For When You're Not Convinced That God Cares

I know God hears me.  I'm not convinced that He cares.  

I struggle with the notion of a God who will allow so much suffering.  Who hears our cries and doesn't seem to move.    If I were God I would move.  I would step in and stop abuse. I would heal disease.  I would bind the hands of predators and the tongues of those who hurt and condemn.  I would quiet the pangs of mental illness and break the chains of addiction.   But I'm not God.  

Only God is God.  

And only God is good.  

And for some reason he is taking his damn sweet time to redeem the dark and sordid brokenness of this world. 

Friend, I think it's okay to be angry.

It's okay to speak our doubts. To expose them as wounds. To  let them hit the air so that they can heal.

Like the psalmist, we can beat our fists into the clay from which we come and ask questions of our maker.   

Because His love is big enough to bear our doubts and fears and angst.  

Because His shoulders are broad enough for the darkest days of our faith. 

And that voice that says your doubt disqualifies you from God's family? That voice belongs to the enemy, not to God.    No, friend, our doubts don't nullify our faith,  They just mean that we are human, able to be torn in two directions at once.  Weak, and frail.  Prone to wander, Lord I feel it. 

I worry at times that my faith is shriveling into dust. But maybe these doubts aren't a losing of faith at all, but a finding.  Maybe God is burning up the false assumptions and the mistaken expectations to make room for a truer hope.   

Maybe it is a trading of old dead brush for fresh green growth.  

Maybe the pain is one of birthing.  A new life, a deeper faith.  A truer walk. 

I don't know how to explain unanswered prayer.  I can't explain why God seems to wait on the sidelines while his children suffer.  But I know this: If we watch for him, He meets us there. The maker of the universe who crafted you and I in the palm of his hand, who made all and is above all, steps into our pain and suffers with us. He dances through our doubts and binds the thin threads of faith into something full and sustaining.  He breathes life into our tired souls and gives hope where all sense says it shouldn't exist.  

Friend, only God is God.
And only God is good.
And for some reason he is taking his damn sweet time to redeem the brokenness of this world.
Let us wait for Him.

from KELLY ORIBINE .COM
http://www.kellyoribine.com/2017/03/for-when-your-not-convinced-that-god.html