What in the World????

By way of explanation... These are some of my thoughts. Not organized in any way, except that they all were written down on scraps of paper in my Bible. I just thought that this is a way that I could start to organize my thoughts, and if you want to read and make fun... It's a free country. As clarification, these are not necessarily sermon notes, though if I think there is something worthwhile in a sermon, I may include it in here. These are also not very organized thoughts, it's just that things occur to me and I know I will forget them if I don't write them down immediately, so I do, on whatever is handy. If you get easily offended, check out my other blogs, they might be more your style. And above all Caveat Emptor (only this isn't a paysite, so I guess it would be Caveat Lector (let the reader beware))


For my first sermon...

Many people ask "if God is a Loving God, how can he let bad things happen to good people?"

I don't pretend to be able to answer that better than anyone, (there've been whole books written on the subject). But many people want to say that God lets bad things happen to good people in spite of the fact that he is a Loving God. But I would like to suggest that God allows bad things to happen to good people BECAUSE he is a God of Love. We need to first understand Love. Love is not some touchy-feely type of thing, where it is a function of only the heart, and what we feel would be nice. Love is a decision. Love is a feeling. Love is rational. Love should encompass all aspects of person, not only one. Since God is a God of Love, he wants our Love to come as a result of choice, not from a lack of choice. God set up a system where we could choose to love him or not. If God limited his Love with Justice, then as soon as we chose to love him, our lives would continue smoothly and well, and as soon as we chose to reject him... We would die. The fact that God wants our Love is demonstrated by the fact that he has given and continues to give us many chances to Love him even after we reject him. God is a God of Love.

Suffering comes as a result of Sin. The sin isn't always directly relatable to the suffering that comes. Sometimes our suffering is the result of another's sin. Sometimes the suffering comes because we live in a fallen world (it's fallen because of sin). The reason God "allows" bad things to happen to good people is the same as the reason he doesn't interfere when we deserve to die... Because he Loves people, and wants them to have every opportunity to Love Him. If he interfered on everything that makes him sad, he would not be behaving in a loving way. He endures the sadness for bad things that happen so that more people can come to Love him.

Having written all this, I realize how easily someone in the midst of suffering could read it and say "Wow this guy is really shallow, I wish he had a clue what he is talking about". I'm not sure I'm right about any of this, and would welcome corrections. Like I said, these are unconnected, spontaneous thoughts, and they are not necessarily those of the advertisers or staff of blogger.com.

Thanks for reading,
Joel,
B
AKA BFDWG