When God Paints In Black

I introduced the idea of disagreement with God in my post the other day gearing up for the book club. Is that a new concept for you? It's a recent one for me.

When my grandpa died in 2001, I had my first firey trial with my faith that I think I'd had yet. We were not sure if he died with salvation because he didn't express much to us except that when my mom asked him if he'd made things right with God, he said he had. That was a vague way to end things in my mind. I really wrestled for the first time that God allows many to perish. It was the first time I found myself disagreeing with him.

Somehow we think that disagreement with God means that our faith foundation has crumbled, and God is no longer who we think he is. We assume that what he does should meet with our logic, emotions and sense of justice. So much of what God does does not seem fair to us. I remember being down right angry with God for a while when I started to realize these things. Thankfully, I began to pray my way though them and when I changed my own attitude I began to find greater, even more solid foundations to fall on than I had ever known before.

What are the things I disagree with God on?

1. That sin was allowed to enter the picture at all on any level.

Click here to read my post on the origin of evil itself. It's a huge mystery to the point of seeming a contradicting in our minds when we think of how evil could be birthed in God's world when only good things come from God, and all things come from Him as well.

2. That God says he is willing that none should perish and yet so many will.

Again, this seems like God contradicting himself. If he really did not want them to perish, they why are they? Is he not really in control?

3. That Satan was not destroyed early on when he rebelled.

Again, an all powerful God could have done that, had he chose.

4. That we are born with sin we did not ask for.

Really, it's not our choice to be blind to truth because of sin. If men are unable to be convicted because of sin, how is it fair that this sinful state is thrust upon them when it keeps them blind. How can they really be responsible for a blindness they did not ask for?

5. I certainly disagreed with God when he decided three years ago today that my dad should die at 54.

So, those are just some of my big ones. How did I resolve this and even strengthen my faith with these huge issues I had with God? Well, first I had to be willing to speak them out to him and let him know where my heart was struggling. Then I remembered my children.

No matter what we do sometimes, our children do not understand our rules. They don't think they make sense, they don't like them, they even disagree with them. I could sit there on the bed with them and talk till the cows come how trying to explain my reasoning but what is sensible to me is not going to be to them. There may be some light bulbs going off but many times it's just impossible to always get them to see things from my perspective.

If there is such a leap between a parent and child, how vast the chasm must be between us and God. The great mysteries are deep and wise. We don't have what it takes to wrap our heads around a single one of his thoughts. Even if we do get some of them, it's by the work of God's Holy Spirit which really is not us getting it but the Him in us getting it!

If someone rejects God for the holes they think they have found in His plan or their logic alone, they are just as foolish as a child declaring that their parent is not their parent who loves them because they do things they don't understand or like.

There is freedom in saying to God "I don't like this, I don't agree with this, I don't understand this." The freedom I'm referring to is a freedom from the chains of our understanding that hold us back from running the race we are meant to.

Think about it, what was the first thing Satan wanted human-kind to do? Doubt God. Well, not entirely, he wanted them to doubt and then act on that doubt. Doubting God is a result of a disagreement we have with Him. The disagreement is not something we should feel threatened by. We should expect to disagree with God because our wisdom is not equal to His and our thoughts are not like His. If you should not be surprised that you disagree, don't be surprised or discouraged by doubt either. Let it however spur you to do what it's meant to do, seek Him MORE. He promises that those who seek Him WILL FIND HIM. If you however, rebel and stop seeking because of these disagreements and doubts, you will be stuck in despair. If you, like Eve, allow them to become accepted lies about God, you will sin because you will act on what you believe to be true. Your truth has been exchanged by a lie and that lie is that God is not to be trusted and He is not completely good.

If your children doubt your love for them (most likely because they disagree with something coming from you) does that change the fact that you DO love them? Our doubt or disagreement does NOTHING to alter truth, but it DOES alter our thinking if we do not seek God in our questioning. There is only one way to do that and that is through His word. Rejection of God's word due to acceptance of a lie that it has lost it's validity due to our doubt is locking the gate to the path of our own happiness.

