I've never believed that this world contains heavenly-directed blessings and burdens. I mean, sure, the whole life we live and earth we live on is a gift from God! Simple gratitude would suggest we be grateful for the gift, and all the blessings that flow from it. But the fact of free will and the fact of mortality (for this world is not our final home) mean that we will often have bad things happen to us as well, either through malice, negligence or nature. The tests and burdens we perceive are the natural consequence of the natural world we inhabit, and of the free will of those with whom we share that world.
I don't believe that God points anything bad in our direction. I don't believe that God sits in heaven doling out hand-picked woes. Those who say that God directs every tiny thing - that God micromanages - don't have sufficient confidence in God or in God's plan. Yes, "God is in control," but not in the sense that God sends custom-tailored catastrophes to befuddle us and test our faith. God is in control because God knows NO catastrophe can thwart God's plan for us, no catastrophe can keep us from God in the end! God knows nothing this world holds can pose a true danger to us: neither pain, nor sin, nor death itself.
Some say God does not give us burdens that we can't carry. I say God does not give us burdens. But God does give us strength. And the strength God gives is more than any burden can withstand.
I don't believe that God points anything bad in our direction. I don't believe that God sits in heaven doling out hand-picked woes. Those who say that God directs every tiny thing - that God micromanages - don't have sufficient confidence in God or in God's plan. Yes, "God is in control," but not in the sense that God sends custom-tailored catastrophes to befuddle us and test our faith. God is in control because God knows NO catastrophe can thwart God's plan for us, no catastrophe can keep us from God in the end! God knows nothing this world holds can pose a true danger to us: neither pain, nor sin, nor death itself.
Some say God does not give us burdens that we can't carry. I say God does not give us burdens. But God does give us strength. And the strength God gives is more than any burden can withstand.
Comments
But surely you've seen many, many people struggling to come to grips with what they feel God has let happen to them? It's about as universal as a spiritual issue can get.
Anyhow, to answer your question
> Life happens; the question is: what are you going to believe afterwards about God?
I always believe the same thing about God: God doesn't cause any individual event that happens to me, but God permits it to happen.
God also knows I'm safe. Our souls are safe. Whatever pains we pass through in this mortal realm cannot truly touch us in the end.
Anyway, that's always the way I saw it. I've never seen any reason to look at God askance. Please don't think that it's just that I haven't had plenty of awful shit happen in my life. I solemnly assure you otherwise.
But there are a lot of people who do, though. Look at God askance. They come right and tell you: they can't believe in God, or they're angry at God, because of such and such that happened.
I don't get it. I don't get that at all. I can only take guesses at why anyone would connect it up that way. Maybe it's because they think God directly hands out all the good little things in their life.
Which - to me - I'm sorry and I don't mean to offend anybody, but that seems a tad childish. To me.
God hands out two great big blessings to each of us: this life, and Jesus Christ.
Now I believe in miracles, but I also believe that the miracle is the exception to the rule - not the rule. By and large, most events and incidents in this life are 100% understood by God, 100% permitted by God, but 0% directly caused by God. God made the world and the rules that govern it - God doesn't need to do everything by hand.
I'm not much of a preacher to tell the truth! I don't even know which way is the choir.
But as you say, we can agree to disagree on the specifics. ;-)
In any case, I am glad you don't think of God as sending trials. So many people seem to be troubled by that belief. The belief itself puzzles me.
For my part, I'm willing to admit I sometimes have a suspicion that miracles are more frequent than I'm willing to admit...
Realistically, however God wants to run it is fine by me!
It always has been to me, anyway.
Anyhow - all superfluous apologies are accepted gratefully! But you didn't do anything to owe me one.
Great conversation, and for the record, I don't believe God gives us sickness, disease, death or other calamities but that they come either directly or indirectly from satan/devil because of sin that came into the world through Adam and Jesus is in the process of restoring everything to unruinable perfection and that the process will be completed at his return. And we get to help as his ambassadors on this earth by a ministry of reconciliation, going around destroying the works of the devil and that is fun.
Hoooom. Homm.
I think I'd be willing to buy that for some things, but not for others. I think we were always intended to be mortal, for instance. But then what if we weren't? What if Eden was always intended to be our eternal paradise, but after we ruined it, God had to repurpose heaven as our home, too?
WEIRD.
Could be, though. What logical objections can I even offer to the prospect???
Wow, no wonder the angels were pissed! Not that I excuse that. Plus, I could be jumbling the chronology, here. I'd always assumed the angelic rebellion took place just a tick or two before time.