We can gain insight thru reading the Scripture and prayer, but no one knows the complete mind of God.
I don't know why I have my beautiful little FireGirl, while others cannot have children.
I don't know why I have a beautiful healthy baby, while other children suffer.
I don't know why idiotic, abusive, people can have child after child, while some of my loved ones, who I think would make awesome parents, can't have children at all.
I don't know why some people are struck by illness or injury or other trauma or tragedy, and others aren't.
And I certainly don't understand it either.
Because I don't know the mind of God.
But I do believe that He has a reason. A reason that is far beyond our understanding. Answers to these questions that we have, that we might not discover for years. Or even ever. But He is in control, and I trust that He knows what He is doing.
Which is good, because half the time I don't have a clue what I'm doing.
I honestly don't understand how those who don't believe in God, or in any other "higher power", function, how they get thru life.
Honestly, if I didn't have my faith in God, I probably would have committed suicide a long time ago. Seriously. Because if none of this means anything, if all of the tragedy, and sickness, and pain, and bad stuff in the world... if there isn't really a higher calling for all of it... then who the heck would want to stay here? and why? If we serve no other purpose than to live our lives and then turn to dust, well then... why go thru all the bad stuff? why witness all the tragedy? why not end it all right now?
I wonder this a lot. How people who have no faith in any sort of higher power go thru life. How they get thru the tough stuff. What they think of all the horrible injustices in the world.
Because when it all makes no sense, when it all seems too much to bear, too much to even see... I cling to my Father. I know that even when I don't see His presence, even when I don't feel His touch... He's there. He's watching over me, over all of us. He loves us. Even when it seems like maybe He doesn't, I know that He does. And I cling to that. I hold to that. And I stop squirming and let Him hold me.
Thank you Jesus.
"And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose." -- Romans 8:28
"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me." -- Psalm 23:4
"Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding." -- Proverbs 3:5
"Be strong and of a good courage, fear not, nor be afraid of them: for the LORD thy God, he it is that doth go with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee -- Deuteronomy 31:6
"Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." -- Matthew 11:28-30
"But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you. To him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen." -- I Peter 5:10-11
"But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint." -- Isaiah 40:31
4 comments:
I needed this today...thank you! More than you know :-)
"How people who have no faith in any sort of higher power go thru life. How they get thru the tough stuff. What they think of all the horrible injustices in the world."
I write this from the point of view of an agnostic v. that of an atheist - so I'm not entirely lacking faith, but I do want to comment on the above. I get through the tough stuff because I have a great amount of faith in what I can see - the people around me who love me. And even when those fall down, I have a great amount of faith in myself. My ability to reach outside of myself and connect to another person - both to give and to receive. My ability to be quiet and listen to myself. My ability to defy doing what everyone else is doing because I know I am strong enough to say 'that's not right'. I get through the tough stuff because I don't find staying true to myself to be that hard - even though some of the consequences might seem difficult temporarily.
I think that you make a rather large assumption when you say that people who don't have any faith don't think that life has any meaning. On the contrary, for many of us the feeling is that the time we have here on Earth (in our current form, depending on what you believe) is so fleeting that we need to make the most out of every moment and do our best to leave things in a better state than when we arrived.
As far as how we cope with the injustices in the world, I could just as easily turn it around and ask "what kind of god allows such terrible things to happen to people?" I can see how pleasant it is for people who do believe, to be able to say that everything just goes according to the plan of a higher power and that there's a reason for all suffering. To be completely honest, sometimes I envy that comfort and security.
Why not end it all right now? Because I love being alive! I love that I am a part of some system of living beings, that I surround myself with people who love with their whole hearts. Because I am lucky to be the mother of my son, who is truly the light of my life. Because I love getting up every day and feeling the sunshine and celebrating happy times with family and friends and taking comfort in their arms when times aren't so happy. Experiencing the joys of life is not unique to people of faith.
Do I like to think that there is something else? Of course! Who doesn't? It's like a warm security blanket at night. Like Nota, I consider myself more of an agnostic than an atheist (refer to the religion tag on my blog if you're curious about where I'm coming from), and I don't think that we have the answers yet. I do like to think that there might be something past the end of life (as we currently know it, anyway), but science just hasn't gotten to the point where we know what happens.
See, to ME, it makes more sense to believe that everything that happens is party random, and partly determined by people's actions, than to believe in some puppetmaster making all these horrible tragedies occur with some divine plan for it all.
Like the others, I'm more of an agnostic than an atheist. I won't flat-out deny the existence of a higher power, we just don't know. Although if I had to guess, I'd say that when we die, we live on in the memories and hearts of our loved ones, but ultimately we're dead - just like all the other sentinent (non-human) beings out there. To me, this gives me even more reason to try to find joy and pleasure in everything! I don't live life looking forward to some paradise in the sky after I die - I live life for what it is, short and fleeting, and wonderful and crazy, and good and bad.
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