I was confused by the sermon on march 21. If God is a part of us, or surrounds us, how can He be missing? The picture of God missing and not missing seems to be a throwback to the 1955 theology of God at a distance except maybe to Charlton Heston.

willy wrote:

I was confused by the sermon on march 21. If God is a part of us, or surrounds us, how can He be missing? The picture of God missing and not missing seems to be a throwback to the 1955 theology of God at a distance except maybe to Charlton Heston.

Thanks for your question. Although we are made in the image and likeness of God, many of God's qualities are hard for us to understand, and so we often try to understand God via what we know in this life. God is not "here" or "there" in the sense of time and space, but we can't comprehend being outside of time and space, and so we describe God with concepts we do know. We assume, experience, feel that God is sometimes close or distant, but I don't believe God is ever far or disconnected from us.

Ok, I'm going to try this one more time, would not post 1st 2 times. I really like what Sharon Blackstock had to say on the subject of suffering, and also liked Rob's response. Even though I do believe that suffering has it's purpose in life and does help to mold us or shape us into who we are or to become, I also feel like I've had enough suffering for one lifetime ( and really a lot of that has been self inflicted, but much out of my control as well), that any more suffering is like kicking a man when he is down.
I understand that you can't really enjoy the good in life without experiencing the bad, but I'll tell ya, when the bad (or suffering) comes around it makes a long lasting impression on me which is by no means soon forgoten. So I'm not sure how much more molded it's going to make me over and over again. I have noticed later in my life that when things are going my way or I'm on that "Pink Cloud" so to speak, that I do catch myself stopping to reflect on the bad times to remind myself that things could always be bad again or maybe even worse than before, so not to get to high on the highs, but really just try to enjoy the good moment. I like to think that I do become wiser with age and try not to inflict suffering upon myself, but the fact is I usually don't get a vote when its time for suffering to come rolling around again. Now, with all that being said, I don't know exactly why suffering has to be an every day event somewhere or to someone over and over and also don't understand why I'm not suffering as much as so many people in the world are or even have for a lifetime---how ever long that may be. I don't think that God loves me any more or any less than any of his children, but I do get struck with the thought sometimes that I don't realize how BLESSED (or spoiled) that I really am, and that the worst day I could ever come to remember in my life dosen't hold a candle to some of God's Children's best day of thier whole life. Do I in fact even have a clue what real suffering is? I know that Jesus does, and when I come to see him face to face I HOPE he tells me something like..."You were given only the amount of suffering it took to get you here,
but NO, your not crazy, it was real!"

So, at Easter brunch we were trying to reconcile two themes from the past two weeks, finishing Job and celebrating Easter...We talked about Plan A/B/C...Z with God being with us regardless of the outcome of each part of our journey, and being with his Son throughout the Passion, considering the possibility that crucifixion was not somehow preordained.   Then on Good Friday and Easter the Gospel writers and Christ's own quotes make it clear that Christ's suffering, betrayal, and physical wounds all were foretold by OT prophesy, simply Plan A.  Help me with this!

brettc wrote:

Ok, I'm going to try this one more time, would not post 1st 2 times. I really like what Sharon Blackstock had to say on the subject of suffering, and also liked Rob's response...

Brett asks so many good questions, and provides some important insights, it is hard to know where to start. Mostly I want to simply encourage your continued dialogue on this subject in Bible Study, in worship, etc. You've had a number of experiences that you are still fitting into a framework of understanding, which I applaud.

My only caution is that it is easy for all of us to slide into Job's friends' views of how "the system" works. We may not believe it is about rewards and punishments from God, but it can sometimes feel like we are being punished with suffering, or blessed with rewards, and so we risk sliding into thinking this way theologically.

You are correct that without sadness there can be no happiness - we cannot know one without the other. And there can be no free will without competing choices. These truths bring both goodness and suffering, but it must be this way. God's "plan" for each of us is to discover our spiritual gifts, and to deploy them in the best ways we can, whatever that might be. God seeks to redeem everything, everyone, and every experience for good, and we have been enlisted by God to participate in this redemption of the world.