As promised, we now return to the issue of God's goodness, cancer, crepes, and such.
For those of you who've been dying in anticipation to hear the definitive answer on how we can know God is good, here it comes...............
You can't.
God's goodness is not measured by our circumstances. The only trap more dangerous than doubting God's goodness due to pain is believing in God's goodness with happiness as your only evidence.
Co-existing with other beings is our reality...and that coexistence brings with it both pain and happiness. The same goes for God. He isn't some perpetually euphoric being, independent of circumstance. He cries with us. He laughs with us. More notably, perhaps, he is grieved when we turn our backs on him, when we choose to isolate ourselves from him, when we choose to go our own way. And he rejoices when we return to him, under whatever circumstances.
The only instructions I can offer when it comes to navigating the landscape of joy and sorrow in life is to line up your emotions with God's: to be close to him is joy, to be distant is sorrow.
As for circumstances, all I can say is that I really think Bono is just feminizing God when he sings Mysterious Ways:
...to touch is to heal
to hurt is to steal
If you wanna kiss the sky,
better learn how to kneel
On your knees boy!
It's alright, it's alright, it's alright
She moves in mysterious ways...
Friday, October 10, 2008
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
The Most Dangerous Person to Lie To
The other day I met the most dangerous person to lie to.
In the bathroom.
More specifically, in the mirror.
I should've learned by now not to lie to myself. Not to convince myself that I was somewhere/someone that I wasn't. When you lie to someone else, they can call you on it. When you lie to yourself...well, that's it...you're on your own.
If a person is a car, the heart is the transmission. You can be driving recklessly at breakneck speed, and you may hit a few things and dent a few bumpers, but at least your inner workings are good. IF, however, the car tries going out of sync with the transmission, something snaps, the engine starts burning out, and you end up with a perfectly good-looking and yet entirely gutless vehicle.
If this doesn't resonate with you, I pray it never does.
BUT...to end on a higher note...God's grace is strongest in those humanizing moments when the engine finally syncs up with the transmission and we can be honest with ourselves about the one thing we can know beyond a shadow of a doubt: we are nothing without His grace.
In the bathroom.
More specifically, in the mirror.
I should've learned by now not to lie to myself. Not to convince myself that I was somewhere/someone that I wasn't. When you lie to someone else, they can call you on it. When you lie to yourself...well, that's it...you're on your own.
If a person is a car, the heart is the transmission. You can be driving recklessly at breakneck speed, and you may hit a few things and dent a few bumpers, but at least your inner workings are good. IF, however, the car tries going out of sync with the transmission, something snaps, the engine starts burning out, and you end up with a perfectly good-looking and yet entirely gutless vehicle.
If this doesn't resonate with you, I pray it never does.
BUT...to end on a higher note...God's grace is strongest in those humanizing moments when the engine finally syncs up with the transmission and we can be honest with ourselves about the one thing we can know beyond a shadow of a doubt: we are nothing without His grace.
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