1. If the Bible is the word of God, and we can never fully grasp the complexity of God nor ever fully understand who or what God is, then how can we expect to ever fully understand the Bible? If there are four layers of the Bible (um... trying to remember them... but failing... the literal, the moral, the allegorical and the anagogical?), and naturally, we grasp one or a couple of those concepts easily and the rest, not so easily, then will we ever be able to fully understand the Bible the way God intended? If God is really God, and His knowledge would blow our minds beyond anything we've ever imagined and He inspired the Bible, anything short of it blowing our minds would probably indicate that we're not grasping any of it, right?
2. On a similar note, if the knowledge of God is beyond anything we can fathom, why do so many of us assume that if we challenge the Bible, we'll walk away agnostic or atheist? If the Bible is the truth, it can't be proven wrong. Right? So why not just dive in? I heard a sermon where the pastor quoted Martin Luther (I think?) as saying as he studied Romans, he "beat Paul into submission". I can't find the direct quote, but I think the point the pastor was making was that we should challenge the Bible until there is nothing left to challenge (which, really, probably won't be in this lifetime).
And to be honest, when I started reading the Bible, I was pretty certain it would end up being wrong in so many ways and I'd end up giving it up early on. But through the guidance of Christians and pastors who have studied the Bible as it should be studied, as well as through sermons and discussions, all of my unanswerable questions ended up answered. Not only that, but they ended up answered in such a way that subsequent questions would dry up too. Anybody who knows me knows that's not an easy feat. I was blessed with the most awesome set of teachers, but at the same time, the way God drove my heart into it, I sought out those teachers. I scoured the internet for pastors and Christians who had the intellect and devotion to Scripture along with the ability to teach it to me in a way that my mind was open to learning it. I'm grateful to have had the drive and the courage to doubt my doubts and actively seek out the answers and work through the conflicts I had with God, Jesus, Christianity and religion. I spent my entire life without that courage and without the need for God and out of nowhere, God chose me. God chose to change my heart and to open me up to Him at just the right time and just the right way that I might know Him. I don't know if I know Him yet, but at least now, I'm working on it.
3. If a person is born in a place where there is no Bible, no church, no missionaries, etc, is s/he choosing a life without God, which would consequently send them to hell? Or did Adam supposedly already make the choice for him/her? Or is it all just meant to point out to Christians even more clearly that we are choosing to let our brothers and sisters die- whether it be by not bringing them the "bread of God", knowing they are without access to anything that might let them make an "educated" decision about religion, or the bread of humans, knowingly letting them die of starvation, malnutrition, and disease from a lack of clean water. If we really did what Jesus commanded and went over there to spread the Gospel, we wouldn't have a choice through empathy to help those in need in any way we could. So when people in the world without the Gospel are starving, sick and dying, who needs the Gospel more- them or us?
4. One question (or argument) I had when I was agnostic/atheist was: Why doesn't God just destroy Satan? I've asked Christians, and I've searched the internet (there's a lot out there on this topic), but the answers never satisfied me. Satan's a part of God's plan. Or, Satan is necessary to divide the goats from the sheep. Or, Satan's trapped in Hell anyway, so he's ultimately harmless (um... except for all the temptation stuff?). Or, Satan is of no consequence and the issue doesn't matter because in the end God will be the final judge. Or, God needed an enemy. How can good exist without evil? So many answers, all sort of missing something- God, I guess.
And then it occurred to me last week as I was driving home from work in traffic, what if God loves Satan? I know, the immediate reaction is that that idea is absurd. But think about it. God loves us and we do horrible, evil things. We were with Him for ten minutes in the Garden of Eden and chose Satan over Him already. Satan is beyond our realm of evil, but God's love is infinite. If God is sovereign over all things and if He has a plan that will be executed no matter who is a part of it, then why would he bother getting rid of Satan? And if God loved Satan, there'd be even less of a reason to off him. Can we really say, "God is love (Satan not included)"? Or "God loves all Creation (except Satan)"? Did God make a mistake in creating Satan? Can the all-sovereign God who created life make mistakes? And if He did, wouldn't He both see them coming and be able to fix them before they happened?
5. Another problem I had was the whole "God is watching over you" thing. How can God be watching over everybody? And secondly, why would He care? Our culture today is one of abandonment and conditional love. It's becoming more and more difficult to believe that somebody who either doesn't know us at all or somebody who knows us inside and out, present, past and future, can love us wholly and unconditionally. It's just not in us to believe that that kind of unconditional love exists, even if our soul longs for it.
