The Absent Creator
Who is to blame when things go wrong?
The obvious answer is tf we screw up, it is our fault, but what if we don't feel we have done anything to bring bad times upon ourselves?
"I loathe my life; I will give free utterance to my complaint; I will speak in the bitterness of my soul. - Job 9:1
In Job's case, all the bad that has come his way is God's fault and he wants God to know he is fed up with the way God has treated him.
I hope I never get to the point where I am lashing out at God, casting blame on Him for what befalls me here on earth.
I listened to a sermon given by a colleague and I have to admit that I found the topic a bit disturbing. No doubt that was his intent. He said he looks around at all the evil that is present in the world and all the conflicts and atrocities people wield upon each other and he cannot find God in it all.
Is God absent?
Surely Job didn't think so. Job had an expectation about God that was different than our modern day interpretation, or so it seems. Job believed God pulled all the strings, manipulated the world to suit His needs and desires, and we struggle to survive on that playing field, like game pieces.
My friend's sermon suggests the opposite, that God has written the code that sets us in motion and has stepped back to see how the players on this grand stage perform.
The flaw in these views, I think, is that neither one takes all the forces and interests into account. Job had no way to understand that God exists in the world in many ways, not just as a driving force, but as a source of strength and purpose, through the Holy Spirit.
And despite the fact that my friend knows this and knows that God came into the world in human form to show us just how much He is part of our lives and we are part of His, my friend mentioned the crucifixion as an example of God abandoning Jesus, something I find impossible, since they are one and the same.
So, how do we make sense of the hatred and pain, the murderous self-interest, and the willing participation in the subjugation of human will by so many who seek to abandon their identities to be puppets in battles against others (look to ISIS as an example of this).
If our creator is absent from our lives, it is by choice, ours, not His.
We have been given a will to choose, which is a powerful thing for God to lay in our hands. In fact, it is crazy.
This past week, a nine year old girl was given an automatic weapon at a firing range. She had been quite successful handling the recoil when she was shooting at targets in single-shot mode, but when she was allowed to go "full automatic", she lost control and accidentally shot and killed her instructor.
That is what it is like giving us free will.
There is no way to contain it once we have it.
We can legislate all we want, but in the end, it comes down to a choice. This is the world God created, and it is an awesome responsibility for us to manage this battlefield.
The story of Job makes that clear. We live in the heat of battle, with the forces of good and evil at each other's throats.
And our creator is there with us, every step of the way - if we let Him.
And that is the answer, I think, to the question of God's presence. If we seek His help and acknowledge His presence in our lives, who knows what forces we can conquer!
More to come...
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