And I am sort of a control freak.

I've been reading The Uncontrolling Love of God for my current class.  I was going to read it, anyway, but this worked out really well, because sometimes I get into this pattern of life where all I ever do is read, so it's nice that I was able to read this one concurrently for business and pleasure.

I'm not ready to give a complete review yet, because I still have one more chapter to go, and I think it is going to be an important one.  However, I like the idea of an uncontrolling God.  I like a God who gives genuine free will.  I am slightly concerned that I might like a God who doesn't tell me what to do.  I like I Corinthians 6:12a way too much:

"I have the right to do anything..." (NIV).

I don't like the next part so much:

"But not everything is beneficial" (NIV).

Sometimes I have to admit that I don't even know the difference between what is beneficial and what is not, and that's pretty hard for someone who often... legitimately... does know!  I keep coming back to the idea that maybe I should do whatever is most loving, most redemptive, most others focused, etc.  And that works out really well until there are multiple options that are most loving or most redemptive for different people! 

I read Mark 4:33-34, today:

"With many similar parables Jesus spoke the word to them, as much as they could understand.  He did not say anything to them without using a parable. But when he was alone with his own disciples, he explained everything" (NIV).

I like stories... a lot.  I like parables, too.  But sometimes I wish Jesus would explain everything to me, because trying to figure it all out can be exhausting...  really, really exhausting...  Yep.  I'm exhausted.  Which is sort of ironic, since I've only been awake for a couple of hours... after being asleep for a few hours... after being awake all night long...  OK, maybe it's not that ironic, after all.

There's going to be a "part two" to this, but in the spirit of Thursday Theology, let's just say, for a moment, that we all agree that we have an uncontrolling God (I know we don't all agree, but role play with me, here).  What do we do in the circumstances where we wish God was in control?  You know, especially the stuff we can't figure out.  Do we throw up our hands and accept that God is doing everything that God can do, and that is enough?  Because I think this paints a picture of a God we can love and trust to be a good, loving God, but I think it also makes some circumstances seem pretty hopeless.  Is it a worthwhile trade-off?  God is perfectly good and loving, but life sucks sometimes?   

Feel free to dialogue with me.  I'm thinking out loud...

L.

God is in control... or not...

Sometimes I feel like we're a little hard on Job's wife.  Wait.  What?  One line in, and I feel the need to say, "stay with me".

Like every good Christian teenager in the 1990s, I sang along, with passion, to Twila Paris', "God is in Control".  There are still some good concepts there.  Is God ever going to forsake us?  Um... no.  Can anything separate us from the love of God?  Nope.  Pretty sure Romans 8:39 will back that one up.  But how does this indicate that God is in control and somehow responsible for everything that happens?  I think we rip this verse out of context just about as frequently as I Corinthians 10:13, which does not, in fact, read that God will never give us more than we can handle.  Let's be real, friends.  We often have more than we can handle, and if you have never experienced this, don't worry.  You will.

I don't think it's a mistake that Scripture says, "In all this, Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing" (Job 1:22, NIV).  I also don't think that this indicates that wrongdoing wasn't happening.  It's just that God wasn't doing it!  Job has just lost everything he has, his children, and is on the brink of losing his own health, at which point his wife finally says, "Are you still maintaining your integrity? Curse God and die!" (Job 2:9, NIV).  Considering the circumstances, she is probably in an awful lot of pain, more than most people I know have ever experienced.  Maybe her words are even merciful, but we never look at it that way.  Personally, I've always thought of myself as pretty good in the midst of crisis (although I do tend to break down afterward), but the truth is, most of the crises I have ever dealt with have belonged to someone else!  Turns out I'm not as awesome as I think I am when I own the crisis.  Maybe that's why I feel some compassion for Job's wife, today.

Job's friends?  Not so much.  But they do sit with him quietly for a week, so there's that.  Then they talk... and talk... and talk... and they say some stupid things.  I really think we should dispense with the idea that bad things happen to people as punishment for sin.  I'm not saying that we don't suffer consequences for our lousy decisions sometimes.  Of course this is true.  But Job's friends are quick to blame him for his misfortune, even when he did not bring it on himself.  I think it is a foundational part of human nature to look for a reason when bad things happen.  Why we tend to blame the victims is completely beyond my understanding.  God calls the friends out pretty well, saying that they lied about who God is. 

We were talking about control, right?  Maybe it's a stretch.  Maybe there is some convincing evidence to prove that I've got this all wrong.  But I think it's pretty clear that Job's story is actually not a part of God's plan.  The narrative begins with Satan appearing before the Lord, seemingly as a surprise, since the Lord asks, "Where have you come from?" (Job 1:7, NIV).  A few lines of dialogue between them, and here's Satan, enacting his plan to destroy Job's life.  I think the question we all really want to ask is, "why". 

When good things happen, I think a lot of people just keep moving through life, perhaps thankful, but mostly unaware of or unaffected by God's presence in those things.  When bad things happen, I think most people tend to blame God.  But do we really think God is sitting somewhere, far beyond reach, orchestrating every moment and arbitrarily pouring out blessings or curses on people... on a whim... just because God can?  This doesn't really make sense.

God's answer to Job is an interesting one.  There are many words, but the idea that I see most clearly conveyed is, "I am here.  I have always been here.  I am in everything.  I am with you."  I don't feel as if God says, "I am going to make everything rainbows and unicorns... and glitter..."  I have no earthly idea why God would say to Satan, "Very well then..." (Job 1:12, NIV).  I would like it very much if God would never, ever say that.  But I do know that God's promise to stay near is one we can hold onto.  And I know that God doesn't cause suffering but holds us when it comes.

In order to believe in a god who is in control, I also have to believe in a god who doesn't always have our best interest in mind, in a god who is not, in fact, just, but who causes pain.  That is not my God.

L.