A Look at Suffering - Part Four - The Blueprint

"...directly or indirectly everything in world history follows a meticulous divine blueprint...The ultimate reason why anything happens is that God decided it was better to have it happen than not...At the very least it can be said that each event in world history happens because God willed not to prevent it."

The above is how Boyd describes the The Blueprint Worldview.

While he may have named it, the belief is far from new.

In fact, Boyd points out this worldview goes back to the days of Augustine (the 5th century) and is still quite popular in the church even today.

I can attest to hearing some sermons that have preached this view.

The pastor, or whomever, will use words like "providence" and "immutability" and "will" etc.

Augustine even believed that those who found themselves victims of "evil" by the hands of others to find consolation that there must have been a greater good, as God would not have allowed it to happen.

Calvin called it God's "secret plan."

A plan so secret, there isn't even a hint of it in the Bible - outside of God will eventually win.  But what's the point of winning if the game is rigged and you created it?

How does worldview fit into real life?

Boyd gives an example.  A woman Boyd knew had lost her child to a drunk driver.  To console her, she had been told by fellow Christians that "God had his reasons" and "God is still in control."

As Boyd puts it, "...(it's) as though the drunk driver was actually carrying out the will of God!"

Just another part of God's "secret plan."

This is where the Blueprint Worldview has an issue.  There is no REAL answer to evil and tragedy, except to say there MUST have been greater purpose for it.

A greater purpose that we may never understand or know of.  We are just to trust that God has his "secret plan" and it's working out HIS way...

Of course, "For some people the assumption that God allows tragic events for a specific divine reason has understandably produced rage."


But this begs the questions - why does it HAVE to be this way?

Why couldn't God, if he is so powerful and everything happens because of Him, make His will, His divine plan come about in a different way?

How come God can't bring about His plan without any of us suffering?

If it is all for the greater good, why - at the very least - can't he explain to us how it contributes to the greater good...or at least give us a hint?

The questions keep on coming...no doubt you have some of your own (feel free to same them in the comments).

Boyd also points out: how can God punish someone for doing evil if He is the one that ordained the person to commit the evil - or at the very least allowed it?  To say nothing of "ordaining" or "allowing" Adam and Eve to eat of the forbidden fruit - which "condemned" us all.

"And it's difficult to accept that people in hell somehow contribute to the overall good of creation."

Personally, I must say that is hard for me to accept that God ordains and allows evil to not only exist, but seemingly run rampant in this world.

Yet Boyd asks, "Does denying a specific divine reason for every specific event mean that God is not all-powerful?" and "What are we to make of Bible passages that depict God as orchestrating suffering and evil?"

Very good questions.

A Look At Suffering - Part Three - That Darned Tree

"In the beginning..."

No need to grab your Bibles, I'm sure we all know, or at least have a fairly good idea how the beginning of Genesis reads.

Long/short of it: God makes everything, including Adam - then Eve from Adam - and then puts in this weird tree type thing.

The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.

God grants Adam and Eve use and enjoyment of EVERYTHING, but this ONE, SINGLE, SOLITARY tree.

This is what Boyd calls The Loving Prohibition.

At first read I thought, "Whaaaaa?  How's that work?"

Thankfully Boyd explains.

At the center of the relationship with God is two-fold.  The provision and the prohibition.

The provision is pretty self explanatory.  It's the Tree of Life.  Loving fellowship with God in all it's forms.

The prohibition is a bit tricky - as the last thing WE want is to be told we CAN'T have something.

Yet, that's EXACTLY what we need.

Thankfully, again, Boyd explains.

I would guess that all of us would agree that there is a difference between God and us.  Some more obvious than others.

One of those differences, as Boyd points out, is that we ARE NOT life's "ultimate moral judges."  And for that we should be REALLY thankful - in that regard, I think we all would agree: we suck.

To be moral judges is not our role.  God didn't create us to be such.

We are to be reflections of God's heart...his love...his will - if you will.

We aren't able to do this, Boyd states, if we are trying to be like God and taking over the role of moral judges.

As Boyd says, "We simply are not equipped to make accurate and loving judgments about good and evil....Our experience and perceptions of reality are incredibly narrow....We are incapable of drawing definitive conclusions about most things, especially the state of people's hearts."

But, we didn't buy into God's way.  We bite into the fruit of the tree everyday...

If you think for a second, like I did, that you wouldn't have eaten of that tree: just remember, we do it everyday, most of the time without thinking.  Still don't believe me?  Watch how selfish you are from sunrise to sunset tomorrow.  Heck in the next five minutes!

Me?  I'm a saint! (yeah, right)

Nope, we eat of the fruit everyday...all day sometimes.

Why is this prohibition good for us?

Boyd sums it up quite brilliantly: "God wants our life to be one of receiving and giving unsurpassable love.  But this requires that we refrain from judgment."

When I read this I want to say "Amen!" and "What the heck?" at the same time.

I don't get to JUDGE people?

But it's so FUN!  I mean, there are some people that are just ASKING to be JUDGED and dang it I want to be the one to waggle my finger and JUDGE them...

But, Boyd (and God) is right...we can't truly start to love one another until we stop judging everyone.

