And we're back
Well I hope that you all had a wonderful Christmas celebration with your families and friends. Mine was filled with famliy, food, and fun.
I'm running a bit dry on material right now - seems like a drought has come of sorts in my mind and I'm struggling to come up with blog worthy bits of thoughts and words.
So, I'm going to try and stir up some dialogue here. Recently, one of my deep thinker must reads put up a quote by John Piper regarding how God views suffering.
This is the post:
http://www.brokenmessenger.com/2005/12/how-does-god-view-suffering.html
My response was the following:
Thinking out loud, so here goes . . . . I realize as I complain (oh yes I complain) about why God allows certain things to happen that are hard, that bring suffering, and that are the product of evil and sin I forget that the miracle is that God does allow it to happen, he allows life to go on, men to walk the earth, and sin to inhabit this world for a short time. I always forget that God made a choice in the garden of Eden, He showed grace and mercy in that one moment, to allow Adam and Eve to continue on in the now sin infested world, He allowed them to suffer, to struggle, but more than that to live. God could have ended it all there, He could have washed His hands with creation, He could have stopped the effects of sin in that one moment by destroying His creation, but He didn't. He allowed us to live and the struggles, the calamity, those are also pictures of His grace and mercy because we are able to experience them. So yes, there are struggles, and sin, and pain, and that is life in this world. How wonderful His grace and love that He allows us to live in it, with a promise of a future without it.
So in light of all of this, talk to me, tell me what you are thinking.
posted by Katie @ 2:23 PM
12 Comments:
Glad you're back K-T.
The only other thing that I could mention is that He not only have complete control over it while He allowed it, but that He allowed His Son to be subjected to the ultimate of suffering, and to the worst death recorded in the Bible.
The perfect harmony of grace and justice was given to us in Jesus' gift to us.
Well JCol, I'm back but not "back", yes people I am officially on vaca until January 9 (and yes you can begin hating me now).
Ahhhh equal parts grace and justice, one of the biggest quandaries that my mind tries to understand. How can a God who knows the ultimate depth of sin we humans will bring forth, and therefore the length and depth of justice He will enforce also give a perfectly equal amount of grace. Really, just the idea that God, and only God, can seek perfect justice and offer perfect grace, so that neither overpowers the other, or either is less than the other. Only in Christ, only in Him, only in God, can that perfect harmony of justice and grace be found. This thought blows me away and makes me hit the ground with thankfulness for both his justice and His grace, equally.
Eric - you're asking all the right questions, the tough ones at that, and the funny thing is that I ask the same questions, questions are good.
You said: "he puts us here on earth, with the threat of love and worship me or go to hell for all eternity"
I would say: "He put us here for His delight/love, for our delight/love in Him, and then we (man) decided to turn from that love, that delight and do things our own way. Then, in His love, He decided to let us continue to live, even if by our own means and in our own way, because He choose to bring us back to Him by the only way possible - His son. See we were the ones who chose hell, we chose sin, and the consequences of separation from God (sin) are pretty easy, either be without sin and with God, or be with sin and away from God (hell). But He offers us the opportunity to still love and worship Him (it isn't forced, it is a response to His intial love, His initial mercy and grace). We respond to God, He is the one who makes the first move, we are the ones who react/respond to Him, not the other way around. We're already destined for hell, it is the path we are all on when we begin life (this isn't a happy thing to think about here), but God, in His mercy and grace, offers us a different path. He says, choose me, choose life, choose love, and I will save you from this path you have already begun to walk on.
Worshiping and loving God might be hard for me at times, because I get in the way of it, but it has never been forced.
I encourage you to take a look at God, not at the evil dictator, or the harsh judge, but as the One who created you, who formed you with joy and delight (it says in the Psalms that God "fashions" us in our mother's womb - all of us, individually, He creates us with love and joy), who want so much to have a relationship with you, to have you know Him, that He witheld nothing, not even His own divine Son, to bring you back to a place that you could even begin to love and worship Him. Because, really without Christ, none of us could love God, none of us could worship Him, because none of us would really know Him.
"I just pray that God will understand-he's probably the only one that can really help her anyway." He does understand, so much better than anyone else can, and He is really the only one that can help her, and He wants to, oh how he wants to.
Ok, other people out there, what are you thinking?
Katie: Jan 9? Lucky! Enjoy it... *jealous...*
Your thoughts on this matter I think are right on.
God, being outside of time, has the advantage of seeing how it will all work out in the end, while we can not. God, being omniscient, knew man would fall into sin even before He created everything. He also had the plan to redeem us from all of it in eternity past as well. Sin and its consequences won't be with us forever. Now God allows these things to test our faith, to see how strong it is and what it is made of. Look what Job went through. He never lost his faith through it all. And remember, Satan doesn't have the power over us unless God grants him permission. Even with Job's suffering, Satan still had to ask God to let him put Job through that. Jesus tells Peter that Satan has asked permission to sift him (Peter) as wheat.
Hope that makes sense in some way or other...
My initial plan was to come back to this, and every time I do, I still don't feel ready to really respond.
I'll be back tomorrow when I don't have "medicine head" going on so I can give a concise, well thought out answer.
wow, great conversation going on here, I love to hear everyone's thoughts, thanks all of your for your two cents. And I'm am always open to see the subject at hand take a few turns as everyone fleshes out their ideas.
"Fleshes out"?? Why did that sound like something from a horror movie to me? blech. Sorry, K-T. No hard feelings.
See you day after tomorrow! What time are you coming over?
So easily distracted. Isn't there a song that has those words in it?
Talk to me...tell me what you're thinking...
I can hear Paula Abdul's voice in my head right now.
I'm thinking of a different 80's song.
I want to know...
what you're thinking.
Tell me what's on your mind.
oh, JCol. i didn't mean i actually KNEW of a song with these words. the words just sounded like they COULD belong to a song. a song that Paula Abdul would sing. but that I cannot verify whether she did. that's the kind of memory I have. really, it is better to never have a conversation with me, because chances are i won't know what i'm talking about.
But Jes, because you can write paragraphs like that and say things like, "it is better to never have a conversation with me, because chances are i won't know what i'm talking about" - it makes me really want to hang out with you.
Because really, who else can write a sentence like that???
And I mean that in a GOOD way. :)
pqhbu - peekaboo?
Post a Comment
<< Home