Why pray?

[reen12]

Hi reen!
Reading this made me smile
Not because it is funny or amusing, but because I have yelled and screamed these almost exact words at God myself.

I don’t have any ‘theological’ answers or thoughts to offer. Theology is not my specialty, but in my opinion you questions, anger and accusations are normal and healthy.
God can take your accusations and anger. When you finish, He will give you a few moments to calm down and say “so nice to finally meet you”.

IMO you are getting to know God, and seeing how ridiculous theodicy’s appear to those who suffer. In the book of Job, God dismissed all “advice” and “explanations” given by Job’s ‘friends’ who could so easily talk from atop their pain-free pedestal. Job didn’t settle for it, in fact he raged against it and God did not get angry. In fact, I think he praised Job for it.

Hi uglygal.

I figured that you would know exactly what I am talking about,
in this thread.

Life experience sometimes takes one out of the ambit of ‘organized’ anything.

That’s why His pasture is safe. You don’t even need to be
organized, there.

quote: uglygal

God can take your accusations and anger. When you finish, He will give you a few moments to calm down and say “so nice to finally meet you”.

Agree. http://bestsmileys.com/waving/5.gif

reens

 

[BarbaraTherese]

Hi uglygal.

I figured that you would know exactly what I am talking about,
in this thread.

Life experience sometimes takes one out of the ambit of ‘organized’ anything.

That’s why His pasture is safe. You don’t even need to be
organized, there.

quote: uglygal

Agree. http://bestsmileys.com/waving/5.gif

reens

That’s why His pasture is safe. You don’t even need to be
organized, there.

… …

Readings UglyGal’s post reminded me of what was told to me as a true story.
A seminarian had been a few years into the seminary when he began ot have many doubts and struggles. He prayed and prayed but the doubts and struggles continued. Desperate one day he goes to the Chapel and begins to implore The Lord again and then suddenly he looses his temper and pours out to God all his anger at trying to follow his vocation and being in such a negative place spiritiually and the lack of help - as anger pours out he begins to swear or cuss in desperation - and finally “if you don’t *********** help me, I am outta here!”
With that he suddenly comes to his senses in horror and seeks out the seminary director with horror and sorrow and anger at himself at all he had prayed in the chapel and his anger with God even cussing in the stating.

The director replies to him “Congratulations, my son, you have probably prayed for the first time in your life”. God has big shoulders.

Life experience sometimes takes one out of the ambit of ‘organized’ anything.

I have read from a few sources that to become close to God one need not aquire anything, one needs to loose everything. That ‘growth’ is not a processing of acquiring, rather a process of loosing. This of course speaks with what Jesus said “if you loose your life for my sake, you will save it” …and what spritual writers do write about in detachment and finally even spiritual detachment.
A factor can be with mental illness and psychotic states can be that it was then that, when I woke up that I had indeed lost my mind, I began to discover what real involuntary and radical loss means and how deep it can go.

 

[BarbaraTherese]

You know what this made me think of, Barb?

Those of the cracked pot are sometimes like Bartimeus,
shouting out the name of Jesus. Everyone
was telling him to shut up, and not disturb
the Lord. Not Bartimaeus. He shouted all
the louder “Son of David, have mercy on me!”
Now Jesus tells His disciples to bring this
noisy man to Him. “What do you wish Me to do for you?”
“Lord, that I may see.”
Bartimaeus wasn’t concerned with the niceties.
He was desperate des espoir - without hope.]
Desperation rarely speaks in soft tones.
This was no matter of ‘let us reason together.’
Help!!!
[That’s what Peter said, slipping under the waters.]

“I was sinking, and He pulled me out of the mire,
and set me on a high place.”

http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a106/reen12/helped.jpg

A cracked pot minces no words.

“I was going down, for the third time, and
something happened. I can’t remember what it was.”
I was all overwhelmed and confused and then I was safe."

“Hide me in the shelter of Your wings.”

And peering out, through the feathers,
is better. It is safe and warm there, with
no mires around. And the mind and heart
of a cracked pot is soothed by the heartbeat of God.

http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a106/reen12/feathers.jpg

reens

Desperation rarely speaks in soft tones.

This was no matter of ‘let us reason together.’
Help!!!
[That’s what Peter said, slipping under the waters.]

