Views of God


My standing desk in my classroom.

I was so exhausted last night that I didn't blog. . . but woke up with a ton of things on my mind.

  • Cooking has been a good stress reliever for me.  I think the process of organizing and multi-tasking helps me forget about the stress of the pandemic.  The problem is I can't and shouldn't eat all of the food I cook.  For instance, I loved making that pie.  But I can't eat it and in this climate, I can't give it away.  It feels like such a waste to throw it away.  I'll continue cooking and baking and either throw things away or place them in the freezer.  This so American and wasteful of me, but my sanity is really important during this season.
    • My favorite new dish is the unrolled egg roll.  It is all the innards of an egg roll cooked together, but not put in a wrapper.  Last night, I made it with ground turkey.   It was absolutely delicious.  I use ponzu sauce and less of the soy sauce when I make mine.  
  • Yesterday, I had sort of a mini-debate with a friend. This friend is convinced that God is allowing this pandemic to happen because of our sin.  The reason New York is being affected so much is because they allow full-term abortions.  ***sigh***  I knew my friend was wrong, but I didn't have scripture or evidence to back up my position at the moment. I just kept saying that the God I knew was one of grace and mercy.  Jesus came for the sinners and lost and look at who he spent most of time with in the ministry.  I posed the question to my Marco Polo group of faith friends and theology experts--half of them have been to seminary.  
    • One said, "fact check the full-term abortion laws."  I did and it is not FULL TERM abortion and it has to be critical to the moms health and the maximum is 24 weeks.
    • The other responded that the argument of  God allowing this because of sin is flawed logic.  How do you explain a 2-3 year old having cancer?  How do you explain Hurricane Harvey in Houston (where there are churches on every street), if we were so faithful?  My friend pointed out John 9, where Jesus explains to the disciples that "neither his sins or his parents’ sinks" caused a man to be blind from birth.  
    • The friend went further to say that a professor at her seminary says: your view of the world is how you view your God.  The viewpoint that God is allowing this disease as a result of our sin is a conservative viewpoint and probably closely aligns with a political stance of power.   Ultimately, this person views God as full of power and wrath. I see God is one of grace.  Jesus has saved me again and again despite my sinful nature.
Please don't take all of the above to believe that my friend of power is not kind.  This person is sweet and giving, but we have agreed to disagree on a lot of things. I think life experiences make people who they are.  My friend's life experiences have been VASTLY different from mine.  Although my friend didn't grow up wealthy, I don't think they have experienced the same challenges I have.  My view of the world is different.

***sigh.  I have not proofed this post.  Excuse any grammatical or spelling errors***

Comments

  1. MargaretApril 18, 2020 at 10:14 AM

    I agree 100% with you, as you probably suspected I would. A vengeful, angry god is not someone I can believe in. I wish that some of those people would fact check, like you did. They spout a bunch of nonsense, but don't know anything about the actual law.

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