Our house is on the market! Horray! Now comes the waiting. And then the negotiating, and details of contracts and attorneys, and then more waiting for closing date.... But nonetheless I am very happy we don't have to go back for a while. I love all the people there, but I am not loving the three and a half hour drive.
Ethan doesn't have very many words he says clearly yet, but among the few are "Elmo" and "Bob Builder." He even sings the Bob the Builder song. This is very amusing to me. I think he said "Dora" to me today, also. One more fictional character added to his vocabulary. He has also initiated a new favorite word: "No." This has been going on for a week or two, and it is getting more and more amusing, as he applies it irrelevantly or counterproductively.
Today I was thinking, as I sometimes do, of what I might think of the world and life and humanity and what it all means if I hadn't grown up in a Christian home. Because even growing up in Church, there are still times I think, this doesn't all make sense! Why is life so hard or so mean to certain people? Or to all of us at various times? It doesn't seem like a loving God would place us here to live like this. But of course I know it was not intended to be this way... it was supposed to be wonderful until we let evil in. So, then, has God abandoned the world and beings he created? Because if he is still up there watching us, and active in our world, then why does He let it be so bad sometimes?
Don't get me wrong, I know all the "right" answers. I know and believe that God does work all things together for good for those who love Him, and that He does answer prayers and heal and comfort and reveal truth and knowledge. I guess the fact that He is still active is the only reason we have any glimpses of good in our (sometimes it seems) crazy depraved out of control world.
Sometimes I think all of faith springs from the question: How did we get here? Then I think faith dies with the question: Why would God let this happen to me/them/us? I don't think people don't believe in God so much as they just don't like the God they do believe in. It is easier to convince themselves He doesn't exist by somehow writing Him out of the creation picture or whatever other way they choose to do it, than it is to face the fact that they are impotently angry at the only One who could do anything to help them, Someone who they instinctively know is infinitely powerful and truthfully loving and that they have no right to question. It is the same feeling you might have had as a child shouting, "I hate you; leave me alone!" to your parent as you run to your bedroom already wishing you could take it back and desperate for them to come after you. Thankfully, blessedly, amazingly, we do have a God who comes after us.
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