Of God and Belief.

So begins Part II of Para Coffee’s life, and the 2nd anniversary of Eric and me meeting.

I can’t say it’s all been easy – try as I may to pretend like I have a good attitude and am a supportive wife, most of the time I’m grumpy, fussy and mad about something or other.

Belief in God is hard – not so much intellectually (at least not for me) but psychologically - especially these days. I saw a trailer for a movie the other day – the title of which is Legion. 

The plot, at least based on the trailer, goes something like this:

An old woman comments on a pregnant girl, and then says the baby will burn. Come to find out the old woman is an angel sent by God. Then there is a hoard of other angels, all send by God, to kill all of humanity because we’ve pissed him off for the last time.

On the other side, there is the arch angel Michael, who defies God to help save the child of the pregnant girl because he is humanity’s only hope. Michael and Gabriel get into a tiff in which something like this is stated:

Michael says, “Hi Gabriel. Always so ready to please God, despite his commands.”

Gabriel retorts, in a cloud of dark smoke with black wings and a machine gun, “Unlike like you.” There is intense music, angels with wicked bones all distorted and wings climbing out of the sky – and who knows where God is – but he is out to kill us all. 

The end of the Trailer

This is world in which we live – God hates the world and wants to kill us all with angels.

This is a stiff change in protagonist/antagonist since I’ve been a child. I’m pretty sure Angels were the good guys and God loved people.

Realizing that the tide has turned has only made it more difficult for me to proclaim belief in God because, well… the God in which people *think* I believe is really Evil. And, if I try to suggest otherwise, there is the confusing logical fallacy of the existence of evil somehow proving God’s lack of existence. Then there is a psycho-mumbo-jumbo (yes, this is an ad hominem argument-to-person…) about intolerance, as if somehow they’re tolerant by being intolerant toward those “intolerant people”! Some how Satan and God have switched places. Some how Demons and Angels have switched places – and anyone suggesting otherwise is really just pretentious, a bigot (anyone know what bigot really means?) and brainwashed.

It is unsettling to say the least, especially because I am a giant people pleaser, I like to look good to everyone, I want to be thought of a smart, and get really offended if anyone tries to lump me into a category that could be anywhere related to Jerry Falwell. In essence, I am a person who is obsessed with looking good and being thought of well.

Another reason belief in God is difficult for me is because I can understand the Atheist (we’ll just capitalize it to elevate it and encapsulate everything atheistic). I have read and researched and continue to think through arguments against God. I ask myself all the time – does this make sense? Why do I believe in God? What does it mean to not believe in God? Would that be better for me, for humanity? What is true about the world in relation to God and creation? Do I know enough to say FOR SURE to myself that there is or is not a God? How can I ever know enough? What is enough? Is it only enough if I can convince other people? Would I be ok if there wasn’t a God? Could I admit that to myself? Am I really just concerned with whether other people believe in God and therefore not being the idiot minority? 

Lastly, it is hard to believe in God because Evil, assuming that God is not the Evil, seems to ALWAYS be winning out – either within myself and other people, through nature and in general throughout the world. The very fact that we must designate between good and evil seems to me to mean that evil is far more prevalent that it ought to be. And therefore – what is God doing in all of this Evil? How much of this am I responsible for? Can humanity be held accountable for the evil committed or is it primarily God’s fault because he created us to begin with? 

So – this is ground on which I wrestle, from which I speak, by which I walk and pray and think. 

My Goals for this Year:

• Write more
• Pray, read and think more
• DO more for other people
• Believe and Trust Eric more
• Assume that my wisdom is flawed insofar-as I am flawed.
• Lie less to myself and others, even if it seems mean.
• Accept truth from myself and others, even if it seems mean.
• Work mightily at Para and complain less.
• Cook dinner more.
• Seek to better all situations, rather than to whine about them to people who can’t help fix anything.
• Lean not on my own understanding, but acknowledge God in all I do and let him make my path straight.

Me, The Legalist?

Legalism is the damning lie that says God’s pleasure and joy in me is dependent upon my obedience.
It is legalism that causes the Pharisee to look proudly into the sky in the presence of a tax collector.
It is legalism that causes a missionary in Africa to think God is more pleased with him than the Christian businessman in America.
And it is legalism that causes the preacher behind the pulpit to think God is more pleased with him than the tattooed Christian teenager sitting in the back row. Legalism is the lie that God will find more pleasure in me because my obedience is greater than others or that God looks at me with disgust because I am not growing in grace as quickly as my friends. It is the failure to remember that God’s pleasure in us comes outside of us (in Christ). Legalism causes the heart to forget that God sings over us because of the work He has done, not because of what we have done (Zeph. 3:15-17).

-Tony Reinke

Have you ever read the story of the woman caught in adultery? I’m not sure if I ever implanted myself in that story – who would I be in this scenario? Am I the woman about to be stoned or the Pharisee about to exercise the law over someone’s choices, or am I Jesus who sees both the Pharisee and the woman as equals?

I was talking about this with my great friend Rose, with whom we both exclaimed jokingly, “You mean I’m not Jesus in this story?!” Perhaps it never occurred to me that the Pharisees were just as guilty as the woman.

Now, I take the variables A for the the adulterous, B for the Pharisees and C for Jesus, and find new people to fit.