…A+ observation shared! …

And peering out, through the feathers,

is better. It is safe and warm there, with
no mires around. And the mind and heart

---

***of a cracked pot is ***

***soothed by the heartbeat of God.
Quite a few of our great classic spiritaul authors do point out that the experiences they write about cannot be understood - they have to be experienced and then there is knowledge born of experience. While understanding can peruse and present complexities…knowledge is simple. It knows what it knows.

http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a106/reen12/feathers.jpg…This I really do love and it says what words just cannot!

 

[DebChris]

… …

Readings UglyGal’s post reminded me of what was told to me as a true story.
A seminarian had been a few years into the seminary when he began ot have many doubts and struggles. He prayed and prayed but the doubts and struggles continued. Desperate one day he goes to the Chapel and begins to implore The Lord again and then suddenly he looses his temper and pours out to God all his anger at trying to follow his vocation and being in such a negative place spiritiually and the lack of help - as anger pours out he begins to swear or cuss in desperation - and finally “if you don’t *********** help me, I am outta here!”
With that he suddenly comes to his senses in horror and seeks out the seminary director with horror and sorrow and anger at himself at all he had prayed in the chapel and his anger with God even cussing in the stating.

The director replies to him “Congratulations, my son, you have probably prayed for the first time in your life”. God has big shoulders.
I have read from a few sources that to become close to God one need not aquire anything, one needs to loose everything. That ‘growth’ is not a processing of acquiring, rather a process of loosing. This of course speaks with what Jesus said “if you loose your life for my sake, you will save it” …and what spritual writers do write about in detachment and finally even spiritual detachment.
A factor can be with mental illness and psychotic states can be that it was then that, when I woke up that I had indeed lost my mind, I began to discover what real involuntary and radical loss means and how deep it can go.

“My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?”

 

[BarbaraTherese]

Faith without reason (fundamentalism) can lead to violence.
Reason without faith can lead to violence (rationalism).
In a healthy culture, faith is open to rational critique and reason has been opened that revealed what religion teaches—Francis Cardinal George (10/1/06)

The parts of the soul as described in Cloud of Unknowing.
Mind (includes Memory) holds and embraces four faculties:

1. Reason distinguishes evil from good.
2. Will by which we love God, desire God, and ultimately dwell in God.
3. Inspiration by which we picture anything past as well as present.
4. Sensuality affects and controls all bodily reaction, both pleasant and unpleasant functioning to provide for physical needs and appetites.

Worry about nothing. Pray about everything.

Just as our adulthood shows the marks of the struggles of our youth, so our solitude bears the signs of lonely hours, our care for others reflects at time angry feelings and our prayer sometimes reveals the memory and the presence of many illusions. Transformed in love, however, these painful signs become signs of hope, as the wounds of Jesus did for the doubting Thomas—Henri Nouwen.

… …great quote from Nouwen!

Most often we seek to remove or alleviate pain and confusions - get away from it, rather than to experience it in full as intrinsic to our condition. It is what we fear or emphasize (such as pain and confusions) that we make strong and stronger, even strongest.
From your Post above:

Transformed in love

“Perfect love casts out fear”. It is very true that all we really do have to fear is fear itself, but then if I fear it I make it strong, stronger and even strongest. For in fearing I am embracing fear.
“It is in my weakness I am made strong” - In and through Grace and The Holy Spirit I embrace my suffering and weakness and in that way suffering and weakness is my strength.

---

Anthony de Mello (and de Mello has been warned against by Rome as suspect even condemned in places - although not condemned outright. At one point in his life he was a highly respected Catholic author and director)

"The Master never ceased to attack the notions about God that people entertain. “If your God comes to your rescue and gets you out of trouble”, he would say, “it is time you started searching for the true God”.

When asked to elaborate, this is the story he told:
"A man left a brand-new bicycle unattended at the marketplace while he went about his shopping. He only remembered the bicycle the following day and rushed to the marketplace, expecting it would have been stolen. The bicycle was exactly where he had left it.

Overwhelmed with joy, he rushed to a nearby temple to thank God for having kept his bicycle safe only to find, when he got out of the temple, that the bicycle was gone"

(The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts. – Bertrand Russell )

 

[BarbaraTherese]

reen12, it is obvious that the suffering of a small, innocent child has brought you to compassion for a complete stranger.

The Catholic teaching on suffering is that it is a necessary aspect of being human.

