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No darkness in God
lauriellen:
i understand that we are to love trust obey & have faith without question in God and who are we to question His ways? i also know that i am unable to do this with a pure heart on my own.
in all honesty, who amoung us here would not be angry if:
we were a jew, and our whole family was slaughtered in a german prison camp?
an ethiopian parent consigned to watch all of her children slowly & painfully starve to death?
a parent whose child had been abducted by a child molester, tortured, raped then murdered?
i could go on and on....but i am sure you get my drift. is it a sin for us to be angry about these things, just as God himself is angry about sin?
we are commanded to LOVE...but it hurts SO MUCH to love someone (humanity) and then watch them suffer. it is my human nature to harden myself against this love to keep from going crazy over the pain and injustice in this life, of which i know i am helpless to ease, but God none-the-less commands us to love & have a soft heart. the love for humanity that i believe God has given me is a raw pain that only He can bear in us.
DougE6:
Hi Lauriellen
we were a jew, and our whole family was slaughtered in a german prison camp?
an ethiopian parent consigned to watch all of her children slowly & painfully starve to death?
a parent whose child had been abducted by a child molester, tortured, raped then murdered?
i could go on and on....but i am sure you get my drift. is it a sin for us to be angry about these things, just as God himself is angry about sin?
Those are really really difficult things for us to grasp. The magnitude of the suffering of some, the magnitude of the wickedness found in human hearts, displayed by the gleeful and unfeeling and selfish atrocities and incredible cruelties and depraved indifference and the depth of tortures that have been done in human history. I know I have secretly fantasized how nice it would be to be a King, with absolute say, to be able to take some perpetrator of some grievous wrong and then be able to haul them before me to make them give account and then issue a just sentence. The sentence would allow them to somehow get a feel for the magnitude of their wrong, to be in their victims place, to feel what that was like, to allow them to relearn an empathy that they have hardened away in their evil selfishness or are simply missing, and then make them come to deepest shameful repentance. Somehow that fantasy, I think, is not far from the reality that will be facing many, in the lake of fire. I do not think such feelings like that, are wrong. We are to hate unrighteousness, to hate wickedness, and love righteousness. But whatever part of that fantasy is fueled by carnal self righteousness or a desire to wreak vengeance, I think that is wrong.
Because for now, our task is to remember this, but there for the grace of God, go I. And to love our enemies. Why should we love our enemies? because God loves them, and Jesus died for them. And to show that we are qualified to judge them. No one is truly qualified to judge another unless in addition to a full complete knowledge of circumstance and justice and mercy they have a heart that actually loves, because only in love will a sentence be passed on that actually has the best interest of the perpetrator in mind. We are interested in them becoming like Christ! Because we were in that same situation once, needing mercy and also having our eyes opened. having our eyes opened is so important. Do you think those people who commit those wrongs would be so full of evil acts if there understanding was opened to be as the converted? To see and know how evil they were being? Many people who commit grievous wickedness are self deceived and self righteous; feeling completely justified in their own eyes, when they commit such atrocities. I doubt Hitler went to bed every nite feeling bad about any Jew he gassed. No, he probably felt he was doing the world a favor, to rid the world of such.
So we need to become quite different than our former carnal selves. we need to be able to see all this through the righteous, loving, pure, merciful, judging eyes of Christ.
I am happy I am not called to be the IGNOBLE vessel that God needs to show the depth of how far callous depravity can go, like that of Idi Amin, Stalin, Hitler, etc. Someone has to be the most IGNOBLE of the IGNOBLE vessels, to show how far, how rotten, how despicable, how worthy of the strongest opprobrium, rampant unchecked evil can go. Some peoples acts have to be on the furthest evil extremes. Likewise, some people are chose to be NOBLE vessels, to be vessels of gold and silver, that show God's Love, Justice, Mercy, Lovingkindness, Forgiveness, and all the fruits of the spirit to a world where the radical calling of Christ seems utterly foolish. May we when we see evil, and become downcast, pray that we can become NOBLE vessels, vessels that will shine in a dark world, that in our shining and striving, that we can overcome even ourselves, so that we can sit with Christ on His throne when He comes into His Kingdom.
All of this evil, is just as it must and has to be, for God to reach His objective. God is building a family, and we need to know experientially and with great pain, these invaluable lessons. And then we MUST learn how LOVE, the LOVE OF GOD, can conquer even these most evil and most wrong and unrighteousness acts. I want to be part of Jesus bring all creation under His feet. Oh, we need to fix our sight on the goal. We need to guard our hearts and understanding, and fulfill the hardest of Jesus commands, like for example, Loving our enemies.
Kat:
Hi lauriellen,
I really do sympathize with what you are saying, these evil things are a hard thing to realize. But we are in the middle of all this and that makes us very sensitive to suffering. We have hope, because we know the truth to where is all going.
Remember we have Job as an example, all manners of evil befall him. God answered him concerning his plight, it seems from our prospective we lose sight of who God.
Job 40:1 And the LORD said to Job:
v. 2 "Shall a faultfinder contend with the Almighty? He who argues with God, let him answer it."
v. 3 Then Job answered the LORD:
v. 4 "Behold, I am of small account; what shall I answer thee? I lay my hand on my mouth.
v. 5 I have spoken once, and I will not answer; twice, but I will proceed no further."
v. 6 Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind:
v. 7 "Gird up your loins like a man; I will question you, and you declare to me.
v. 8 Will you even put me in the wrong? Will you condemn me that you may be justified?
v. 9 Have you an arm like God, and can you thunder with a voice like his?
v. 10 "Deck yourself with majesty and dignity; clothe yourself with glory and splendor.
v. 11 Pour forth the overflowings of your anger, and look on every one that is proud, and abase him.
v. 12 Look on every one that is proud, and bring him low; and tread down the wicked where they stand.
v. 13 Hide them all in the dust together; bind their faces in the world below.
v. 14 Then will I also acknowledge to you, that your own right hand can give you victory.
Job 42:1 Then Job answered the LORD:
v. 2 "I know that thou canst do all things, and that no purpose of thine can be thwarted.
v. 3 'Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?' Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.
v. 4 'Hear, and I will speak; I will question you, and you declare to me.'
v. 5 I had heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees thee;
v. 6 therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes."
I am not saying we shouldn't have emotions and feel sorrow for the suffering in the world. But we have to keep things in perspective, we can't see the whole picture from where we are.
mercy, peace and love
Kat
lauriellen:
shall i be angry with God who has proven His love for us all, absolutely, in that he gave His only begotten Son to die a horrible death so that we might live? so that we might become sons & daughters of God?
shall i be angry with the evil-doers who are only behaving in the weakness and vain state in which they were created, subject to the law of sin & death, not willingly, but according to Him that created them so?
I do absolutely have hope & trust in God, but i am angry at 'what must be' none-the-less. perhaps when God sees fit to bring me into a 'full knowledge' of the truth will i stop seeing this life thru the darkened glass and be able to understand 'WHY' these things must be so and be free of this anger.
Kat:
Hi lauriellen,
Well it is hard and anger is a way to express that frustration. I do try to understand that we can only see things as God reveals them to us.
mercy, peace and love
Kat
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