in my pain... there were two basic things i was wrestling with. i guess i'm still wrestling, but with less angst. but wrestling just the same. i think it's the curse of post-garden life.
one... the essence of G*D's involvement in our world
two... what we can trust him to do
most people struggle with the idea of G*D because evil and suffering exist in the world. they conclude, therefore... that he doesn't care, isn't there, somehow has one hand tied behind his back or intended it all to happen as part of his bigger plan.
in spite of the pain... i've encountered the love of G*D through-out my life in such tangible ways that it was hard to believe that he didn't care... in spite of my present pain. so that left either 'he isn't there and i've been dupted all these years'... or 'he is there and somehow it's all part of his good plan'... or 'he's not fully in charge for some reason'.
the more i run into people whose lives were so tangled and twisted at early ages... the more i've felt frustrated in believing the standard evangelical line that 'everyone gets what they deserve except for those who embrace Jesus, who then in the end get what they don't deserve.' i get that we've all blown it... but the G*D i experience in Jesus (through the scriptures and otherwise) just doesn't seem consistent with the common understanding of a god who sends everyone to hell except for those who say a little prayer.
i'm not saying he couldn't or doesn't do that, but rather that it's not that simple... or as nice and neat as we advertise it to be.
i'd seen the beauty of a life transformed by Jesus. i thought i had experienced it personally. but the more i met people who had overcome incredible odds without Jesus... and the more "christians" i met who supposedly knew Jesus, yet whose lives seemed unchanged in the most basic ways... and the more i acknowledged my own never-ending inner struggles in spite of years of devotion and discipline... ...the more i was forced to question G*D's fairness, plan, sovereignty... and character.
one might wonder why i never questioned that before due to the extensive amount of pain in the world. and that's a fair question.
certainly i had.
but i guess i'd seen enough 'miracles' come from crisis... had enjoyed such an intimate transformation personally... and had believed my loving G*D was somehow fair and just in whatever he did, that i never allowed myself to embrace the depths of humanity's condition.
but september connected me to that reality on a deeper level. i found myself concluding that the world had gone crazy... that we desperately needed help... and that the plan i was sold in church, bible college & seminary was only making a small dent. so... i concluded... maybe i've misunderstood the plan.
or... maybe there was no plan.
entertaining the latter took me places of which i'm not proud. but i needed to go there just the same.
