Posted on 05/19/2013 12:21:32 PM PDT by HiTech RedNeck
Edited on 05/25/2013 2:44:13 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
"Where were You, God?" The question arises daily as news of tragedies abound, and even from time to time as the tragedy involves ourselves. Servicemen die in a bungled military defense operation that should have been a cake walk, and no government official has credible answers. A son is shot dead in his prime by a wanton criminal. A wife dies decades too soon from a deadly disease. A busy mother dies unexpectedly from a sudden heart attack. Maybe you were emotionally abused when a child and have been saddled with a destructive habit that you acquired in an effort to escape from the torment by the only means you knew, and prayer -- once you realized you were in a trap -- seemed scant help or comfort. In these myriad situations the bitter questions often arise: "Oh Lord, where were You? Dear God, why did You roll over for this? Almighty Father, I've always heard that you are righteous and omnipotent, so why did You not act when it would have been so simple for You to stop it from happening? Oh, the heart-rending woe! Why did You lose, God?"
This is not a modern question, and it was not discovered by modern atheists, agnostics, or freethinkers. It arose many thousands of years ago to a man named Job (pronounced with a long "o") who kept a tender conscience towards God about what he did, and as a result displayed a very upright life, and was blessed with a large, loving family and many earthly riches. And yet without warning this man's world came crashing down upon him. It began with the destruction and theft of his great riches, and was topped by the loss of most of the lives of his dear family. Then, the trouble soon escalated with an inexplicable illness that covered him with sores. His wife, in an apparent hint that God was fickle and undeserving of love, in great disgust told him to curse God and die. His friends, who initially wisely comforted him in silence, then began to lecture him sarcastically about how he must have done something terribly wrong to provoke God's wrath, and his agony grew as a heated argument erupted and Job insisted he had done nothing to deserve the tragedy. Finally a wiser friend suggested that Job look to God's sovereignty, and then God answered Job from a whirlwind, challenging the limitations of Job's knowledge about what God can do. With a deeper appreciation of God's capabilities, Job stopped complaining, and soon God blessed Job twice as much as he had been blessed before.
There is a simple enough answer to the question, at least to the mind: by allowing the world and even our selves to fail so dramatically at times, God highlights His capacity to save, a faith in which we sometimes are sorely lacking, and even if we know it in our heads, our hearts are slower and lag behind that and need to be taught. For God is not merely solving complex intellectual problems. He is solving problems that encompass our entire beings that He has created and bestowed with capabilities that are an image of His own.
I’m in a similar ship as you are.
Sappy nonsense in the guise of comfort is more annoying than anything else. Then they’ll spout the Calvinist nonsense about a spirit in dwelling that is not by my choice.
Whatever.
There’s much happiness in harnessing the levers of life reminding ourselves all the time how little time in consciousness we really have. One in fifty human conceptions end in a spontaneous (natural) abortion, often with the mother not even aware she was pregnant.
What a grand design.
I mean small-h he about Barack Obama... though I’m sure Barack does not complain about the capital H
Once a world that is allowed to fail at all is admitted, then it is logically vain to complain it can fail so bad that an omnipotent God cannot reach beyond all the broken pieces and gather it back into a beautiful whole.
It is not that sore a mental exercise.
It’s a lot sorer for our hearts.
There’s no meaning to suffering when there is none to notice it.
That’s why I mentioned the point about those spontaneous abortions.
There’s no problem with questioning God about paradoxes or apparent contradictions. The answer may be difficult to comprehend however.
Well I’d frankly be glad to be the Father’s willing poker chip, because in the end it will be glorified in heaven, but God doesn’t blindly shuffle cards. He knows what’s in the deck, to extend the metaphor. You’ve read the story; you’ve seen the map of the ocean. Now will you go out there into that huge, huge entity and try to swim or sail? That’s where the worth of life is.
That is a rather easy question; the spectacle is visible to angels (both good and evil) and to God, and even in some manner to those who read the medical books.
It might help also to note that if God were caught up in reacting to what evil does, this side of the end times, then God would no longer be God for He would be at the behest of whatever evil wants to drag Him into countering. Think about it ... God has a solution to all of this, but we neither see it as we go through it nor are we privy to the Greath White Throne vagaries to come and what exists after the great judgment.
Job had a character that he couldn’t chamge no matter the circumstances
I think many people have a different notion of where God is. This short video may help explain what Christians believe.
True. God does not let evil go on without limit because as you say the tail would be wagging the dog.
Kind of think you missed the point...
Funny you wrote about Job, that's the book I was just reading. Personally, I thank obama for motivating a return to my seeker's ways. He may have indirectly saved me by screwing things up so badly.
I posted the following on the thread about famous atheist/former atheist Antony Flew, but it might be better posted here.
As for evidence, you cite a lot of the most recent science, yet you remark that your discovery of the Divine did not come through "experiments and equations," but rather, "through an understanding of the structures they unveil and map."
Yep, this has been my path as well. In trying to understand the physical world and the rules by which it operates, I was lead to the Designer who built it and wrote the operating system.
The last book I read, "Heaven is For Real: A Little Boy's Astounding Story of His Trip to Heaven and Back" and current book I'm reading, "Heaven is Real, But So is Hell" have given me the answers I've been looking for to prove the truth of their titles.
And, both have more than lived up to their titles. After all I've learned through study and experience, I am 100% convinced of the reality of Heaven, Hell and the wonders and the consequences laid out in the Bible.
It's absolutely real. And we are almost out of time.
Flew is lucky to have found the truth before it was too late. I found way more than I wanted to know about what happens to atheists, and everyone else who turns away, by reading "My Descent into Death: A Second Chance at Life".
Parts of Howard Storm's experience still shake me when I think about them. I think that at some level I know his experience was real and awaits me, too. It waits for all of us who take that path.
What I read in Vassula Rydén's book tells me that we really don't want to experience the consequences our behavior has earned for us.
I've been wondering when it would hit His fan and apparently we won't have long to wait. We've pushed all of His buttons and have just about used up our Grace period to return to Him and His Mercy.
Next comes His Justice...did I mention how very, very unhappy He is with us? Time is running out...
The good Lord knows everybody’s limits and sometimes those are greater than what the person himself may think (especially if the Lord supplies extra, unaccustomed grace). Job’s faith, however the Lord may have helped it in a quiet manner, was sufficient to weather the ordeal. But God wanted Job’s faith to grow. And it did.
Insult God? Have you read the book of Job? Its all about a wager between Satan and God over how Job will react. Satan and God keep upping the ante. Read the story. Just a gambling game. Poor Job just a chip in the pile.
If you had your family blotted out of your life and swapped with a replacement set like how Job was handed, would you truly, honestly be happy?
One speculates at great risk that “almost all” God’s patience is gone... at least with respect to anybody else. I can’t tell anybody that. What I can tell them, however, is that if they are not earnest about getting on God’s rocket ship, then the devil’s rocket ship that they are riding (with its way stations of flesh and world) IS going to carry them to a hell that was architected for the sake of demons, not men, but men can go there if they will not grasp God’s saving hand.
The angels (that already have full knowledge) gain what exactly, by observing humans die in a way other humans aren’t even aware of? Why would any god want to test angels?
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