Sunday, February 11, 2007
Questions?????
Have you ever been plagued by questions? Questions about life, about death, about God. Questions about religion, the Bible? Most of us have questions every day of our lives. Sometimes we think if we can just come up with the right question everything will be clear to us. Sadly, it won't. When I was younger, I used to love to ask questions of my teachers, "Why?" of my pastor, "Who were those folks living east of Eden?" Of course it lead to lively discussion, but no answers exist. Seems that part of being human is having faith. We have faith that tomorrow the sun will come up, again. We have faith that there will be air to breath. We have faith in everyday things without even thinking about it. But there are no promises. God gave us today, now, right this moment. Each one is to be treasured, enjoyed, and enriched as if our last. Death may be a door to a new beginning as we have all heard, but God did not say we should treasure our life here on earth less because there is more to come. Be kind to each other, say hello, smile. Won't cost you a thing. :)
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Yesterday at church, Shelly commented on how the parable in Matthew 22 offers up the question about free will or predestination. Some of us believe that God is in total control of everything that happens and that nothing we do or don't do is going to alter the outcome of events.
I find that hard to accept. I believe that the vast majority of us never realize our purpose or achieve what God created us to do and to be here. Grace, to me, is the opposite of predestination. Despite our failures and our wrong choices, grace covers the mistake.
I don't believe that God causes tsunamis or allows serial killers to commit murder. Certainly, He can stop these things from happening, but what kind of fickle God do we believe in who answers our prayers for a parking place close to the mall or a passing grade on a test, and ignores our pleas for the healing of a loved one with cancer?
'God's will' is a scapegoat for prayers that aren't answered the way we wanted them to be answered. It is always God's will for someone to be healed. Jesus never denied a request for healing. The failure of a person to be healed doesn't lie in it 'not being God's will'; but in our cooperation with His will. Whether it's lack of faith or not changing our habits so as not to incur the same sickness, most of what happens to us is because of our choices, not God's.
I believe we have more power than Christians want to admit. According to Brennan Manning, Satan's greatest deception of Christians is our feeling of worthlessness and helplessness. We profess that we're children of God, but we act like lowly servants rather than royalty.
Just about everything God does on earth is done through man. God uses us to bless one another, to bring healing to the sick, food to the hungry, clothing to the naked. I think that's what Matthew 22 meant when the man wasn't dressed properly. We talk about Christ, but we don't present Christ. We think we're serving God when we walk up to someone and ask them "Do you know Jesus", when we should be doing what He would do if He were standing in front of them.
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