Throughout my first five and a half decades or so of life I was steeped in the Christian concept of God. There were two things about Him we were told we could count on. One was that God is all powerful. The other was that God is all loving.
This teaching, however, led to a problem. In a nutshell we can sum it up by asking the question, “If God is all powerful AND all loving, then how can the horrible things that are a part of life be allowed?”
The older I got and the more of life I saw and experienced, the more this problem grew in my mind. As a preacher myself I had to do spiritual backflips and contortion exercises to try to hold both of those concepts as true. The more I pondered this, the more another thought began to grow in my consciousness.
That thought is this – in order to hold both of these concepts as true about God, we have to give Him the sweetest deal in the history of man. The deal, in a nutshell, is this. Any good thing that happens in our lives is due to God’s loving goodness. The wonderful spouse/partner we are blessed with; the raise and promotion we were given; the cure from the terrible disease that invaded our body are all signs of His magnificent love and omnipotent power.
But, let a huge load of shit hit the fan while we are face up in front of it, and there is a different song to be sung. It was all our fault for some failure of faith or unconfessed sin. It was an opportunity for us to shine for God through this terrible event. It was just a part of life that comes to all of us and how could we think of blaming God for it? The list goes on.
Perhaps the problem is not God’s love or power but a flawed teaching which sets an expectation that no being, not even a divine one, could possibly meet.
Let me share with you a story that my oldest son shared while we were gathered for dinner on the evening of Samhain. You can click here to read it. It will take you about fifteen minutes to read. Please take the time to do so and also to ponder it for a while. It certainly portrays a god who is less than the traditional Christian one. But, for me at least, it is a more useful, honest, and inspiring one. Again, please read it and:
Think about it.
You are loved. Peace.
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