Rather than study....
Rather than study for a Geography test, I will write some things I have been thinking about lately.
The most common question for the lack of belief of God, and one of the largest doubts of Christians is wondering why evil exists, and why bad things happen.
I'm not here to give an answer. We will never have a good answer, I believe.
However, my brother and I were discussing this and he shared something that he has conjured after hearing this question so much. I have the tendency to buy even the James Dobson argument that says that all evil will be destroyed someday. But, that's just not enough, and I don't buy the argument put forth by many Christians that we can just fix everything, because that's just stupid.
My brother led me to the second chapter of Mark where Jesus heals a paralytic. What does Jesus do first?
1. Forgive the man's sins.
And second?
2. Tells him to get up and walk.
Has Jesus forgiven our sins? Yes
Are we all healed? No
We are at an in between time in our world. What did Jesus do between forgiving the sins of the man and healing him? He was present.
Yes our sins are forgiven and we will be healed someday, but we are still suffering. What can we do now? Be present.
We cannot go around and tell everyone that their sins are forgiven and that's enough, nor can we heal everyone. We can be present and show Christ's presence to others through our selves and our own lives.
We will never be able figure out the cause of suffering, but I think this is how we are to deal with it.
posted by Spencer @ 1:00 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
I default to Occam's Razor in this situation: all other things being equal, the simplest answer is best. So, the simple answer: bad things happen because bad people do them.
Well, yeah. Duh. But it's true; the bad things happening in our world are the fault of no deity or supernatural force. In my favorite book, "Good Omens", two main characters, an angel and a demon, are debating about the nature of humans. The demon says that he feels ridiculous when people do bad things and say "The devil made me do it" because, in reality, the devil doesn't need to make people do things. We're quite good at doing them ourselves. God doesn't need to clean up our mess, no matter how much we may want Him to. It's our responsibility.
To a point, I do not think it is our fault. Certainly, yes, we choose to do them, but we are sick. Our sin makes us sick, makes us do things we wouldn't ordinarily do, should never do. But I truly believe that we are the cause of our own suffering.
We've tried healing it with violence and hate. Let's try healing it with peace and love.
I agree with your reference to the passage in Mark. We need to show God's love and presence to others, and that's really all we can do.
Damascus is the capital of Syria.
That answers question 14 on your Geography test.
Your brother has a habit of being quite insightful.
I appreciate the part about us being "present," because Jesus was present.
This reminds me of U2 lyrics, "You thought you’d found a friend to take you out of this place
Someone you could lend a hand in return for grace."
We are Christ's representatives, God help Him. Pardon the irony.
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