Yea, I see these deep discussions of Christianity and it boggles my mind. I'm not claiming they are wrong, just that I am so far from being able to accept the basics that to discuss in that detail just seems beyond me.
Here, from last night, is the level I am at:
David Payne: There is a huge hail in Warr Acres, tennis balls, moving toward just north of downtown.
Me (to myself): Aw, man, that is near my house. Please don't let it hit my house. We've got so much going on, dealing with that right now would be a disaster.
Me (deeper to myself): That is dumb. You say you don't believe then who are you saying "please don't"
to? Hmmm, maybe I do believe.
Me: Wait, if there is a loving God, why does he throw huge ice balls at us from time to time?
“"Andy Dufresne—who crawled through a river of sh** and came out clean on the other side"
2019, 2020, 2021… I crawled through that proverbial river of sh**, though I hardly came out clean on the other side… have I even come out on the other side yet?
Why does an all powerful, all knowing, omnipresent, loving God allow bad things to happen at all much less to good people. I don’t have an answer, the theodicy is one of the great theological mysteries and I am not sure that there is an answer… except what Jesus said, “The rain falls on the just and unjust.” That’s all I really know.
The word that best defined or described those years, 2019, 2020, and 2021 is “abandonment.” I was abandoned by my wife. She threw it up to me that I have a bad back and couldn’t run a 5k with her. I asked her, “do you really want to be the kind of person who abandons her husband because he has a bad back?” Her response, “I’m not abandoning you.” “Well, yes, if you leave me here by myself that’s the definition of abandonment.” I was abandoned by my church. I found out that through the divorce and isolation from the pandemic that the pastoral staff were checking on her to make sure she was okay. I had no contact from anyone. The only thing that was said was “we dropped the ball.” I was abandoned by my job, an evangelical university. I had seen it before and knew it was coming. Faculty that went through divorce didn’t stay on campus much longer.
I left that church. There was a little startup church that needed a guitar player and had invited me to come play there before the pandemic. So I went.
Easter Sunday the sermon was about Jesus on the cross saying, “My God, my God why have you forsaken me.” Except the translation the pastor chose that Sunday didn’t say forsaken, it said, “My God, my God why have you abandoned me.” I pulled my phone out and my Bible app which has like 20 translations. I could only find one that said abandoned and not forsaken. Why did he choose that translation? We had not talked about what all had happened to me so he couldn’t possibly have known. Jesus took my abandonment on the cross for me. Everything else in the world might abandon me, but my God never will. Even when I’m crawling through a river of sh**. Even when tennis ball sized ice is hurtled from space at my house.
