Dr. Judith’s God Line

Posts Tagged ‘love’

It’s hard to believe that 2009 has begun.

There is so much wrong in the world, it seems.  I am often asked how a good God could allow the carnage on the Gaza strip, starvation/genocide in Darfur, and more personal tragedies such as death of a child, loss of a home or job, abuse of an innocent child, or unremitting pain during a long term illness.  The thing is I don’t believe He causes these things.

It seems to me that He took a huge risk when He offered us the gift of free will.  I have no doubt that He could have created a bunch of love slaves, having us bow down in adoration and awe, blowing Him kisses and being unable to do anything wrong.l  But then, we would have been a bunch of robots.

He loves us unconditionally regardless of the good or bad choices that we make, and I think He probably values our unconditional love in return.  Which makes the question of all the pain and suffering in the world even more relevant.  How are we supposed to love Him without condition when we think He performs so badly, unreasonably, unfairly or worse, cruelly?  Again, the only answer has to be that His performance has more to do with how He supports us and sees us through the pain, how He helps us to grow and mature, being pruned and refined by the suffering.

Surely, we mortals have then ability to prevent a great deal of wrong.  Haven’t we got the resources to feed the less fortunate?  Can’t we offer health care, vaccinations, education to nations, societies, cultures that don’t have the skills, wealth, manpower or knowledge to prevent or control disease?  Don’t we have the ability and capacity for empathy to understand differing points of view so that individuals and nations and faiths  and political beliefs can live side by side in peace?  How do we manage to deny that God has made us protectors and stewards of this amazing planet and that we have the responsibility to protect it?  What makes us think that people who carry out unthinkable evil haven’t themselves experienced the same in their own lives or that their deeds don’t come from internal demons or illness of their own? Why won’t we recognize that others, even the seemingly worst of us, need and yearn for love and understanding just as much as each of us does?

To me, these are the questions that God knows we can answer.  I believe it must hurt His heart deeply to see how His world and His children have devolved into selfishness and self-centeredness to the point that we neglect, harm or just plain forget others whether they are our family, friends, co-workers, members of our church or civic community, fellow citizens of our nation or our world.

As any parent has painfully discovered, we can’t keep our kids from hurt or pain and we can’t protect them from making often serious mistakes.  If they are ever to grow up, we must let them go and experience their own journey, fraught with danger whether it is from an emotional, physical or spiritual cause.  As hard as it is to let go of our one or several children, imagine how it must be for God.  On any given day, He has to let a billion or so of His kids go forth on their own adventure.  He steps aside, giving us the dignity to fail on our own and waiting for us to turn to Him to grow and change, becoming multi-faceted beams of hope and proof of His ever present care and love.

May you find faith during your journey in 2009, and may you be willing to believe in, test out, and find comfort in His love.

Happy New Year.

A good friend of mine called me yesterday to tell me that she had visited by 2 Pop-Up angels.

What in the world is a Pop-Up angel, you might ask. Well, it is someone who unexpectedly shows up or crosses your path who seems to be delivering the information you had asked God for. Sometimes this angel might be affirming what you already knew intuitively. Of course, our gut intuition is really the Holy Spirit speaking, but we often tend to ignore this because we have never been trained to listen to our gut or to trust it.

My friend had recently decided to end a relationship with a man she was in love with. Needless to say, this was a very hard decision for her to make, and it took a long time and much thought and prayer for her to make it. The reason? Though he was basically a good guy, he was unable to make a commitment to place her first in his life. He was not able to show his caring for her either in words or according to the 1st Corinthians definition of love as being patient, kind, never envious, never rude, never boastful and so forth. She came to the conclusion that she deserves to be loved the way God desires for us to be loved and the way, in fact,that He loves us.

So a couple of nights ago, my friend spent a great deal of time in prayer, asking God to show her if her decision was right, to communicate to her anything He wanted her to know. Having surrendered, she went to bed and had a good night’s sleep.

The next day, my friend received unexpected visits from two acquaintances of hers who knew nothing about her situation. The first proceeded to confide in her about her own marital difficulties, saying that she now wished she had paid attention to the warning signs that were present early in her relationship with the man who later became her husband. She discounted her gut intuition, married and was now , after many years, seriously considering divorce. The second spoke to my friend about how little communication there was between her and her husband and how disrespectful and unloving her husband had become.

Perhaps, these women had come to my friend looking for comfort or advice. But, my friend recognized them as Pop-Up Angels that God had sent in answer to her prayers. She felt validated in her decision and grateful that she had learned to listen to the Holy Spirit within.

Do Pop-Up angels ever cross your path? Share your stories or comment on this one.

If you have questions about how to recognize God’s voice in your life, e-mail me at judith@drjsgodline.com