We all can feel it. There has been some sort of shift…some sort of fracturing of society as we once knew it. It’s almost as if a Pandora’s box of badness has been opened, and is wreaking havoc on society at large. We open up our feed in the morning while sipping our coffee, and see a barrage of stories – some good, but mostly bad. Usually, what is “trending” is a story about the most recent terrorist attack, a shooting/stabbing of a poor soul, violent protests, horrific abuse against our children and elderly, young people choosing Euthanasia, the list goes on and on. The dream of having a bourgeois “American dream” now seems like a long lost hope, like a candle flickering in the windowsill during a storm.
And all too often we ask, where is God?
Where is God, in the Syrian refugee crisis? Where is God, in countries where there is not enough clean water, food, or shelter? Where is God, when human trafficking is a booming business and young girls are sold into sexual slavery?
I think the easiest explanation is: He is right there. But it’s also the most difficult explanation to accept.
I’ve been reading C.S. Lewis’ The Problem of Pain lately, desperately trying to answer this question that keeps popping into my head; Is God still good?
Lewis is simply put, phenomenal. He can take any question, even the hard ones, even the taboo ones, and answer them with such compassion. He knows his reader, because as a former Atheist, he asked these hard questions himself. One line that jumped out at me, when speaking of the process of human sin entering into our organism. He explains;
“God might have arrested this process by miracle: but this – to speak in somewhat irreverant metaphor – would have been to decline the problem which God had set Himself when He created the world, the problem of expressing his goodness through the total drama of a world containing free agents, in spite of, and by means of, their rebellion against Him.”
Wow. I mean, could God have eradicated sin immediately? Absolutely. Could He have prevented The Fall of Adam and Eve? Yes. Could He have created a bunch of robots who were pre-programmed to love and worship Him in total perfection? Yes.
But He didn’t.
Because He is pure love, He understands the nature of love. True love, true charity, is given freely. He wants love given freely back to Him. He doesn’t want to force His will on anyone…or force us to love Him. He respects our will too much. And in order for Him to receive our love, our true love, we must be free to choose to give it.
I’m reminded of Sting’s song, “Free free, set them free”. Sting sings, if you love someone, set them free. Sometimes I think God is like that with us. Although he is God, so He is beyond time and dimension and can see all of eternity in a glance, even despite all of that power, He still wants us to love Him freely. And so, He will “set us free” by giving us life, and only asking that we freely give our hearts to Him in return.
So, back to my question. Where is God in a world gone mad?
He is here, in our craziness. In our corruption. In our greed, in our mess, in our ugliness.
He never left, we left Him.
At any point, we can decide to open our hearts and love him in return. How do we do this? We can decide to turn away from evil. We can decide to care for our brother and sister. We can decide to stop killing one another, killing our unborn children. We can decide to be good stewards of the Earth, and the resources we have here. We can decide to end our greed. We can decide to clothe the naked, feed the hungry, give drink to those who thirst. We can decide to end human trafficking by recognizing the immeasurable value of our humanity and the beautiful gift of sexuality. We can put an end to abuse of all forms, we can end abortion, we can end poverty, and we can end violence.
As much as our culture likes to point fingers to have someone to blame, it is not God who is causing all of our problems. It is what happens when we step outside of God’s divine will, and disobey His commandments. All of the world’s problems can be solved, if we simply listened to the commandments He gave us. But again, that requires that we decide to freely love Him. All of the problems that exist today, exist because we have turned our backs on Him, and hardened our hearts.
I don’t want to simplify a very complex question, but I truly think it comes down to love. And not that it’s easy, either. You all know that I have my “Jesus chair”, and so I sit on the ground and talk to him and ask Him to sit in the chair. But there are weeks where I walk by it and I don’t talk to Him. Or I might say, “I’m angry with you right now”. Or, “How could you let this happen?”. I end up hardening my heart, and I sure do blame Him a lot. It’s a lot easier than looking inside myself.
But it’s not God’s fault. He is not the enemy. He cries with us. He aches with us.
Those children in Syria that lost their entire family? His heart breaks. Those girls that are sold into sexual slavery? His heart aches. Divorce, abuse, violence? They all cause His heart such grief. We are the loves of His life, after all. We are His bride. And any Good Husband wants what’s best for his bride.
When I hear of a friend who had a miscarriage, or who didn’t get that job she wanted, or who lost a parent, or who is going through a divorce, my heart aches. But I know God’s heart aches more. And so, rather than blaming Him and turning away from Him, I am trying to reach out more when my heart aches. I know He is right there with us, feeling our pain, suffering with us. Not only does He share in our joys, but He shares in our sorrows too. I think it’s easy for our culture to paint God as this maniacal tyrant who just allows bad things to happen to us. But, this is not so.
