"Today, it seems to me, there is no good reason for an intelligent person to embrace the illusion of atheism or agnosticism, to make the same intellectual mistakes I made. I wish... I had known then what I know now."
Patrick Glenn, atheist turned Christian
I can relate to that and all I can do now is ask for a lot of forgiveness, give much heartfelt praise and make some serious changes from here on out. This has begun and it has made me face a lot of the questions that once stunted my ability to believe.
I have definitely asked the question how can there be a God if there is so much pain and suffering in the world? But I never considered the fact that God's plan is so great that we may never understand why human beings undergo the difficulties of life until our journey on earth is complete. First off, God created us with free will. Therefore he doesn't create or allow evil... we do. If he were to have created a perfect utopia... we would not have free will. We would not love freely. It would be much to easy if loving God was not a choice. But because he gave us this freedom, we have the ability to search and desire his love or not to. And in the same sense, if he were to correct every pain and suffering many may never find him or have the desire to. I can't say from experience yet, but I've been told that people often feel the closest to God in their times of pain, hurt, and suffering. If those times were not to inflict us, we may never freely seek a higher power and instead find satisfaction in ourselves alone.
I don't want to walk alone.
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Random:
I was wedding gift shopping the other day and ran across a ring. It wasn't the typical piece of costume jewelry though. Instead it had a cross on it and some writing in Spanish that I couldn't make out at the time. But I had this urge to get it and find out what the words read. So I bought it, took it home, plugged it into an online Spanish translator and it happened to be the Lord's Prayer. I don't remember too much from Sunday Mass, but that is something I don't think ever goes away. And it just so happened that on Christmas Eve when my sister was home she asked us all to join hands and pray that before our meal. This shouldn't seem that crazy, but my family hasn't had God in our lives for a long time, if ever. So I'm wearing the ring... and I want to be wearing the ring. At the wedding, the pastor talked about a wedding band as having no beginning or end, our lives with God really have no beginning or end because he was always been there. Ovbioulsy it's not a wedding band but I think it can still be a meaningful symbol and a constant reminder.
Second interesting thing... maybe a month ago I went to The Stirring and found an open seat near the back. It happened to be near a woman who was very kind and introduced herself to me. She had just moved back to Redding from Southern California and after a little bit of sharing, learned of some big events that had just happened to her in a personal relationship. At first I couldn't believe she felt okay sharing it with a stranger and then I couldn't believe how positive she still was. But I saw something in her. She had a love greater than that which any man could have given her, and because of that she was gonna be just fine. So I hadn't had the opportunity of running into her again since then, but during my bike ride earlier yesterday I thought I saw her running on the river trail. And last night, it just so happened that she found a seat in the same row as me at church. At the end of the service the whole church did his big toast to God and to all that He has done in the last four years since The Stirring has been a church. She recognized me and we started talking a bit. We ended up exchanging numbers and will hopefully find a home group for the next couple months! She said she didn't think it was coincidence that this happened twice... neither do I.
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