You compare the suffering for a few hours of a grown man, Christ, but what I have never understood, is why God chose this as the way to the redeem the world. Obviously, as you say, He is omnipotent and could have done anything, in any way, but chose suffering.

In this way, we know that suffering plays an important role, to the world, to us.

None of us can reason out why the suffering of innocents exists. Suffering is complex, and any road you go down leads to “why”. Free will is a component. Suffering leads us to compassion is another. Christ suffered on the cross and calls us to pick up our crosses and follow Him. It is obvious that God knows our suffering exists, and does not ignore its existence.

What you are objecting to is the knowledge that God allows suffering, and it is normal and an age old reaction to be angry at God for allowing suffering. But no one here can tell you definitively, why, it is an aspect of the divine that we don’t know.

So be angry, but know that God understands our suffering, quite well, even when we don’t know the answer to why. The Cross is more than Christ suffering. Jesus’ Mother was at His feet, watching her only Son suffer and die. Those He loved were there as well, suffering with Him, as you are suffering with this small, innocent, stranger.

Maybe pray for understanding.

Quite a good post I thought and meant to say so before.

So be angry, but know that God understands our suffering, quite well, even when we don’t know the answer to why. The Cross is more than Christ suffering. Jesus’ Mother was at His feet, watching her only Son suffer and die. Those He loved were there as well, suffering with Him, as you are suffering with this small, innocent, stranger.QUOTE]

Rather than greeting this little child with words of theology etc. etc., Reen is sweeping her up into her arms and crying with her !..
We fear anger, both in ourselves and in others…and so we brand it socially unacceptable, an expression sometimes of ‘emotional imbalance’ and even morally wrong… yet Jesus sure knew how to get His anger into the open and quite radically too…
I rather think of that incident in the Temple as Jesus saying “Sometimes anger is justified - and like this: BOOM BANG LASH CRASH SHOVE PUSH KICK”…Jesus got violent in the Temple - …

 

[BarbaraTherese]

“My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?”

Hi DC…Words that realy wrench at the heart …and often no matter who may be saying them! And many do know this abandonment, not on some spiritual sphere only…but in the midst of appalling human suffering - then one feels abandonment to the depths of one’s humanity.
I am not too sure, however, the connection between my post you have referred to and the words of Jesus above, although I am sure I have a pretty good idea.

 

[BarbaraTherese]

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

I love the above sketch too, Reen! Michaelangelo was not only a great artist, but often an absolutely inspired man. What he has left to posterity is a pure gift of God in beauty and declaration…beautiful statements…

In the above I see the total inability of man to reach God, so God reaches down to man. Humanity finds it impossible to move out of ‘human orbit’ into 'God orbit", so God does the absurd and unties Himself (God orbit) with human (human orbit). Now this is love and truly a stumbling block to the wise and learned of this world - because of its outstanding absurdity…

 

[BarbaraTherese]

Was reading and from a ‘reputable Catholic site and source’ that major suffering comes into our lives to wake us up to ourselves in some way. Frowned at that! Such a statement implies that Jesus was crucified to wake Himself up to Himself:shrug: Sometimes suffering comes into our lives not to wake the person up, but someone(s) else connected to that person in some way. And this is only one possible reason with possible underscored.
I maintain that in every situation there is X the unknown factor and sometimes with suffering and adverse events X the unknown factor applies. If “God simply is” then His actions “simply are”.

If Jesus could get angry to the point of violence at the desecration of His Father’s House and indeed this then was The Prayer of Jesus at that time in expressing His anger and violently…should we not then be totally justified in praying from the fullness of our own anger at the desecration of human beings and especially a 3 year old child.
God, who claims all Mercy and Comassion, can certainly insight and understand and with great compassion our own fury and anger and at Him for not intervening in innocent human suffering…I mean such is completely logical in human nature, understandable in a human being. And when I express that human disposition to God in prayer, I am praying truly from my heart and most especially if I am embracing and connecting with my anger and expressing it.
Sometimes it is not anger that is questionable, rather it is the lack of it that can concern me.
Our Father has big shoulders! …and a great left to boot - make of it what one may!