Do bad things still happen? Yes, they do. Do they break His heart? Yes, they do. But, is God still good?
Yes, He is good.
As they say in the Cursillo community, “Good is good, all the time. All the time, God is good”.
I hold on to that on my hardest days.
I hope you will too, dear reader.
Until next time,
Sheila
Maureen Fry September 23, 2016, 4:16 am
Sheila my daughter, you are wise beyond your years. You are so right the evil we see manifested daily is a rejection of God and his commandments. People think of the commandments as things we must not do. I prefer to look at them as advice from God on how we protect ourselves and those we love. If we break them, we suffer miserably, if we live them, then we take steps in the direction of living in the Divine Will. You are so right, and I agree with your insights into the chaos.
Admin October 4, 2016, 1:42 am
Thanks mama. I can always count on you to read my blog!
Jeri Robold September 23, 2016, 4:16 pm
BEAUTIFUL! What a great writer you are, so profound!
Admin October 4, 2016, 1:42 am
Thank you, Jeri!
Jerry Kelly September 24, 2016, 2:21 am
God _is_ good. The word ‘still’ confuses the question, but ironically illuminates the essential asking of it.
Our associate pastor recently gave us copies of A.W. Tozer’s ‘The Attributes of God’ to read over the next few months. It’s an easy read, but typical me I’m still on chapter 1: God’s Infinitude. It is not an infinitely long chapter though! Each of the ten chapters is an attribute, including, among others, God’s Perfection, God’s Justice, and God’s Goodness. I’m guilty of judging books by their titles, and find myself somewhat satisfied judging this one.
I really don’t see, hear or otherwise perceive anything out there that I can point to as God. Same goes for inside: Where precisely is He? Yet, since I believe everything exists, God must also exist. It’s a bit of an embarrassing letdown to rationalize it that bluntly, but there it is. Immediately the question again arises: If God then exists, what or who is God?
The title of A.W. Tozer’s book provides an answer: God is a collection of attributes. The book is Tozer letting the world know what _he_ attributes to God.
I don’t think Tozer would answer the question (What or who is God?) quite that way, but then why would he write and title such a book if he weren’t thinking along the same lines? Perhaps I’ll know more if I manage to get beyond the first chapter!
It’s a satisfying judgement because it is we humans who constantly create a God in our minds who created us. Or we create in our minds a God who loves us unconditionally. A God who will make sure that we will see His justice done. A perfect God. We participate. That’s so undeniable. When we are bold, we express what we think in words or actions. When we simply wonder about God, we inevitably assign attributes to Him. This attribution guides our actions. Those who don’t participate? How can we read their minds? How can we read anyone’s minds? We can only be aware of such others’ actions and, if we dare, attribute them to action in accord or discord with God or God’s will. I’m speaking religiousy here.
So in this light it is absolutely up to each of us who claim any understanding of God to be constantly aware of our personal collection of His attributes, whatever they may be. To lose this awareness is to become open to sin, which is unloving acts, which others perceive, and in turn tend to shape their internal attributions. This is all constantly happening all the time in all of us. It may start to sound abstract, but it isn’t. And so what if it is? Infinitude is abstract and Tozer would agree.
So what am I ‘still’ attributing to God? I must remain aware of such thoughts.
As far as ‘good’ and ‘bad’, before I get to the God’s Goodness chapter, I would say that that is a personal preference. What we personally judge to be ‘bad’ is our attribute to something in the world. We don’t see the goodness in it, so God is obviously not revealed to us there, yet. Unless of course we attribute the badness to people acting, utterly unaware of how unloving their acts appear. Again, it’s our participation and seeing to it that our willful attributes are assigned properly to God and/or man. God is _always_ right, and as long as we do this, God will ‘still’ be good.
Admin October 4, 2016, 1:41 am
I appreciate your thoughts, Jerry. I’ll answer simply that if you are a Christian, you have accepted that Christ is the God-man, who became human, and lived and walked on this Earth. Christ was a real person who WAS God. If you accept this teaching, you are a Christian. If you don’t accept this teaching, then the answer is much more abstract, because no other person has walked this Earth who claimed to be God, performed miracles, forgave sins, and resurrected. I guess the simple answer is, in the Christian worldview, Jesus is God, the second part of the Trinity. And that is the point of view I am writing from. Christ told us what and who God is and what He expects of us. If we heed the commandments and read scripture, that is how we begin to know God. He speaks to us through His word, and that’s how He reveals himself. I hope this helps some, to clarify what I mean when I talk about God.
Blessings,
Sheila
Maryanne Fahey October 9, 2016, 6:42 am
Sheila….absolutely beautiful. You are an amazing woman and your words are everything I feel but would never be able to write them so beautifully…..God is Good all the time, de colores my friend.
Admin January 27, 2017, 3:10 am
Thank you so much my friend! De Colores!