Kiva Update!

Just got the verification that another $2.10 has been paid back on the micro-finance loan I made through KIVA.  This brings the total paid back to $14.70 out of $25.00 lent.

For more information of micro-financing check out KIVA.  $25.00 is all it takes to give someone a "hand up!"

A Look at Suffering - Part Five - A War?

Again, the cornerstone of our faith is based upon how we view God.


We've taken a look at the Blueprint Worldview - the predominant view of Christian's and the Church - that states: everything that happens in the world is ordained, if not allowed, by God for the accompliment of His will, or "secret plan."

But Boyd offers us a different view of God.  A view, he argues, is more aligned with with what we see in Jesus.

Boyd writes, "Jesus didn't come to declare that everything already manifests the Father's will.  He came, rather, to establish the Father's will, because the world as it now is doesn't consistenly manifest God's will."

Is there any argument there?

All it takes is five minutes of watching the nightly news or reading the top stories of today's paper to prove this.

Thus, Jesus' ministry is not one of a blueprint God but of an embattled God.

Boyd states, "Jesus' ministry reveals a warfare worldview in which God wars against those what oppose him."

A war against, "powers and principalities" as Paul says.  A war against those who would oppose his will.

In short, a war against Satan.

Boyd asks, "How are we to make sense of this fact?  How could the omnipotent God's creation become a war zone in which he has to genuinely fight to establish his will?"

Especially against Satan, and in light of God being "all-powerful?"

While a search to find answers to these questions may help us to understand the nature and reasons of suffering, the answers will fail in answering them completely.

However, "So long as we think of God's greatness in terms of sheer power, there is no adequate answer to these (any) questions."

If God is at war what does that mean for us?  What is our part?  What else might be going on that we don't understand?  How does this answer suffering?

Does it answer suffering?

A Look at Suffering - Part Five - Dignity of Risk

In my profession, we have an ongoing challenge of ensuring a person's safety, while under our care, while allowing them AS MUCH freedom as possible.  We call this the dignity of risk.

Meaning, that we must allow for the person to make some decisions that may not be in their best interest.  Such as smoking, or drinking alcohol (with their given medications) be out alone in the community, etc.  Things you and I take for granted.

It's a funny way of putting it, but it is true - we, you and I, have the dignity of risk.  We, in most ways, get to risk our "lives" or at least our "safety" everyday.  There's no one here, right now, watching my every move to see if I "can" or "can't" do something that might put me at risk...

God works the same way.  He give us the dignity of risk.

Or, as Boyd puts it: the risk of love.

We've heard it before "God is Love." (1 Jn 4:8,16)

He made the world from His love to share in His love.

As we all know, however, love cannot be forced...it must be freely given, and freely chosen.

This means, a person can say "no" to love.

Boyd tells us that "Up to the time ot Augustine the church understood and emphasized this point...they taught that God's mode of operation in running the world is not coersion but persuasion."

This is risky, though.

Because it allows for one to NOT CHOOSE love.  Which also allows for the possibility of...evil.

We can see this in our owns lives: love is risky.

We put out hearts our there, no knowing for sure if the other person will reciprocate our love...or even treat us with love.  While we don't want the other person to treat us badly, we don't want to FORCE them to love us either.  We want them to have "free will" to love us.

Why?

Because then we'd would know their love wasn't genuine...we want genuine love.

Wouldn't God want the same?

If God's will is to be carried out in love, and he allows us to have free will to do so, it also means he allows us to have free will NOT to do so.

In other words, as Boyd says, "...we can refuse to carry out his command (will) if we choose."

This means, to put it bluntly, we can choose NOT TO follow God's will...

A belief quite contrary to what most of the church is teaching.  I would bet that if you asked most people if they believed God's will could be thrawted by us, they would say, "no."

After all, God is all-powerful!

How could we, meere humans, keep God's will from happening?  An all-powerful God wouldn't allow that to happen...would He?

Well, if God wants us to love him freely, and to love freely, he can't FORCE us to love Him or others...thus his "wants" and what we "do" may not line up.  That would mean His will (want) was not being accomplished.

So does this mean he ISN'T as all-powerful as we believe?

Of course not.

What does it mean?

It means much more is going on than we realize...or perhaps, want to believe.

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.