 

[uglygal]

I know from my own experience, that questions and anger at God at times arises from a very great and beautiful love for Him.
Just like in the eyes of a little child, their Father is a hero and “god” in their eyes. The comforter, the protector, the provider, all perfect.
Anything that contradicts this causes great terror among the little ones.
I at times cried “how could you!” or “you monster, you are wicked, its your fault, get away from me!”. or do I dare confess it … “i hate you!”
Yet it’s not hate but love. I love my Father so deeply that it leads me to hate at times.
I believe I have read somewhere that the opposite of love is not hate, because love and hate are often very interconnected … rather the opposite of love is indifference.
What do I hate? … its is evil. The grave disgusting and vile evil committed upon another person. I feel such hatred for this, that I cannot wait for the end of days when God will finally exterminate all that is evil. At last, all the little children will be safe and will be able to rest in peace, “it is over”.
I often finds that after I rage at God in the face of such injustices and disgusting brutality, I just tell him angrily and sorrowfully, “I don’t understand, I will NEVER understand”.

I believe this anger and “arguments” with God testify to my great love for Him, more so than praying, striving for my own sense of holiness and actually not giving a damn.

BarbaraTherese said

Was reading and from a ‘reputable Catholic site and source’ that major suffering comes into our lives to wake us up to ourselves in some way. Frowned at that! Such a statement implies that Jesus was crucified to wake Himself up to Himself

oh it gets better than this, God came to die to appease Himself, God came to enable Himself to forgive us, God came because dying was the only way to appease Himself for the inherent sin that Adam and Eve ate an apple, God came to die because only His blood can move Him to compassion to forgive and admit us to heaven.
as for suffering? … well God allows suffering because he is God and you have to ‘suck it up’, it’s your fault, you are not praying enough, if God loved you than you wouldn’t suffer so much, you are being punished for your sins, you are paying for the sins of your ancestors, you are being purified, you deserve it somehow, you provoked it somehow, actually you asked for it!

I remember reading that St Mother Teresa of Calcutta was nursing a terminally ill and dying person and told them “Jesus loves you very much, he is kissing you from the cross” (or something like that), to which the dying person responded, “could you tell him to stop kissing me”

These are all just human attempts to neatly organize evils and suffering and ‘protect God’ from being blamed. Why? At times, they just make Him look silly :whacky: or extremely brutal and lacking in compassion.

I think there is a distinction between suffering and evil that many people do not make, though suffering arises from evil.
Maybe God does cause and sends suffering for some purpose or end that only He in His infinite insanity can understand.
But I am entirely convinced He does not create or send evil. Perhaps it’s a case of “who’s to blame when we humans p**s on each others heads”?

just some of my random thoughts

 

[uglygal]

Sometimes it is not anger that is questionable, rather it is the lack of it that can concern me.
Our Father has big shoulders! …and a great left to boot - make of it what one may!

:yup:

 

[DebChris]

I recently heard that you can only get angry with somebody if you trust them. It had to do with why kids throw tantrums.
Do we get angry with people if we have no vested interest in the relationship?

 

[BarbaraTherese]

I know from my own experience, that questions and anger at God at times arises from a very great and beautiful love for Him.
Just like in the eyes of a little child, their Father is a hero and “god” in their eyes. The comforter, the protector, the provider, all perfect.
Anything that contradicts this causes great terror among the little ones.
I at times cried “how could you!” or “you monster, you are wicked, its your fault, get away from me!”. or do I dare confess it … “i hate you!”
Yet it’s not hate but love. I love my Father so deeply that it leads me to hate at times.
I believe I have read somewhere that the opposite of love is not hate, because love and hate are often very interconnected … rather the opposite of love is indifference.
What do I hate? … its is evil. The grave disgusting and vile evil committed upon another person. I feel such hatred for this, that I cannot wait for the end of days when God will finally exterminate all that is evil. At last, all the little children will be safe and will be able to rest in peace, “it is over”.
I often finds that after I rage at God in the face of such injustices and disgusting brutality, I just tell him angrily and sorrowfully, “I don’t understand, I will NEVER understand”.

I believe this anger and “arguments” with God testify to my great love for Him, more so than praying, striving for my own sense of holiness and actually not giving a damn.

BarbaraTherese said

oh it gets better than this, God came to die to appease Himself, God came to enable Himself to forgive us, God came because dying was the only way to appease Himself for the inherent sin that Adam and Eve ate an apple, God came to die because only His blood can move Him to compassion to forgive and admit us to heaven.
as for suffering? … well God allows suffering because he is God and you have to ‘suck it up’, it’s your fault, you are not praying enough, if God loved you than you wouldn’t suffer so much, you are being punished for your sins, you are paying for the sins of your ancestors, you are being purified, you deserve it somehow, you provoked it somehow, actually you asked for it!