I have to admit this is hard - heck just yesterday (though I'm sure I did it today too) I was judging someone.  I know, because I was trying NOT to.  The more I tried NOT to, the more they kept "giving" me reasons to judge them.

Boyd states that "the most important aspect of faith is our mental picture of God."

How true it is...

He then says, "Amidst the sea of ambiguity (life) we swim in, we must not relay on our own "knowledge of good and evil" to figure out what God is like and what he is up to."

So, perhaps, my view of God might not be all that I thought it was...or hoped it was...If it's so easy for me to judge others, well judging God isn't that far of a leap either.

As tasty as this fruit is...it might not be so good (or fun to eat) after all...

A Look at Suffering - Part Two - God's Blueprint?

In Is God To Blame? Boyd tells us a story of a woman, Melanie.  Melanie wanted to be a mother more than anything in the world.  She married later in life and to make sure they had a family they immediately began trying to have a baby.  Though, later, they found out that it would be near impossible for Melanie to conceive due to a medical condition.

But, just when they were about to give up hope - Melanie became pregnant!

All went well with the pregnancy...until the birth.  Due to complications, the baby die during child birth.

To say Melanie and her husband were devastated is clearly and understatement.  Melanie fell into a depression.

To look for answers Melanie turned to a respected Bible teacher they knew.

The answer she got was what she expected:  God has a reason for everything.  There are no accidents in God's providence.  The hand that smites is the hand that heals.  You just have to trust him."

Melanie further asked what good God might have intended with this tragedy.  She was told, "When God's timing is right, and when you have learned what you are meant to learn, God might bless you with another child.  Or it wasn't HIS WILL for you to have children." (emphasis mine)

Boyd learned of Melanie's situation when she came to him for help.  Not in understanding "why" she lost her baby, now she wanted to figure out what lesson God wanted her to learn.

Is it any wonder that Melanie lost her zeal, her love for not only God, but of life?

But that was Melanie's picture of God.  That is many people's picture of God.

Even I had that picture of God.  An all powerful, all knowing God that, if he wanted could stop ANY and ALL tragedies that happen - thus if a tragedy did happen, God had a very good reason to LET it happen.

Many people have lost their passion for God because their picture of God does not foster passion.  They believe, as Boyd writes, "Everything that happens (in the world) would be the working out of His plan."

Including Melanie's tragedy.

Yet, I'm guessing like me, you have a difficult time embracing that view.  "Accepting" the knowledge that God would actually WILL something like that to happen to someone, anyone.

After all, Boyd says, "How can God be all-powerful and not always get his way?"  How could His will NOT be accomplished?

Or how do we "reconcile the picture of God as Jesus Christ with the picture other passages seem to paint?"

These questions are the result of what Boyd calls the Blueprint Worldview.  The belief that EVERYTHING that happens in the world has a specific divine reason - God's reason, God's grand, secret plan.

A belief that even I, in part at the very least, subscribed to.

Though, I couldn't ever seem to make it completely FIT with what I saw in Jesus.

Boyd offers us a different perspective, picture, of God: Warfare Worldview.

Instead of a God with a grand blueprint of life, God is engaged in a battle, a war, with many forces opposing (even thwarting) His will.

To discover this "new" view of God we will have to start at...where else?

...In the Beginning...

Book Review - Outlive Your Life, Max Lucado

You may not feel special. You may not believe you have anything to offer the world, but you are wrong.


You DO have something to offer the world, something the world needs.

In Max Lucado’s Outlive Your Life Max shows you how other “ordinary, every-day” people are making a difference in lives of others, and the world.

From a 9yr old boy to seasoned veterans of life’s troubles, Max shows us that it doesn’t take money, fame, or a big production to make a difference in today’s world.

In a society where it’s all about you, it’s refreshing to read a book that shines a light on others and what THEY need. In his easy going way, Max makes it clear that both you and I, regardless of where we are in life, what “limitations” we see for ourselves, have something to offer someone.

Putting a spotlight on the early days of the church, Max also shows us the troubles and tribulations that the disciples had to endure and how even the smallest of acts from them (even scary at times) made a big difference to someone.

As Max puts it: we can’t help everyone, but everyone of us can help someone.

Outlive Your Life both challenges us as inspires us to do just that.



I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze®.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

We Have Enough

We have enough: to clothe the naked.
We have enough: to pillow every head.

We have enough: to fill every stomach
but fill ours twice as much, instead.

We have enough: no father should worry.
We have enough: no mother mourn.

We have enough: no one should have to steal
to feed another mouth just born.

We have enough: no drink should kill
We have enough: no meal should wait.

We have enough: to throw away at night,
that others are thankful to take.

We have enough: of all we need
and more of what we want.

We have enough: to keep us entertained,
to help forget the faces that haunt.

We have enough: thank God above.
We have enough of everything...

...everything but love.

A Look at Suffering - Part One - Something Ain't Right...

Like the song goes, "There's something happening here.  What it is, ain't exactly clear."

There IS something happening here.  We catch glimpses, we can feel it, sense it...yet we can't exactly put our finger on it.

