Anamchara

A Struggle

"Follow me." (Matthew 4:18-22); "Be not afraid." (Genesis 15:1)

I was reading a blog entry by "Jane" regarding her feelings about God in the midst of tragedy, as in the case of the miners who died in West Virginia. She is angry at God, and lays out her reasons why. Her thoughts run to there being no God, or if there were, who would want a God that does not come to the aid of innocents. She concludes there must be no God.

I have a few thoughts on this regarding my own life.

First, Christ beckons me to 'follow Him', and to 'be not afraid.' Do I need belief before I follow him, or does belief follow obedience? And, am I afraid of Christ's call? Do I have faith? Is it genuine? I will probably only find out in the hard times. But, who wants hard times? Or suffering? Or rejection? Oh, and then for over 8 1/2 years I find myself in those times. Although now, they feel like regular times - one foot after another times.

Second, Jesus exhorts me to build on Him, on the Rock so to speak, so that when the hard times come, and they will, I will not find myself standing on shifting sand. I thought I was building on rock, but I must have been mighty close to the shoreline. Maybe I didn't ask the hard questions like Jane does before I started off on my little journey. Like the "count the cost" questions.

I am to walk by faith, not by sight. My trust in Christ must be ruthless. Sounds hard, but hey, I'm one of the "few and the proud", at least until I got in this firefight I'm in. Now, every time I get shot at, I'm not sure I want to go back to the front line.

Finally, when the unexplained happens, my first human reaction is often anger and rage - normal human emotions I am told by the self-help gurus. But, are my thoughts and feelings, whether in good times or bad, to be taken as proof of the existence of God, and how He intervenes in my own earthly affairs? Most of the time I would prefer a logical (to me) God rather than a mysterious God whose ways I do not understand.

However, Jane's thoughts deal more with the very nature and character of God versus how we humans deal with tragedy and heartache. Jane suggests that to be human is to ask these hard questions. Well, I am human, and I struggle with these questions. I also struggle against "pat" answers and, like Jane, with the nature and character of God.

posted by Anamchara @ 4:55 PM