old journal entries, part 2

Old journal entry #2...

Do you believe that everything happens for a reason? I guess I'm somewhere in between the God as puppet master in the sky and everything is random. I understand the attraction to the notion that everything is part of a larger plan - that all things have purpose. It makes hard things make more sense than if they were just things that happened for no apparent reason. But the trick to that is, that then you must believe in a God that does bad things to people for some unidentifiable and mysterious purpose. And even if it is supposedly for "our own good", that's really hard for me to swallow. I might buy the God as parent rationale for that except that that's pretty limited. There are some things parents just don't do - even for teaching or disciplinary purposes. And I don't think God does them either. I think that God can work through bad things for our good, and that she does - but not that she causes bad things to happen. And I do believe that there are things that God does, in working in and through our lives that we aren't meant to understand.

Mystery befuddles us doesn't it? Oh, we like it well enough - but only in the context of trying to solve it. We're fascinated with the unsolved, because of our innate desire to solve it... but maybe there are some things we're not meant to really understand - at least not yet.

And so, I guess, faith in God's providence and an acceptance of God's presence - even in the most difficult times - will have to serve me for today. And while it won't make me stop asking questions that can't be answered, I'm ok with it.