Like Paul said, we see through a glass darkly...we see shapes and figures and can kind of make out some things...but most of it is...well, a mystery.

And regardless of your spiritual belief, you have to admit...something ain't right.

Things AREN'T how they are supposed to be.

This ISN'T what we were meant for.

This ISN'T the best we can do.

So what IS going on?

That is what I want to look at.

What gives us the best sense that something isn't right in the world is SUFFERING.

We all know it, we've all seen it.  And, at times, we try to help in some way or another.  Which is good, but in the long run suffering still exists...and most of us struggle to answer the question WHY?

Why do children die of starvation everyday?

Why do tragedies strike "good" and "honest" people?

Why does there seem to be no real order, only chaos, in the world?

All of this is part of God's will? His grand, Divine plan?

For my part, I never had a real good answer either - if I had any at all.  I would just fall back on my faith in God and say something like, "well God's in charge, so there HAS TO BE a good reason."  After all, this is God's world...we're just living in it.

Even for me, though, that wasn't  a good enough answer...there HAD to be a better reason.  If Christ is our "image" of God.  If we are to know God's heart through Jesus...

...something doesn't jive.

What I see in the world and what I see in Jesus are COMPLETELY different - and to think that BOTH are attributes of God...

...That's a God that isn't, to put it plainly, ALL GOOD.

Powerful?  Certainly.

Good? Can't say I would agree.

But through Jesus we see that God IS good, IS kind, IS LOVE...

And yet...

That's where I would get stuck..."and yet..."

and yet...

There is something happening here, and no, it's not very clear.

In following posts, we will dive in to the dark, murky, waters of the "why" of suffering.

Will we get all our questions answered?

No.

But, hopefully, we will get a clearer picture, a better understanding, and more importantly - a more correct view of God, and his heart, AND his will.

Draftsman or warrior...what's your view of God?

I just finished reading Greg Boyd's book Is God to Blame? Which deals with tough issues regarding suffering and free will and what God is doing/not doing in our lives.

Boyd argues most people have what's called a Blueprint view of God and the world.  Meaning, God has a grand plan and that we are can play a part in it.  And the horrors and suffering in the world are a part of that plan.

Like the tragic and sudden death of a loved one is "part of God's plan" or "will."

I have to admit that I subscribed to this viewpoint, at least in part - if not more.

Boyd, however, offers a different look at God.

Not as one pulling the strings, but as one offering an adventure...much like Eldredge believes.

Boyd offers us a Warrior God.

One that is is the midst of a battle of, yes, good vs. evil.

And, like it or not, we have roles to play - important roles...even dangerous roles.

While it's not a long book, it is a deep book and I will share some of it.  But to give it it's full due, I will do so in separate posts.

But before that, think a moment about how you view God.

Is he pulling the strings?
Is he just watching?
Is he waiting for us to screw up?
Is he calling us to ______?

What is your view?

Sermon Share - "Losing the Faith Game"

From Greg Boyd - Woodland Hills Church.

Losing the Faith Game

Three Guys, ten pizzas...

This Saturday, me and my buddies will be going to help feed and clothe the homeless as needy for the fifth month in a row.

I don't say this to brag, but I say this to - at the very least - inspire.

Why?

First, if you knew me and my two friends...well, that's reason one. LOL

Second, we had no real plan - we had a plan for something completely different and more self serving...boy how that changed.

Third, the three of us - thanks to wonderful supporters - have somehow managed to keep doing this each month...in fact, after the second time, we made a pact that no matter what ONE of us would be doing it every month.  I'm happy to say, we've always had at least TWO of us there.

Fourth, we couldn't have imagined what it has grown into in just these quick five months.  What went from an initial 10 pizzas, now will be 30 pizzas, 80-plus pairs of socks, blankets, 5-plus garbage bags of clothes, and whatever else we can manage to haul and give away - including gas cards!

If anything, what me, Ryan, and Besu (now Mike!) have done should prove that ANYONE can help.

We didn't write this all down.  We didn't have meetings.  There were no votes.  Just three guys wanting to help out in any way we could.  Nor did we didn't set out for any loftier goal than: more pizzas!  We just decided to do it and do it every month - regardless of what he have to bring (or not to bring).

And I will say this: if you serve it (pizza) they will come!

But honestly, for me, I would have never have even done it the first time if it wasn't for Ryan and Besu willing to do it as well...if it wasn't for them, I wouldn't be posting about this.

I'm glad I am.

Kiva Update 2-4-11...

As of today, another $2.10 has been repaid on the microfinancing loan I provided through Kiva, for a total of $12.60 repaid out of $25.00.

This was a loan to an man in Iraq to sell CD/DVDs, etc.

For information on what Kiva, microfinancing, and how you can help...visit Kiva Here!

Happy Birthday to...?

A slap your head "duh!" moment...if you didn't think you could find ONE thing to do...

Just One Birthday Wish!

Hmmmm...what's next?

Been considering...what's next?

Where is this...me...anything going to now?

Continue?  Move on?  Change? Rearrange?

Been away for a bit, thinking, praying on it...

No answer yet, which is par for God's course with me...disciplining my patience.

But, rest assured...as soon I as know I will post it!

Chris