CommentaryGrowing up sucks; is God really good?
I hate to be crude with that title, but it’s a simple fact I’ve discovered in unbelievable proportions this week:
Growing up sucks some weeks.
I’m not going to get into all the dirty details, but we’re spending lots of money and expending lots of energy dealing with some medical issues that doctors have done a pretty less-than-stellar job of fixing, while also facing challenges in our various occupations. Katie has bravely soldiered through it all, even returning to work when she probably should be lying on the couch all day.
It's all combined to make this one of the most blah Fridays ever. So blah that I actually slept until 8:45 this morning. It's taken more of a toll on me than I thought, this past week, which sounds ridiculous given what Katie's going through. But man, being a man -- as opposed to a young married boy -- is hard.
Don't marry someone you don't love; don't marry someone who's not your best friend. Or else it's just not possible.
[ millie holloman photography ]
I know we're rookies in this real-world game, and this is all probably nothing that any veteran adults are surprised by. “Well, that’s life, sonny,” right? I get it, and it's fine, and we'll be fine. I guess it’s just jarring, growing up. It’s left us feeling shellshocked lately. The magnitude of selfishness in the world is overwhelming, as is realizing the inconceivable nature of humanity these days. It all makes us feel so weak. So powerless.
It’s sad moreso than angering now, though. I’ve grown up in that sense, in not being a real angry person anymore, I guess, and evolving is what makes growing up good. But it breaks my heart, how broken our world is. I look around and see all the flashy gizmos and sexy cell phones/hand computers and the fancy cars; I look around and see all the crying mothers and beggars and lying leaders, and about all of it, I think, This is so not how this was meant to be.
Skeptics and atheists love to point to this brokenness and say to people who, like me, believe in God, “You are a moron, because if God is really all-loving and all-powerful, then how the hell does this stuff happen?”
I've had that thought too. A couple of times this week. But some time ago, I realized that is an unbelievably small-minded way of looking at things.
God gave this world to us. When you give someone something, you don’t then control what they do with it. And along the way, humanity’s f------d some things up. The results have been irrevocable consequences. We deal with them now and generations long after us will deal with them then. It sucks, but it’s the truth. We, not God, are responsible for our problems. God made us resourceful beings; the selfish and greedy ones wreck it.
I watched Jarhead a couple days ago. There was a scene in which a group of cars had been torched; the
people's charred remains indicated they had fled in terror. As Swofford looked at one, I could imagine what I would be thinking if I were him: Where were you, God?
But this is why I trust that God is good: We're the ones creating the problems.* We’re -- and by we I mean humanity in general -- seem so busy fighting each other for wealth and power that we’ve forgotten the most valuable, the most powerful thing of all.
It was with purpose Jesus Christ’s ultimate message was to love.
Love.
*("Well, wouldn't an all-loving and all-powerful God, if he really loves us so much, stop us?" the skeptic says.
"Does someone who loves someone make her decisions for her?" I might reply. "Of course not. A lover lets his loved one do what she wants to do. Sometimes, those decisions are disastrous."
As the skeptic/atheist chuckles -- and I'd laugh at me too, if I didn't believe all this and I heard me saying this -- I might continue, "We've been given plenty of advice; we just ignore it. Someone who loves someone is there to hold him or her when the pain starts. And for as long as it lasts."
We're not a project. We're his people. His bride, he calls us. What love can be returned when the lover controls the one he loves? It is in freedom, not in restraints meant to keep her safe, that the loved one, should she so choose, may fully return the love.)
I think it’s no mistake that “love conquers all” has become a cliché. When we start seeing love as a joke, what do we have left?
I've been getting pretty frustrated with God this past week. Things have happened, I've prayed for them to be remedied, and they haven't been. Faith of a mustard seed my ass, I think.
But I also remember that I don't know everything, thus I don't understand everything, and I never will. I know that types like Richard Dawkins and Daniel Florien whoever else you want to hear tell me how moronic I am says, I'll still just trust that somewhere, somehow, God does have everything in control. I'll believe Paul when he writes that all things work together for good for those that love God.
I don't hold onto that promise because I think, "Well, I want good things, so I'll try to love God."
God's not Santa Claus. It's not a "Be good to get good things" deal.
It's the reverse.
I hold onto that promise because I love God, and I've been told that because I do, things will work together for good.
Thus I'm thankful, not desperate or demanding. I'm so thankful that I've seen enough of God to actually love him.
Then my heart breaks again, for there are many who haven't seen that.
Reader Comments (4)
Sorry Brandon, that things are so tough for you now. I hope you're wife gets well incredibly soon. Being married ten years and having frustrations of our own, both in marriage and outside influences. And I couldn't agree more that you must, must, must marry your best friend. It's the only way it'll work.
Becoming a man is something I one day aspire to. Hopefully it'll happen soon.
Thanks for the note Paul. Hope I didn't come off as majorly depressed or anything, because I'm not, and life is good. Just been "one of them weeks," if you know what I mean.
This was a wonderful read, and it's something I've needed to read. Thanks.
Thanks Eric. Glad it helped you.