An Unorganized Rambling

We are in this constant battle of understanding God and his permission of sin, death, and tragedy. The question of "How does such a great God permit such terrible things" is something that haunts not only  non Christians but Christians as well. To think that we, as Christians, do not question this is nothing but a lie. We struggle with the same question and we at times do not see God in the midst of chaos. It is purely human nature, we flee and find something to fill the void. However, God is there in the midst of chaos and though reason to tragedy may not be understood we can still find him there.

God hates to see his children in pain and suffering. He hates that sin brings his children into pain and suffering. He hates that sin leads to death and destruction. This is where we, as humans, get confused. We do not understand why God would allow something that he hates to happen in our lives. If he hates it and if he is the God of the universe then why not make it stop? This question is often where we allow destruction within ourselves.

As I was reading through one of my former professor's blogs today I came across this quote, "God permits what he hates in order to accomplish what he loves."Sin came into this world and there is no reversing of that. We are all tainted and we all live in sinful nature, but there is some beauty in that. God permits for pain to happen so that he can accomplish even greater things in our lives and in the world. It is through our pain and suffering that God truly shows up. It is through our pain and suffering that we are humbled and that God shows us that we cannot do it on our own. Though it may seem unfair to us that we have to go through certain things, the reality is that these are the things that build us and strengthen us.

The challenges and struggles that we go through only make us into greater people. If we never went through hardships how would we be prepared for our next phases in life? How great would our God be if he just made everything easy for us and protected us against everything? If we never fail and we never hurt, then we will never learn. We must not look at this with the idea of God bringing on hardships in our lives, but instead in the light of him allowing us to go through them.

To know this and to practice this mindset are two completely different things. I know that God is there in the midst of chaos and I know that my struggles will help me later on, but it doesn't make it any easier at the time. It still brings on confusion and it still hurts, but I know that there is beauty in the end of all of it. I know that when I get through it that there will be something that comes from all of it and all I can do is press on. With that being said, here's to pressing on in 2013 and continuing to find the beauty of God's plan even in the darkest hours. 

Naptown's Life Lessons

Since living in Indy, I have been challenged extremely by what grace really looks like in my life. I have grown to understand that there is such a thing as grace, but it gets a little blurry when I continue to fall into the same rut. As a human I know that I will fail and that there is grace, but even so I am not always convinced by the concept.

I have always been mocked by my friends about the way that I challenge myself on small things. I challenge myself in illogical ways that will only bring me to my failure. I don't start small and build up, but instead I go to the extreme. This has been something that I have always done mainly because I feel that if I don't set the bar too high I won't actually try to accomplish it. It's not a challenge if the bar isn't high enough. This issue of mine has seemed to seep through on a much larger scale over the years, however. It's no longer a challenge of not saying a specific phrase for a month or not being sarcastic for a day, but has transferred into personal goals of building my character.

This idea of unrealistic challenges is not something that I would say is necessarily a bad thing, but it has to be handled properly when dealing with real life. I am a person who wants to continually challenge who I am because I know that there is always room for growth. If I am not growing and becoming more like my creator, then I am clearly not living out the life I am supposed to. I see these flaws in myself that I need to fix and then I attempt to do so. I make unrealistic challenges to myself because I have conditioned my mind to only think in that way. After this, I fall short and feel like a complete failure. With that failure comes confusion, pain, and the challenge of understanding grace.

With humanity comes failure and I am fully aware of that, but it is hard to hear truth within failure. Any person who grew up in a church that spoke the true Gospel knows that we all fall short and God gives us grace. However, knowing is nothing without understanding. Grace is a beautiful thing once we learn how to let it cover us and then to grow from it, but it's not always that easy. For me, failure paralyzes me and all I can believe are the lies thrown my way. I can't move on and move forward because I allow myself to believe that I do not deserve the grace that is given to me. I allow room for conviction, but no room for grace and healing.

The beautiful thing about God is that even in our greatest disbeliefs, he doesn't give up on us. The reality of the matter is that I am human and I am going to fail. I am going to make the same promises and say that I will change, but I know that I will fall short sometimes. Even in those failures, I know that God is still there and he hasn't given up. His grace will continue to pour out on me, but it is what I decide to do with the grace that is poured on me. I can either move forward and let it change me or I can continue to be in this contentment of failure. God's pursuing me on this and though I am scared, I am also excited to see where it goes.