spend Christmas differently…
How are you going to spend this Christmas…?
letter to GM buyers…
This email from GM was sent to my inbox today… it was a plea from GM for support of the “bailout,” (I’m sorry, the federal loan)… really? You run your business into the ground because you are big, slow and resistant to change, and now you want us to fund your apathy…? I say no.
I know this has broader, economic implications, that many will lose their jobs and this high unemployment will push the economy into a deeper recession. But I am ready for Detroit to become more than a car manufacturer, develop something else, invent something else, use this time of pinching pennies to invent new ways of doing things. Yes, you the GM executive as well as the you the GM plant worker. It is time to stop pumping out BigMcHugelarge vehicles because of the perception that if you stop the economy will fail. It may falter. But it will not fail. I still believe that American ingenuity and perseverance will move us forward and beyond the fear of change that has a deathgrip over middle America’s neck…. It is time to loosen the belt around our necks and tighten the belt around our waists. It is time to stop looking at the noose and start focusing on shrinking the flab around our waist. I’m talking about getting rid of the excess, start saving, lessen your spending. Eat out less, by more groceries from Farmer’s Markets, cancel cable (gasp!), and celebrate Christmas with a homemade gift exchange.
of joy and sorrow…
Q: Why does God allow pain and suffering in this world… if He truly loved us and feels the same pain that we do, why does he allow it to continue?
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Wow, that is a packed question. A question that the world has been wrestling with since forever. To look for the answer (or to find more questions), I go all the way back to Genesis - at the moment Adam and Eve chose knowledge over relationship. They had a relationship with God, a intimate friendship, based upon faith and trust until Adam and Eve were shown the wonderment of choice or as God called it “knowledge of good and evil.”
Man(kind) chose knowledge over relationship, and with this knowledge came responsibility, toil, pain, and the realization of mortality. Man was now naked and vulnerable.
Even though Man chose knowledge over relationship, God still desired a relationship. Then begins the march of the Old Testament… God makes a “Covenant” with Abraham (Israel), this covenant being that his children would be a blessing to the world, that in his seed all of mankind would be redeemed. The Old Testament is a story of God pursuing a relationship with his chosen people and their continual refusal to be in relationship with Him.
God’s covenant with Israel was two-fold, first, the promise that a Messiah will rise up to redeem the people of Israel, and then all of Man(kind). Jews first and then the Gentile. And secondly, this Messiah would put Man back in relationship with God. God now lives in our hearts, as opposed to living in the tabernacle. The new Testament is about this Atonement (God making amends with his creation).
Enter in Jesus. The Messiah that came to fulfill the promise of a redeemer and satisfy our hope of right relationship. Israel thought the Messiah would be their Redeemer in a military sense, that the Messiah would pay back the Romans for the wrongs done in Israel’s captivity. But they missed out on the whole story. Jesus did not come to deliver political freedom, rather he came to deliver freedom from sins, pain, grief and guilt. He came to bring the Kingdom here, amidst the pain and suffering, for blessed are weak for theirs is the Kingdom of God. Jesus was human and God, he felt pain and suffered much, as the Son of Man he carried the pain of this world and died for the sins of Man.
Ok, now that we have framed the story, we can look at the question of why does God allow pain and suffering. Humanity is only as beautiful as its creator, and in creating humanity God displayed his perfection. A human being has a choice each moment of each day: to create or destroy, love or hate, cry or laugh. He created beings that had to choose to love him, choose to be in relationship with him.
Pain and suffering are a byproduct of our choices, but so are love a forgiveness, peace and joy! Of course God does not want us to suffer for he is not a vindictive God, but He cannot simply take away all our pain, because it is out of pain that we learn. A child learns that fire is hot by moving her hand toward the heat of the flame until there is discomfort and pain. If your child’s hands were cold, would you (a loving parent) shield them from the warmth of the fire because of the flame’s capacity for pain? No. And neither could a loving God shield us from the capacity of this world. For in this broken world there is beauty to be seen, laughter to be heard, love to be felt, and life to be shared with our Father, who wants an intimate relationship with us, through joy and sorrow.
