i just had one of
those days that could have been a disaster.
bad things happen when you have a day like mine and then listen to Chris
Tomlin while driving down the bypass at 55 mph.
crying while behind the wheel of a car going really fast is never
advisable, but sometimes unavoidable.
ever had one of
those days when the idea of an all-consuming, all-powerful, never-ending love
just knocks you off your feet? and all you can do is just sit there and take
it? and all you're thinking is how nothing else matters too much anymore?
*insert Chris Tomlin
here*
to back up a good
number of hours, i woke up early afternoon
feeling excellent. after a fairly excellent nigh at work. birds were
singing outside and a huge cat was purring directly into my face from a
distance of about 4 inches. i had a Hobby Lobby shopping list that expanded as
soon as i walked in the door from the best parking spot ever. and then because i had 4 hours before a
meeting, i crossed Vann Drive and picked up a new book by a favorite author in
Books a Million.
that's when this guy
walks in and decides to sit right next to me. two and a half of those hours go
by before he decides to ask my opinion on the legalization of pot. i tried to
find a non-committal way of saying, "frankly sir, i do not care." but
he isn't great at picking up on subtle cues and keeps talking and then asking
my opinion on issues that i either know nothing about or did not even know WERE
issues. this guy is apparently very
concerned about the war on drugs and how this was driving so much of this
nation's criminal activity. and i just had to disagree a bit and say that i
thought sin and selfishness were a bit more to blame.
the next 90 minutes
of my life were filled with this energetic middle aged man expounding to me all
the reasons he was no longer a religious OR a spiritual person and why no
Christian could possibly give him enough answers to prove Christianity
conclusively and therefore religious people were all hypocrites. for instance, if God really was all-powerful
and good, then why will you not ever find a case of Him healing an amputee?
nota one! no matter if every human on earth all sat down and prayed at the same
time for an amputee's arm to come back. clearly, God is not all He is cracked
up to be. there's just too much bad. the
idea of a "good" God and the mere existence of a "hell" are
two incompatible truths.
i was at a loss. i
hate discussions like this because he didn't really want an answer. misquoting Bible verses to
"dis-prove" religion and then not letting me use any sort of Bible
context to respond is just not fair, first of all. he listened half-heartedly
and then energetically blew off anything i just finished saying. which wasn't alot.
i was relieved when
i finally had to leave. but the conversation still hasn't left my mind. this meeting i was at involved some
discussion on real-life situations that are a daily reality for way too many
kids. i know some of these kids and the thought of what they have to handle
from such an early age is just foreign.
i left, and all i
could think of was this prior conversation with yet another human who just
can't understand a good God and ….
...and really how i
have no good answer to that. not that i
can easily put into words.
i had a good day
tod.. well, yesterday, now.
but i've had a
handful of… years… that were not good. the dude in the bookstore probably made
all the same assumptions that most people do about who i am, what i've done and
seen, and what i believe. most people are wrong, but that's beside the point.
the point is that
while i can look back and see how at least some of it played a vital role in
making me into the "me" i am.
but some of it i still wrestle with, still haven't come to terms with
entirely, still even have the occasional nightmare about. there are honestly
some terrible memories i have, with no positive outcome or result that i can
see. if i could see the purpose in it,
could see what good came out of it, then i would totally be okay with it- i
promise! but i can't.
but this is the part
where good ole' Chris Tomlin comes on and reminds me that it's totally possible
for there to be a good God who lets us make a choice to love because there is
no love unless there's a choice. and
that God really does know everything, and because i don't there are tons of
answers that i can't give to tough questions… but i know the One who does have
the answers. and it's gonna be enough
for me. there's a love that is present
in this world, and the ones who are in tune with it can tell you what it does.
it drowns out fear. and hopelessness. and doubts. and pain. and anger. this
love is too big to let petty things like temporary insecurities defeat it. not
to trivialize the tragedies that affect persons and plague nations by any
means- they are horrible, some of them downright evil, but however big the evil
is, the love is an even bigger answer than the questions call for. THE answer, really. completely NOT provable
by science or even rational thought.
there is almost no good reason why a God would even think to make us,
and then go beyond our wildest imaginations to go redeem us, remake us AGAIN,
after the incredible lengths humans have gone through to cut Him out of our
lives and go our own ways. it's a crazy,
relentlessly insane concept that could blow out of the water any philosophy
book in that entire little bookstore. i
pointed the guy to a couple CS Lewis books because that guy is so much smarter
than me and might be able to speak to the bookstore creeper in ways i can't,
and also because he's British which means you can read it in a cool accent and
it just makes the whole experience 10 times better.
