I'm laughing out loud (lol for you youngin's) at t...

2008-02-25T14:57:00.000-06:00

I'm laughing out loud (lol for you youngin's) at the pheasant thing. The thing that comes to my mind reading this is a question Yancey asked in the last chapter we read. Basically he said that when we ask the question about why God allows something or why the church allows something, we have to at the end come back and ask the question, "Why do I allow those things to go on?" I see so many problems and do absolutely nothing to make it better. Except maybe pray for God to fix it. I guess that's kind of like seeing a need and then turning to the guy next to you and saying, "aren't you going to do something about that?" Prayer is awesome, but often He has already told us how He will address certain needs:through His people.

But I struggle with the kids-thing most of all too. But I think blaming God is just as easy as blaming other people. And we are good at the blame game, really good.

Hahaha, corrected. :)

2008-02-07T16:57:00.000-06:00

Hahaha, corrected. :)

Jesus didn't come as a pheasant Christa, Jesus isn...

2008-02-07T00:58:00.000-06:00

Jesus didn't come as a pheasant Christa, Jesus isn't a bird; peasant would be more accurate. (That made me cry laughing)
Y'all sound like your having some awesome discussions in core. Your question is a good one, why does our opinion change about the goodness of God despite the clear consistency of the suffering in the world?
As I was sitting here thinking about your question these lyrics played on my computer

Every time I try to make you smile,
You're always feeling sorry for yourself…
Every time I try to make you laugh,
You can't your too tough…
You think you're loveless…
Is that too much that I’m askin for?

I wonder if that's how God feels sometimes. Like he does tries to make us smile, show us how great he is, but we are too caught up in ourselves to notice. Like the little girl that runs up to her dad in her mom's dress and asks if she looks pretty but gets brushed away by her dad because he is busy. I wonder how often God acts as the way the little girl does, trying to show us how beautiful he is, but we ignore him.
I see in the scripture God's attempt to solve some of the suffering. He tries to stop it at the source, at sin, with the 10 commandments. He reinforces righteousness by blessing the people living it out like Abraham, David, Hezekiah. He sent prophets to be his voice to the earth, to tell people exactly what God says but they were ignored. None of those efforts solved the problem. Finally he sent his son, to remove the chains wrapped around people, the chains that inflicted the suffering, sin. God loosened us from our ways that cause suffering. God implemented the church to take care of those who had little, to look out for the unfortunate. God has made every effort to lessen the world's suffering short of claiming control of the earth; which is still in his plan according to the Bible. Jesus will come back and restore Eden, restore paradise and banish the suffering we experience.
Yancy notes that Jesus didn't fix the world. It would make sense to right? Why let all this pain happen when he could just end it all now? I don't have a good answer for that but I'm glad he didn't. If he had, I wouldn't be here, I wouldn't know him, I wouldn't get to spend eternity in paradise. I wouldn't get to experience God if it weren't for his choice NOT to fix it all yet.
As a side note, Yancey wrote two books called Disappointment with God and Where is God When It Hurts? addressing some of these questions. I haven't read them but if they are anything like The Jesus I Never Knew I expect they are pretty good.

Comments on Copyright Christa: Suffering. Freedom. Desire.

I'm laughing out loud (lol for you youngin's) at t...

Hahaha, corrected. :)

Jesus didn't come as a pheasant Christa, Jesus isn...