I remember reading that St Mother Teresa of Calcutta was nursing a terminally ill and dying person and told them “Jesus loves you very much, he is kissing you from the cross” (or something like that), to which the dying person responded, “could you tell him to stop kissing me”

These are all just human attempts to neatly organize evils and suffering and ‘protect God’ from being blamed. Why? At times, they just make Him look silly or extremely brutal and lacking in compassion.

I think there is a distinction between suffering and evil that many people do not make, though suffering arises from evil.
Maybe God does cause and sends suffering for some purpose or end that only He in His infinite insanity can understand.
But I am entirely convinced He does not create or send evil. Perhaps it’s a case of “who’s to blame when we humans p**s on each others heads”?

just some of my random thoughts

Certainly if one can arrive at “God simply is” then God’s Actions in our world equally “simply are” and we need to accept them in simplicity since we really have no other option in logic and then perhaps we insight what Julian of Norwich said:
“All is well
All is well
And all manner of things shall be well”

Does all the above release us from our humanity? Nope! And I don’t think that it should - in fact it is not so much anger that can be of concern to me, rather the lack of anger.
It is equally not so much the lack of explanations and especially on religious-type topics and the inability to explain…it is that explanations are given. And noted, indeed, that in this my post, I am giving explanation.:hypno:

I think probably quite a few good ‘holy’ people may be almost literally terrified of their own humanity and God’s gift to us. It is a limited and fallible humanity, even at times a wayward and suspect, cruel and even indictable humanity…but not a matter to instill fear for it is God’s prime gift to us - life as a human being.
Sometimes good and ‘holy’ people give the impression that we can do stuff so that we can somehow reach God - this type of thinking reminds me of the Tower of Babel. Rather it is the complete prerogative and gratuitious gift of God who reaches down to embrace whomsoever He may totally disinterested in our theological conclusions and even our mystical and spiritual theology. These are for us…not Rules for God.

If God simply IS and His Actions simply ARE…and if God is totally Other and the Complete Unknown…then explanations are impossible on all scores.

But what I can see today may well be only my own blindness, and I will see better tomorrow if released from that blindness. I can accept that peacefully which does not release me from stating what I see even if it does prove tomorrow as merely blindness…then tomorrow I will have different things to state and share. …and on we go, always the journey…

But I am entirely convinced He does not create or send evil. Perhaps it’s a case of “who’s to blame when we humans p**s on each others heads”?

To drop back into the theological which of course in Catholicism actually is the combined thinking of great and often very holy minds…God does not send evil, but rather for His own reasons, permits it (known theologically as “God’s Permissive Will”)…and He permits only because He knows He can bring a greater good out of it than the evil itself. God’s Will it is said theologically has two aspects His Direct and Permissive Will.

Does all the above release us from our own humanity. Nope! nor should it.If holiness is going to make me less human, then it is not holiness at all. Holiness should lead me into the depths, lengths and breadths of my own humanity and God’s gift to me, and into my true identity as a fully human person. A unique person as each of us is, and whether we can insight it or not, we are here for a very specific purpose.

The stunning thing for me in the words “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” Is that Jesus feels totally abandoned by God and yet He makes a perfect act of Faith in addressing God prayerfully, even in total non understanding.

just some of my random thoughts

All for the above, UG:thumbsup: . It is not too often I venture out of the Spirituality Forum. It is really striking home to me that in this Forum and a Non Catholic Religion Forum there is no beating another over the head as it were, that one so often sees in the Catholic Spirituality Forum Here there has been more a mutually respectful exchange of ideas and concepts…and in an atmosphere that is peaceful - seems to me (LOL!) perhaps non Catholics have something to teach Catholics:bigyikes: This is indeed talking the talk and then walking the walk.
Thanks Reen and all…a truly wonderful experience!

I remember reading that St Mother Teresa of Calcutta was nursing a terminally ill and dying person and told them “Jesus loves you very much, he is kissing you from the cross” (or something like that), to which the dying person responded, “could you tell him to stop kissing me”

This touches the heart in a very human way and also it speaks to the mind too … although if anyone probably other than Mother Teresa had quoted it…they would be condemned officially by The Vatican…LOL…and as a warning to Catholics of points being made that are not Catholic Doctrine. Oh in this world of absurdities, none more absurd than we.