i still don't
recommend bursting into tears while driving, but i wholeheartedly DO recommend setting aside
some time (while NOT in potentially life-threatening situations) to ponder how
you would answer the complete stranger who asked you to reconcile a messed-up
world with a "good" God. because you're going to meet one someday who
might actually want to know. and if the
idea of that Good God just brings you to overflow with tears of joy, know that
you are surrounded by a Love that is even more thrilled than you are. and by skeptics who think you're insane for
believing it. and by a host of guardian
angels who will keep you from causing accidents on the road if that's where you
are when the moment hits you.
if you're one of
those skeptics, i can't do much more than point to the bookshelf with CS Lewis.
if you've read this far into the post, then you've already seen me confess that
i don't have much more of an answer.
but maybe i don't
have to.
We could analyze the conversant himself, except that you don't sound especially eager--so let's examine the cases presented, instead.
ReplyDeleteThe amputee argument isn't logically sound as pertains to Christianity. Because, if even God's *own* prayers (in the person of Christ) didn't prevent His own death on a cross, then, de facto, it is emphatically *not* part of the Christian belief that requests for physical healing will always be answered in this life regardless of how they are prayed. Spiritual healing, on the other hand, is a different matter entirely--pity he didn't think to bring up the subject...
His observation wasn't entirely accurate in the physical sense, either, in that it suffered from a much too one-dimensional shortsightedness. Having myself had a grandmother who was an amputee, the prayer that she might walk again was indeed answered through the providence of a prosthetic, and I am certain that many medical-based missionaries are in the business of providing the crippled with prosthetics, as well. After all, Jeremiah's wall was built upon both prayer *and* the physical application of human ingenuity.
I most often find Lewis rather cold comfort for the topic of suffering in this world, but I often do find encouragement for suffering in the pen of Francis Schaeffer. One of the more blunt explanations for the results of evil in this world is observed in his line:
"One cannot have the Christian answer that men are really significant in history and then expect God to eradicate every wrong result from that significance while allowing the good aspects of that significance to still operate. If man can influence history, he can influence it for evil and cruelty, as well as for good and noncruelty..."
With all of the nearly unbelievable instances of extreme human cruelty in the world, the fact that someone would complain of the justice of some people going there strikes me as somewhat of an unfathomable argument. Kim Jong-il starved innumerable of his own subjects to death, and treated the populace with unthinkable barbarity. Kim Jong-il is now in the lowest circles of hell. Well in that case, "Ding Dong' the merry-oh, sing it high, sing it low, let them know the Wicked lech is dead!" There was certainly no justice for his crimes in this life, let him taste the full justice of the next one.
In the end, the downsides is that it's nearly impossible to hold a rational conversation with a person of the personality type that loves the sound of his own voice too much to let anyone else upset the droning sound with a fair cross-examination. I mean, when a person's started off his day off by eating five times his rightful allotment of Self-righty O's, there's not really all that much in the way of reason that can get through to 'em...
Maybe I'll just leave off with another thought from Schaeffer:
"Our trusting the Lord does not mean that there are not times of tears, and I think it is a mistake as Christians to act as though trusting the Lord and tears are not compatible. As a matter of fact, it is my opinion that the greatest trust in the Lord comes when we trust Him in the midst of tears.
Now it is our prayer, however, that the time of tears might be past and that new doors may open before you, as you have walked through this difficult time. On the other hand, we never get to the end of the battle in this life, and it is only as we look forward to Heaven or the coming of the Lord that we can look forward to a time of being absent from battle for any long amount of time. This is the experience we have had in our lives; constantly we are confronted with the wonder of what the Lord does with the poor human resources we place into His hands for His use. And yet with the wonder comes the clash of armor in the constant ebb and flow of the battle...."
P.S. Have you ever thought about, perhaps, looking into working at a (part-time) ministry for youths from abusive homes? You've shut me out from understanding your own past, (understandable) but you have certainly gone through enough suffering from those experience that I would think you'd be able to minister to such youths with more gracious tenderness than anyone else I know! One of my other friends is involved in that type of ministry, and the stories I've heard can be pretty heartbreaking. When you're feeling emotionally stronger (however long it takes) I think you could probably very effectively minister God's gentle love to a whole bevy of very hurting people... Ah, well, in the end I can barely make heads or tails out of comprehending my own calling, let alone talking about that of others'! ^_^ Just do remember that I'm always cheering for ya, okay? =)
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