B
badmajon
Guest
This is a problem I keep coming against. Let me explain it this way.
God exists. God has a big plan. God will eventually redeem the world, second coming, etc.
However, does God actively work in the world? God seems to like to hide. He seems to like the indirect approach. God’s way is more like a kind of judo, using the enemy’s strength against himself. Things work out, or so we believe, in the end, at the macro level. Like the resurrection of Jesus.
But what about at the micro level? At the level of the individual life? The individual family? Sometimes even entire nations. At the small, every day level, God seems to be totally absent. Yes, it’s that old chestnut- why do bad things happen to good people?
Sure, it may work out in the end, but from where I am standing, life is like a charge over the trenches in World War I, you look left and right and see mangled bodies and just hope you can make it to the next trench before you lose your life. There was an accident on the freeway the other day which killed a 4 year old child, only an hour before my two boys (4 and 2) were travelling the same road. Why did that man have to lose his son, and mine are fine? He’s lost everything, I still have everything.
I see no order, no plan, just chaos.
However, the worst thing that we can imagine is death. The death of our spouse, a child, a loved one. At that point, I imagine that the small world ceases to matter. A speck of sand in a sea of eternity and there the soul stands in front of God.
Again, it’s the judo effect. All that random chaos and even evil ceases to have any weight. None of those things matter anymore.
So in the end, we have faith that God will be there. God has a plan, but not one we can see or understand in this life.
However, those of us in the world, especially with families, as opposed to those who have taken the contemplative path, have to care. I’ve read what seems like every book and listened to every glib Saint (sorry) speak of detachment with gravity and surety. Be like a corpse St. Anthony said. Resist nothing. Go with God’s will. Go with the flow, he has a plan, have faith.
It still doesn’t help me. It’s like there is a tear in my soul between faith in God’s inestimably large plan and the microcosm of everyday life. God is apparent and almost touchable at times in the macro sphere, but starkly absent in the micro sphere.
I haven’t figured it out yet.
God exists. God has a big plan. God will eventually redeem the world, second coming, etc.
However, does God actively work in the world? God seems to like to hide. He seems to like the indirect approach. God’s way is more like a kind of judo, using the enemy’s strength against himself. Things work out, or so we believe, in the end, at the macro level. Like the resurrection of Jesus.
But what about at the micro level? At the level of the individual life? The individual family? Sometimes even entire nations. At the small, every day level, God seems to be totally absent. Yes, it’s that old chestnut- why do bad things happen to good people?
Sure, it may work out in the end, but from where I am standing, life is like a charge over the trenches in World War I, you look left and right and see mangled bodies and just hope you can make it to the next trench before you lose your life. There was an accident on the freeway the other day which killed a 4 year old child, only an hour before my two boys (4 and 2) were travelling the same road. Why did that man have to lose his son, and mine are fine? He’s lost everything, I still have everything.
I see no order, no plan, just chaos.
However, the worst thing that we can imagine is death. The death of our spouse, a child, a loved one. At that point, I imagine that the small world ceases to matter. A speck of sand in a sea of eternity and there the soul stands in front of God.
Again, it’s the judo effect. All that random chaos and even evil ceases to have any weight. None of those things matter anymore.
So in the end, we have faith that God will be there. God has a plan, but not one we can see or understand in this life.
However, those of us in the world, especially with families, as opposed to those who have taken the contemplative path, have to care. I’ve read what seems like every book and listened to every glib Saint (sorry) speak of detachment with gravity and surety. Be like a corpse St. Anthony said. Resist nothing. Go with God’s will. Go with the flow, he has a plan, have faith.
It still doesn’t help me. It’s like there is a tear in my soul between faith in God’s inestimably large plan and the microcosm of everyday life. God is apparent and almost touchable at times in the macro sphere, but starkly absent in the micro sphere.
I haven’t figured it out yet.
