Monday, October 01, 2007

  • Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers. I am feeling better today.

    Yesterday on the long drive to work, other Psalms kept coming to mind.

    The Psalms can be encouraging.

    And another thought keeps coming to mind.

    There are those who think that anything that goes wrong in life is an example of "stepping out of God's will" or at the very least "getting away from God."

    But the truth is that there is a vast chasm between not being close to God

    And rejecting religion.

    Life is what it is. We play in a mud puddle (live in the world) and we get splashed with mud at times.

    We avoid the mud puddles altogether and we still get splashed with mud at times.

    And our best clothes are ruined.

    It doesn't mean God's mad at us, given up on us, or we've done something "wrong."

    Life is simply what it is.

    And quite often, what happens to us has nothing whatsoever to do with us.

    Or with God.

Comments (6)

  • nathanomir
    People who think that if anything goes wrong it's a sign of God's anger at us or something like that miss two key points. First, as Bruce Springsteen said "there's a meanness in this world." People die. People get sick. People hate people. It's just the way it is. God, like any good father, can protect us from all that to a point, but eventually, it's going to find us. Second, I would say that Jesus was as close to God and as close to being in His will as anyone can be, and he still had tragedies and bad things happen -- Joseph died somewhere, he was called crazy by his brother, and finally, he got all hung up about sin. Paul, about as close as anyone who isn't Jesus can be to God, was stoned, killed, shipwrecked, imprisoned, and killed again. According to some folk, Paul was totally out of God's will and away from God and if that's the case, we should take his letters out of the Bible.
  • pastor_j
    So much superstition, I say. People who think you're "outside of God's will" when "bad" circumstances happen in their lives are still children, babies. Forget about trust that God works everything out, and is using everything to shape a large purpose, and to develop understanding.
  • Breath_Of_Dawn
    I totally agree. :lol:
  • nidan
    I'm glad you're better!
  • gothirishrose
    And sometimes God sits down in the middle of the mud with us and plays. I think that's when what we think should be, isn't. It isn't that he's capricious; he's not at all. I think he sometimes likes to say, what they think will not happen... and the they doesn't refer to us at all, but to someone else and thoughts steeped in religiosity...

    I am glad you are feeling better. I have a head full of snot and a nose that's only half working, and I need to go to bed.

    ;) :heartbeat:
  • TheTheologiansCafe
    It rains on the evil and the just in the same way.  I don't think that because something bad happens that a person is out of God's will or that God is upset with them.

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