November Martha's Musings

A friend of mine recently asked me to assist her with a problem.  She asked if I could help her explain Christianity to her atheist father.  The answer, as I am sure you can see, is as tricky as it is obvious.  I have never met her father, nor do I know what life crisis occurred which made him doubt God’s existence, but I do know that something happened that he cannot explain, so he has chosen to blame God.  Doing that accomplishes two things: it lets the humans involved off the hook, and it blames Someone that he cannot argue with.  So, he swallows his anger and hurt and decides that if God was indeed real, this tragedy, whatever it was, would never have happened. And, for some reason, he feels alone in his grief, separated from the reality of pain that all humanity bears at some point.  God is many things – what He is not is Santa Claus. In Scripture, God is very clear about His relationship with mankind.  We are His children, and He loves us dearly, but He is a big believer in the “free will” with which He endowed mankind.  We are all free to do whatever we want – which means that if someone decides to rob you, God will not stop him.  That would interfere with that person’s free will.  Then sometimes, like any good father, God says “no”.  What we so eagerly ask for may not be in our best interest, or not in the best interest of whomever we are praying for or would have untoward effects on someone we may have never even met.  But God knows all the parties involved and loves each one.  The God that I know, the One I believe in with all my heart, is the Creator of the universe in which I live.  He allowed me to participate in the miracle of creation when I had my boys; he allowed my divorce (WHAT WAS HE THINKING!!); then His perfect timing allowed me to meet Hubby, at a Methodist church, no less. (Aha! That was what He was thinking!)  He recently allowed my eldest to take a picture with his phone of a comet speeding across the northern Californian sky, which he shared with me. It was stunning.  The Lord goes to great lengths to get us to JUST LOOK UP!