Recently, a dear friend of mine questioned me, "If someone asked you why you believed in Christianity, simply, what would your answer be?" My response is simple: I need a faith that can hold up to the trials of life. I need a faith that has the answers to life's questions. I need HOPE.
At age three, I asked Jesus into my heart. I was sitting in Sunday School singing, "Jesus Loves Me" & I accepted that fact... Jesus loves me. Yes, Christianity is that simple, a three year old can follow Christ. Over the years, my faith has deepened. If it had remained at the mentality of a three year old, it would be a pretty immature faith.
I haven't always understood certain things about Christianity. I've had a burning desire to reconcile a loving God with all the suffering & evil that takes place in the world. Trying to understand how a loving God can allow the atrocities that occur in life & still be a loving God has caused a lump to settle in my throat, the kind that makes you want to cry, a confusion so troubling it hurts.
I began to search & for an answer. How can a loving God allow hurricanes, sickness, suffering, abduction, terrorism, heartache, murder, earthquakes, & such? I came face to face with the answer, a book entitled "If God is Good" by Randy Alcorn. It begins in the beginning. God is a loving God. He gives us a choice. We are not programmed to love Him. That would not be love at all. Satan is a fallen angel. He wanted to be more powerful than God. He fell from Heaven, & when He entered The Garden of Eden, the world changed. It became cursed. The world is not how God planned it to be. Thankfully, it is only temporary.
Here's where TRUST enters the picture. I know God holds me in the palm of His hand. The Bible says so. I know all things work for good because I love Him. The Bible says so. Therefore, when bad things happen, I know God has the whole picture from beginning to end (past, present, future). If He allows evil and suffering, then it has to be for the ultimate good. I don't have eyes to understand God's ways. His ways are not my ways. He is God, & there are some things this side of Heaven, I will never understand. Again, that's where TRUST begins.
If I decide that God is not loving because He allows terrible things to happen, I am arrogant. If I decide there is no Hell, because I don't want to believe that, I am arrogant. I cannot make up my own religion just because some of the things about Christianity trouble me. That is arrogance.
I have a nasty cancer. I have completed chemo therapy & am one week away from life changing surgery. My future has uncertainties. My prognosis depends somewhat on the lymph node count which we will know soon after surgery. I can be angry at God for allowing my life to change in the blink of an eye. I can be depressed because I don't know the outcome. OR I can trust in Him for His ultimate good. I know He is a loving God, & I believe "all things work for good for those who love the Lord."
I guess when it really boils down, none of us truly knows our future here in this world.
ReplyDeleteI make plans, I assume I will be here next week, next month, next year. We all have seen how quickly that can change.
It is only God that does not change. And it is because of HIS love we have an absolute future guaranteed through our faith in Him.
I heard a song once that said, "The only thing that is certain, is uncertainty."
I guess that is a perfect worldly example of life.
We can grasp for many temporal things, but God holds all we need. Amen.
Susie, thank-you for sharing with such truth.
That TRUTH is really the only kind that will ever set any of us free.
My prayers are with you.