Ok, so my thoughts about chaos in the world range from anger to confusion to total helplessness.
The ridiculous pain that is experienced by humanity is often more than I can take, and a good dose of non-real western passivity is all I can do to keep sane.
But the question still haunts me. Why does God allow it?
It occurs to me that there might be a different answer than "it's the result of sin in the world"....
What if God's mercy is the reason? What if it could all be over if God would just put his foot down? Would we still want the chaos to end if it meant that God forced us to worship him- if we were forced to "bow the knee"? What if he is waiting? What if he is patient? What if true worship must be a choice?
God's mercy and patience has created a world where we are free to worship ourselves and our own creations.
Sometimes I wish he would put an end to it, but I think I'd be part of the "end".... His dominion will only be forced when he chooses- and love will rule. If we'd get it through our heads that his rule exists where love reigns, we'd be making it happen instead of whining about the chaos....
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Tim Bailey
Mercy and Chaos
Thursday, July 24, 2008 | Posted by Tim at 10:08 AM
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3 comments:
... I feel the same ( only not as well articulated ). When I look at the large(r) scale issues? I swing from inspired to defeated. When I look at the global challenges from a faith perspective, I have to wonder, and often do ... "how can God tolerate a world where the religious 'competition' is out of control ( how many billion earthlings and how few million of us? ). How many major world religions and alternative wacky upstarts are there now? A lot ...
If what we believe is actually true, why does it appear to be making so little difference? and how does an all knowing, all loving God let it continue? maybe mercy? maybe patience? maybe something I will never see, know or understand?
Anger & helplessness .. familiar feelings! ;)
I always used to believe that the pain in my life meant that God couldn't possibly love me to allow those things to happen
.... with a LOT of help (and patience & persistence) my perspective shifted and for the first time I saw how much worse my situations could have been, but that He *did* save me from death or total destruction of mind or soul.
How much of what happened in my life was a result of free will of others? Others' brokenness? How much my own stubbornness and free will? How much was God preparing me for work ahead?
If there had been no pain in my life, would I have sought God out? I probably wouldn't have seen the need for surrender.
Without the pain, could I have seen love? It took someone knowing ALL the pain, all the hurts, all the things I beat myself up with and *still* loving me to believe and understand God's love.
so anyways some rambling in response to your thoughts on the purpose of pain .... it sucks ... but I think it exists as a messy combination of free will, sin, grace, purpose ... and we may never get to fully understand the BIG picture.
Embrace chaos. I cannot elude it. It seems so well articulated in what you write here Tim-my appreciation for God's mercy for me to choose worship is so powerful. Freedom-it all comes back to freedom. Man do I miss you dude. Jimmer
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