What if the church has this god thing wrong? Upon leaving ministry as a paid profession I had the freedom to wrestle with this question in a way I never really had before.
From what I had been taught growing up in a conservative Christian background there were several things you were just never really supposed to question about God. One of those things was His perfection. He absolutely could not do anything wrong. Everything that was wrong with the world was due to one of two things. Either it was because of God’s enemy, the devil. This entity is credited as being the embodiment of pure evil who is hell bent on undoing all the goodness that God created.
The other cause of things being bad in the world was because we humans were either hoodwinked by the devil or actively chose to side with him against God.
Either way, God was totally off the hook and it was unthinkable to even suggest He might should shoulder a little bit of responsibility for, just maybe, not thinking through this creation blueprint a little bit better. Everything that was good about creation, He gets the credit. Anything that might be bad, the devil and we dumb, evil creatures are to blame.
This idea has some direct applications for us also. Anything that we might do that is actually good we must attribute it to being obedient to God and following His perfect way. Any choice that we made which had bad consequences was because we chose to disobey Him. In other words, every good action on our part is something He gets credit for and every bad action is our own sinful fault.
What if this God thing is meant to be an ongoing journey that is not set in stone?
Prayer is another one of those truly difficult to explain or understand aspects of life with God. God already knows everything He is going to do. But we are supposed to pray for good things to come to us and others. If these good things occur, then we are supposed to give Him all the glory, praise, and credit for it. If good things do not come about from our praying then either we are just not faithful enough or God knows better than we do and the bad thing is really a good thing in disguise.
Can we say, “Bull shit”?
I have had people in my life who wanted to take credit for all the good that happens around them but blamed everyone else for everything that was wrong. I wanted nothing to do with them.
What if this God thing is meant to be an ongoing journey that is not set in stone? What if it is something we are invited to undertake with total freedom to express confusion, doubt, and even anger without fear of being judged and punished for not making perfect choices every time?
Think about it.
NOTE: The photo for today's post is a "just for fun on Halloween." It is a picture of a restored Marine Corps deuce and a half owned by a coworker. I would label it, "Ghost Recon Squad."
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