Blessings!..Barb

 

[BarbaraTherese]

Quoting Deb Chris

Do we get angry with people if we have no vested interest in the relationship?

A+ observation:thumbsup: …good point and one to ponder and I am:thumbsup:

Barb

 

[BarbaraTherese]

Barbara Therese

Life and the call to live it can be absurd I think to logic - and logic is not to be disdained as it is a gift from God as somehow reflecting Him and capable of telling us something about Him - but it is not infallible nor without boundaries…

Deb Chris

Faith without reason (fundamentalism) can lead to violence.
Reason without faith can lead to violence (rationalism).
In a healthy culture, faith is open to rational critique and reason has been opened that revealed what religion teaches—Francis Cardinal George (10/1/06)

Faith (or theology) and science (or logic) must walk hand in hand as both are the search for truth and if they are in opposition then something is amiss in the presenting theology or the presenting logic (reason) or science. Time for both (theology and science) to “go back to the drawing board” searching for mutual agreement. I am not sure at all what is meant by “and reason has been opened that revealed what religion teaches”.

I am sorry but all these “isms” are confusing to me. They do summarize a concept into a noun or “ism” and I am never sure that I understand the whole concept behind the noun or “ism”. At times someone may say to me (and only as an example) - that is “rationalism” and I have no idea at all what I am accused of - nor if it is a compliment or an insult. Violence very obviously stands in opposition to Peace…and many matters can lead to violence and hence the destruction of Peace. The CCC lays out conditions for a “just war” and these conditions need to be taken very seriously indeed on a moral level…for even a “just war” opposes Peace through its essence or destruction of life. Albeit in the absurdities of life a just war may be the only path to a hopefully lasting Peace. This really is an absurdity.

Blessings…barb

 

[Mystic_Warrior]

Doesn’t an omniscient deity know that help is needed?

Yes, He knows.

Humans beings are urged to pray.

Yes, they are.

Does this indicate that God would fail to intervene - if not importuned to do so?

It indicates His desire for communion with His creation.

What sense does that make?

It makes sense to me.

“Deliver us Lord from every evil…”

In rolls a tsunami, taking the lives of a quarter of a million people.

And I’m sure there are reasons for it, although we don’t understand them.

Why does anyone bother praying? What is - or what is to be,
is going to happen anyway.

Because it shows our willingness to acknowledge a Higher Power and commune with Him.

Is prayer a form of spiritual placebo?

reen12

I don’t think so personally.

Peace…

MW

 

[reen12]

Reeny, I really am outside of my comfort zone and in deep waters and not too sure I can swim (make sense). I can only hope that perhaps I might and fluke “make sense” in The Lord’s generosity.

Blessings and my regards…Barb

I burst out laughing, when I read what you’d written.
I’ve been out of my ‘comfort zone,’ since I could
stand up and walk!

As life goes forward, one has a chance to step back
and consider happenings, and even critique same.

“What’s with this ‘naming’ things?” http://bestsmileys.com/nono/9.gif
pace God - what with Adam being invited to name the animals]

The moment one names something, a gap opens - between
the phenomenon named, and the ‘namer.’

Once ‘named,’ an attitude forms, vis a vis the named.

God understands this. He left it to John and Paul to name things.
But He left us stories.

In illo tempore…'Once upon a time…"
“A man was set upon by robbers…”

“And then what happened?..”. http://bestsmileys.com/lol/1.gif

We so often work at cross-purposes with God.
He’s trying to coax us to consider the human,
while we insist on ‘naming.’ Making a ‘head trip’
out of that which is pilgrimage. He stressing
the relational, while we stress the definitional.

reens

 

[Mystic_Warrior]

A loving human father does not have to be told,
by his grown children, that some awful situation
requires his help. A human father may well have
to be told that a given situation is awful. Out of love,
he will do what he can, when he is apprised that
help is needed, to alleviate suffering.

Are human fathers then more merciful and loving
than God is?

reen12

I think there’s a difference in that the Heavenly Father knows all and the earthly father does not. An earthly father may intervene at his child’s peril. For instance, in order to shield his child from making a poor choice, he is in effect not letting his child experience failure.

Failure, pain, hardship and a host of other things are part of life as we know it. We humans have created what you see here. We have created the evil that we perpetuate as a race and society.

