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From: clrclady
Date: Mon May 17 14:37:20 MST 2004 Subject: Does God really care?

Responses
mike: I am willing (5/17/04)
russ: Directions (5/18/04)
Responses (sorted by date)
russ: Directions (5/18/04)
mike: I am willing (5/17/04)
Does God really care? My image of Him sometimes cares and sometimes does not care. He is like a shifting tide. That does not seem like a true image of God, but after all, does anyone really have a true image of God. God has the image of what we have decided He looks like. An abuser. An absent father. A wrathful being. Distant. Cold hearted. Wonderful – whatever that really means. All-powerful but not using the power that He has. All knowing but doing nothing about what He sees and knows. And by the way, if God is all knowing, why did He make fallible, evil creatures like mankind? We miss the mark most of the time, hurt each other, hurt ourselves, and have just been clueless when it has come to God throughout all time. I just think an all-knowing, all-powerful God could have done a better job. He could at least intervene and stopped the babies from being killed by their parents, children raped and beaten by loved ones, kids just being ignored completely by their parents. So, I will declare my image of God is all screwed up and I just don’t understand Him. So, now that I have created a blog full of heresy, anyone willing to respond?

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From: mike
Date: Mon May 17 16:11:44 MST 2004 Subject: I am willing

I am willing to respond to your blog. You ask valid questions. Your image of God is a valid image from some, but not all of your experiences.
I fear saying too much in a public forum, so I will address your statments in a general manner. Talk to me if you want the personal version.
God created us with a free will. We can do good or evil with that free will.
In the end, justice or reward will be given out according to the choices we make. Scripture is full of warnings and examples of Gods justice and mercy. Harming children is at the top of things God will not tolerate. Mercy is available to all, even those who have abused children. For those who do not repent, rest assured, justice will be served. Those same monsters that rejoiced in the pain they caused children will, sooner or later, be on thier knees in terror begging for mercy. Read what Jesus had to say to the deciples about children, and read about the judgement at the great white throne. The day is comming. God is long suffering, and patient, hoping all will come to repentence. But long suffering is not weakness, and is not apathy. He is extending the same mercy to all that he extended to us.
As far as free will, and why he even created us, God created us to worship him. He wants us to desire, to choose to worship him. If a man were to fall in love with you, would you think it satisfying if he were merely programmed to love you? If he had no choice in the matter? Love, real love, is a decision. You desire a man to love you willingly, freely. It is the same with God. He has a multitude of angles who have little or no choice about worshipping him. He wants more. He desires our love and adoration freely given. Give me or Julie a call, or better yet, come on over.

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From: russ
Date: Tue May 18 01:14:27 MST 2004 Subject: Directions

I don't have answers, but I do know the direction God has been taking me.

I think about vulnerability, and relationship, and protective devices, and I wonder how they apply to God. I think that part of our struggle is that God chooses not to defend his own honor; instead he chooses to be vulnerable. He sits silently, waiting for those who would, to come to him, see him as he truly is, and love him. That is only starting to make sense to me as I am forced to do the same: to sit in silence, choosing not to voice my arguments of self-defence, and wait for people to see me and defend me themselves.

Relationship, likewise, shows part of God. In a relationship, each party is given the power to hurt the other. We see what it is like in human relationships when somebody chooses to put up walls/control mechanisms/emotional distance. It's not healthy. Of course, there's no need to go around giving everybody in the world unlimited power to hurt you - barriers are healthy, and from God - but each of us has a few imperatives, the things that we really must do. If we choose to abandon those imperatives out of fear of what people can do to us, then we are clearly in the wrong.

I don't understand what God's imperatives are, but it seems like it must be that he has chosen not to protect himself like he had the power to. I think that our capacity for evil has something to do with this; he must choose not to exercise the ability to control us and thus protect himself. He chooses to not control us so that he may freely act out one of his own imperatives.

Not that any of this really gives a "why," but it gives me comforting clues as to "who."

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