Somebody told me yesterday that they were a swinger. They expected me to be my usual liberal self and accept it. But I didn't. Sure, there's the obvious God component, where the intimacy of marriage creates an atmosphere of worship that allows us to draw closer to God and to knowing God, but that's not why I reacted badly. The reason I completely disagree with swinging is it validates our most pessimistic faculties; it confirms to us that we are not worthy of unconditional loyalty and love. It confirms that we just are not capable of that, even if it is what God intended for us. I know if any swingers read this, they'll probably resent it, telling themselves they're fine with what they're doing, it's all consensual, that it doesn't harm them in any way. But from my perspective, it so does. Can you imagine a love that never fades? A love built on respect, trust, loyalty, admiration, and sacrifice? A love that is earned through work but that is so worth it that the work in itself is rewarding? A love that replenishes the soul and helps us to see God? The kind of fairy tale love but on an infinitely greater scale- it's the kind of love the romantics set their sights on and the pessimists spend their lives scoffing. But what's wrong with wanting it? What's wrong with wanting the perfect love? Keeping in mind that "perfect" doesn't mean effortless or lazy, but earned and growing and deepening and causing us to rejoice in it, why do we settle for less? And even worse, why do we spend our lives confirming our worst case scenario for love? What benefit does that serve on a permanent level? How does it replenish our soul in a long term way? Can anybody argue that it does?
So our resistance to unconditional love aside, how can He watch over all of us and why would He care to? If God is really God and is sovereign over everything, then He created the world and everything in it. If God can pull together an entire universe out of the dust which He also created, how is it not in His capacity to watch over you? How is it not in His capacity to play an active role on multiple levels within your life? And if God is all sovereign and created life, He created you the way you are. That alone is setting you up for living your life somehow. He threw you into this particular family, knowing these events would occur in your life, knowing all you would go through, how much you would have to handle, how strong your character would have to be to make your life such that it accomplishes what it should as part of God's plan- how can He not be there? Why would He put so much effort into something and not stay to see it play out?
6. I used to say, "God is just a crutch the religious lean on so they don't have to handle everything on their own." It made the religious weaker than me because I was struggling with my stuff alone, with no God around to rely on or to tell me everything was going to be ok. That made me more resilient and more able to cope than religious people.
The first flaw with that concept is the idea of being alone. While I didn't have God to lean on, I did have friends and family and dogs around. I did have the love and support of those around me. Even if I'd reject that support so often, it was there.
The second flaw with that concept is if you truly know God, or since I'm not sure anybody can really know God, if you are truly seeking to know God, and you pray wholeheartedly in the hardest times to the point of meditation- I mean, give all of your soul and attention to prayer in those moments- you probably end up stronger than if you just handled it all alone. Why? Because in prayer, you not only have to face everything in order to ask for help with it, face your helplessness, but also give it all up to God. You give up the things you can't control: give up your anxiety, give up your grudges, give up your hurt. Basically, you give up all of your coping mechanisms. You let go of repression, grudges, resentment- all these ways that we close up our souls to protect them. How is that weak?
Sure, some people use God as a coping mechanism and those cases are particularly sad to me because it's unlikely they actually know God, instead are looking for a quick fix, an instant release of their burdens. They're using God to disguise repression. I guess it's idolatry, really. You're using this one small fraction of what you believe God to be and you're worshiping it for your benefit.
When I was betrayed a few months ago, I was careful in how I prayed for healing. I'm still new at praying, and part of me still believes I might pray "wrong" and ask for the wrong things and God will give me those wrong things just to show me the flaws in my prayer. So I was careful. I didn't pray for my heart to be instantly mended or for the pain to stop. I did pray for the strength to eat enough to survive (my eating kind of collapsed for a while). But most of all, I prayed that God teach me whatever He needed to teach me. Whatever growth this event of suffering and pain was meant to lead me to, let it happen. And give me the strength to endure until I'm ready to learn it. In all my pain, I gave it up to God. I didn't repress it. I didn't turn it into anger. And every night, as I prayed for my growth, I prayed for my betrayer's growth also.
Please God, open his heart. Please God, help him feel this hurt. Let him feel it with all his soul until he is crushed into submission like I am.
I'll admit that part of it was spite, but the major part was just to make this pain worthwhile. If this pain could change two people, to allow extreme growth in God for two of us, then it'd make this burden on my soul a lot easier to carry. If God broke me both because I needed to be broken and because by breaking me, He'd open somebody else's eyes too? Go for it. Break me to pieces, God. But just for me? All this just for my growth alone? Am I worth that? I guess God thinks so if that's His plan.
So is God my crutch? No. Jesus, beaten and tortured, carried his cross. No way will I lean on Him selfishly without taking that into account. Yes, God loves me, but knowing what He did for me, knowing the sacrifice, knowing the pain He must have endured to walk with me, I can't let him carry my bags. His love should be enough to give me the strength to carry my own. Not only that, but His love should be enough to give me the strength to help carry others' bags too.
I know this post was ridiculously long and it took me a few days of intermittent writing to finally finish it, but I hope it might maybe answer a few people's questions or stir up some thought...
The soul is an eternal thing. Why do we feed it temporary things when it needs eternal food?
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