The Heavenly Father does intervene sometimes - when it is necessary and fulfills the purpose of the human. However, he does not violate our free choice. This life isn’t meant to be perfect and free from pain at all. It’s meant to be a learning experience wherein we learn what good and evil really are.

Peace…

MW

 

[Mystic_Warrior]

Parental intervention removes opportunities to mature,
in some instances. No problem with that.

The instance that haunts, is the 3 year old child who was
abducted in Portugal. What has happened to her?
Taken in the night, from love and Mommy, where is this little girl now?
Can her confusion and terror even be imagined?

There are many of us who experience terror. I have come to know true evil the past year and a half. Little children hurt and abused, people killed, people committed suicide. And I knew them. I’ve asked the question to God many times. Why? I received no answer, but I know there’s a purpose. I just can’t see it.

I don’t give a hoot what happens to adults, in a limited sense.
They at least have fully rational minds, and can at least
understand that evil exists in the world. But not a child.

I understand the feeling.

How, in the name of all that’s holy, Christians - or any other
believers - can roll off ‘answers,’ in a horrible situation like that,
stupifies me. "God gives man free will. The father of humanity
had a wife who had a taste for apple dumplings, and that
‘explains’ everything.’ It does?

That’s the thing. We don’t have the answers as to why these things are allowed. But, for me, after everything I’ve been through I trust God and that He knows what He is doing.

I don’t give a hoot, either, as to which ‘lessons’ God wants me
or any other adult to learn. But not a 3 year old little girl.

I don’t think the bad things that happen are all about “lessons” personally. I think they have more to do with the scope of God’s plan and purpose for each human being. But I know the people who have died close to me were saved from further hurt and pain by them being taken.

“Deliver us from all that is evil…” It didn’t ‘work’ for this little girl,
did it?

reen12

It’s not about saying a magic prayer and God being a magic genie. It’s about plans and purposes that our minds cannot fathom.

Peace…

MW

 

[Mystic_Warrior]

All the easy answers - about how God permits evil, free will, and all the rest of it -
then He asks us to pray…

Why?

To be close to us through it all.

Since He knew, from eternity, that that little girl would suffer like hell -
what’s the sense of praying for* anything*?
That His ‘vast, eternal plan’ included allowing this child to
suffer the rigors of hell - He can take His plan and keep it.

I’ve already discussed the meaning of prayer. How do you know that his little girl wouldn’t suffer even more if she were left alive? That’s the problem. God sees it all, past, present and future. We only see past and present. Therefore, whatever judgments we make are incomplete.

God made this world. He is responsible for all of these innocents.
He could stop this in an instant. But He doesn’t. Then He
is titled Merciful, Compassionate, Wonderful Counselor…

No, He is not responsible for all these innocents.

How come the Wonderful Counselor has to be informed, by His
creatures, that a 3 year old is now in a horrible situation?
Doesn’t He know? Doesn’t He care?

He doesn’t have to be. It’s about communion, not about asking a magic genie in the sky to do things for us. Yes, He knows and He cares.

Big time ‘double-message’ - from the Almighty.

Perceived from our limited human perspective, yes.

I wouldn’t want to disturb Him - in His glory, by asking Him to intervene,
on behalf of a 3 year old.

I don’t think He minds. In fact, we’ve established the fact that He does want us to pray.

It’s all about Him, right? Not about that little girl.
The celestial Narcissist, who’s too busy tending to His august ego
‘I"m God, you know’] to take a few moments to rescue a 3 year old
from hellish circumstances.

Oh, I can understand the frustration. Unless you are omniscient I would suggest you take a step back and think about the fact that you can’t possibly know every person’s situation to judge accurately on how well God is doing His job.

If this is the ‘God of mercy,’ then the definition of mercy might
need re-tooling - to reflect the actual attributes of this deity.
Out to lunch.

Maybe it is us that needs some re-tooling.

Or am I now to be told how Jesus suffered for 3 hours, and
I should consider God’s graciousness, in ‘saving’ us.
Tell it to that little girl.

reen12

Jesus suffered more than we can know. We can’t know really. And frankly, I’ve seen people that seemed to experience much more pain and heartache, but that’s beside the point in my opinion. It isn’t a tic-for-tac situation on who gets the medal for suffering the most.

Peace…

MW