I wrote my blog a day or so ago “Afraid of Pain? I Am and Thankful in It”. Then I was thinking mostly of the human suffering around me in all I know. A little sarcasm and reality conversation, I thought, might be helpful for some… If God really cares why are some saved in pain snd others lost to us?
“My God, my God, why?” Human and appropriate to ask. Divine, not to answer. In part because there is no satisfactory answer.
Some answers strain, really—to not answer by the response of “God’s will..” (Now clearly, the statement itself may be and usually is a profound confession of faith and I will quietly affirm the sense in which it is true). But as to its Biblical truth content? The answer is yes and decidedly, no—God did not make this happen or want it to happen.
Open theologians attempt a meaningful answer by placing the Eternal so much inside the universe as to be the largest inter-weaving and loving presence but who are as bound by the rules of the universe as we—ever moving the co-eternal universe toward loving ends. I just don’t buy it at multiple levels, the center of which is—such a view lacks the One gift central to any human need to escape death, injustice or sin—a partner who is close enough to genuinely care, taste, touch our human struggles with death, disease, injustice and our propensity to self destruct snd yet powerful enough to imagine and live-in a reality as good as the love we seek.
So I remain the ever stoic and much more.. believing in the Communal God of Love, a Trinity of unique Persons and yet who offer a communal Love capable of holding both hell and heaven in their hands, committed to Heaven coming to the Earth.
Why hell? For what time is hellish outcomes allowed? I can only guess. I suspect it is until all come home, including the evil one. It is a costly grace indeed but at least consistent with the very Jewish impressions and contradictions of The People of God, old and new.
“Why?” Ask it, with me. Explore. But the one question the Divine addresses throughout the text is this: What does a person seeking love do in the midst of pain?
Today, this took on an even more personal note as I’ve been re-admitted to Swedish Hospital because of complications related to a very recent surgery. “Oh well, its God’s will.” Not! But these weeks are doing what I’ve been praying to God about, for years—To once again love God first as no other. Pain is instrumental in focusing human attention on what is really real! Please understand, that doesn’t mean your loss and my pain were in any sense God’s will.
This much I know: “In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God. And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”
Romans 8:26-28 NIV
Blessings! Terry 9/9/2021
1st Writing Referenced above:
https://wscnpastorterry.wixsite.com/musingsofapastorplac/post/https-wscnpastorterry-wixsite-com-musi
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