Replies

One More Post About Worry....
I posted here and here about my struggles with worry and that it's possible to break out of it. Then Gulf War One posted about Psalm 22. As a result of the combination of these ideas and verses, I decided to write the following.

Back when I first started trying to fight worry, I really made no progress at all. Secret burried anger at God over desparate prayers for loved ones which I mistakenly believed, with all my heart, had been ignored. So 'Let Go and Let God' wasn't exactly working for me.

Part of the answer(s) I've found center around this issue. There are promises of God for protection and reminders that He is all poweful. So what to think when it seems like the All Powerful didn't protect someone you love?

Many of the apostles were marytered. One supposes that they prayed for protection, too.

I'd heard that we can't understand God's reasoning (my favorite one is Job) and agree that He's not my employee or 'genie in a bottle' to concede to my demands. Also, that we lost protection He originally intended for us in Eden, when we refused Him in order to persue our own interests. Okay, so why should I stop worrying and trust that God will handle things now?

One day a pastor said something that flicked a light on and actually made sense. I wish I still had the sheet of paper I transcribed it on because it was the key to unlocking a series of doors that let me escape the prison of worry I had lived in.

I will do the best I can to describe what he meant, but for now, I've lost record of his words.

He said that 'God's promises to protect us refer to lasting harm'. The entire sermon was needed for me to get the idea of 'lasting' harm so I have to hope you're several jumps ahead of me here; I was slow to learn this.

Some people suffer their entire lives. Some live under slavery and intense abuse, and know nothing else. How is this not lasting harm?

An infant dies for no apparent reason in his crib overnight. Doesn't this count as lasting?

A woman breaks her back in a car accident and is quadrapalegic. Lasting!

John 16:33 ³³"I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world."

Some people, as in the book of Job, will tell us these people were 'outside the will of God' or had sinned or some other act deserving punishment. But despite His complete innocence, Christ was crucified - was it because He was 'outside the will of God'?

Matthew 5:45 ⁴⁵that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.

The pastor explained 'lasting harm' mean 'permanent separation from God'. Job sufferered horrible tragedies which God allowed to happen, but God never allowed that which would drive Job past a decision point to force him to reject his belief in God. God knows what we can withstand and still make our own choices.

The pastor said that in choosing God, and winning Heaven in reply, we are assured that in Heaven, there are no more tears, no memory of the painful losses, betrayal and suffering we go through in life.

Therefore, the time we spend in this life, which grants us free will so that we are never mere puppets but play a key role in shaping who we become, is brief in comparison to eternity with God, and during that eternity, we will not remember pain and suffering. Lasting harm, would be that which denies us the ability to choose God and Heaven.

You can decide to reject God if things happen which you feel are beyond your endurance. I've talked to people who have. I think Ted Turner is on film explaining he rejected God following the death of his sister. But this, the pastor said, is a feature of free will.

God will never force you to chose Him, because that would not be love. But God in His sovereignty and wisdom promises He will never allow anything to happen that would eliminate your choice (exceed your personal capacity) - you still have free will.

Likewise God would never force those who reject Him to then live with Him for all eternity. I find it ironic that the left is always shrieking about the blight of authoritarian Christianity, while telling us how to live our lives, what we're allowed to say, and being allowed themselves to freely reject God and insult those who follow Him.

FORCE and CONTROL comes from leftists and then they blame it on everyone else.

I used to have the key sentence from that sermon I attended framed in a shadowbox on the wall at eye level so I could see it everytime I came into the house through the garage. I saw it for years - that's how long it took for it to sink in.

I have been protected from harm in life as a result of prayer. Many, many, many times. I've had many answered prayers for others - otherwise impossibilities just in the nick of time.

God does instruct us to pray, but has reminded us (e.g., Job) that we cannot understand a fraction of what He understands, so we will often have to wait for the answer to the question, 'WHY?!" when what we prayed for does not happen.

He explains to Job that unless Job is capable of commanding the stars, ocean and all living things which He designed, he would not understand the answer God could give to the question, "why did you let all that happen to me?"

Job 40-42 strike me as beautiful poetry in some parts (the stars, clothing the necks of horses with a flowing mane etc.). But it also seems like a 'day in the life' glimpse at what it's like to be Lord of All Creation and have some like me complain that you didn't notice or don't care, even after dying on the cross to profess your love.

Here's a little snippet:

God’s Power and Wisdom
40 Moreover the Lord answered Job, and said:
²“Shall the one who contends with the Almighty correct Him?
He who rebukes God, let him answer it.”
Job’s Response to God
³Then Job answered the Lord and said:
⁴“Behold, I am vile;
What shall I answer You?
I lay my hand over my mouth.

⁵Once I have spoken, but I will not answer;
Yes, twice, but I will proceed no further.”
God’s Challenge to Job
⁶Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said:
⁷“Now ^[a]prepare yourself like a man;
I will question you, and you shall answer Me:
⁸“Would you indeed ^[b]annul My judgment?
Would you condemn Me that you may be justified?
Gulf War One recommended Psalm 22, and I am reminded of how powerful that Psalm is. Personally, it used to cause me so much pain before I finally got 'lasting' harm (and sometimes I backslide and have to 're-learn' it) into my understanding. Now, I think it's as painfully beautiful as it is true. Psalm 22 NIV
I hope this post does no lasting harm; it was my best attempt at describing this mystery of life.