Does that mean God's word will give you all the answers you seek? No. In the book of Job, Job is finally angry and venting out to God. Does God answer him with clever comebacks for Job? No. Does he wow him with logic and wisdom that makes Job say "ah, duh, I get it now!"? No. What does he do? HE SHOWS JOB HIMSELF. There is only one cure for doubt of God and that is reassurance from Him that he is SUPREME. His supremacy gives us the eyes to see WHY he can be trusted. When you look at a planet in the sky, do you think about the fact that you could probably trust the maker of that planet to know far more than you do? When you see a baby being formed in the womb or feel it yourself, do you ponder the wisdom that is beyond you? Could God explain to you how those things were made? Would you understand it if he did? I highly doubt it. I can't even understand 12th grade math or science very well!

God showed Job how HUGE he was and how small Job was. He showed him what he needed to see. God cannot explain Himself to us because He knows we cannot comprehend Him. That is a side note to the fact that He doesn't have to! Yet, how lovingly he reaches down to extend himself to us at any level we CAN understand, be convicted by, or comprehend. HE has given us all we need to trust and come to him.

So, we could be like the child who hears his/her father say "I love you, trust me, do it this way" and respond with obedience. Or, we can be the one who says "no, prove to me first why it has to be this way." Sometimes all our wisdom would be complete foolishness to a child and God knows the same about us.

So, seeking is good, because seeking with a heart of trust and assurance will carry us through the parts about God that we don't get. When we come to those parts we have to reflect on all his amazing attributes to remind us WHY we don't get it. God promises if we seek we will find but what he promises is HIMSELF, not all our answers. Along the way, there are many things we CAN understand about God when we ask these questions and seek answers for them. With the submissive heart, it's all going to be a good journey to take.

Remember, when God paints in black, it's to highlight some element of his amazingly bright and beautiful character here on earth. Should you, the created, take the brush from his hand and declare "no, no, no! Yellow is much more cheerful here!"? The great painting he is creating requires the use of variant dark hues. One day we will stand back and be overwhelmed with delight, but sometimes all we can see are a mess of darkness right in front of our face and hear the echo of promises of goodness. If the artist is promising great things and he's shown you His phenomenal handy work everywhere, don't you think you can trust his masterpiece?

Tackle It Tuesday: Summer Game Plan

Slowly but surely making more TOPS progress. This week I only lost .8 of a lb. but it's a LOSS! I've been realizing that my kids only have a few weeks till school is out and last summer I gained weight. For people in different climates that may seem odd. Wouldn't you be out doing more in the summer? Aren't you MORE active? Well, we can be till about mid June. Our summer may as well be the North Pole because being snowed in would be similar. With temps that get up to 110* and one year even 115* (that was CRAZY hot), you don't go out much. So, we stayed home and were too sedentary and the kids were constantly hungry which put me in front of food more and more. We did not have money to run around doing activities or even jotting out to the ocean enough to cool off. So, it was movies in the afternoon to wait for the heat to pass and play out late into the night. I was always too tired to exercise in the evenings though.

So, this year I'm thinking ahead to have a game plan to keep my weight loss on a roll. Tomorrow I have an OB appointment and will be finding out exactly what she thinks my healthy weight goal should be. I'm pretty sure I'm getting close. So, I HAVE to keep at it. Here are some of my mental strategies so far:

• "Everybody say Wiiiiiii!" Seriously though, the summer is when we use the game systems more. Last year we only had the kids old V-Smile and my VERY old retro Nintendo original. That broke by the end of the summer and the kids were getting too old for the V-Smile. So, at Christmas we took gift money from my grandma and got the Wii. I don't think we could have done better, we love that thing. We use it for exercise, entertainment, and streaming in our Netflix online options which is awesome. You can even do the Internet on it but without a keyboard, it's too time consuming. So, I plan on making sure we do the active stuff a lot. Even getting out the dance mat and dancing with the girls on their "Dance Dance Revolution" game. I'm determined to learn that this summer. It's good for them too to be doing the active ones and not just Mario.


• Biggest Looser DVD's. I've only got one, but these are great. I have the sculpting one. I hope to do this with Princess also through the summer and am hoping she will enjoy joining me. They are 8 bucks at Walmart and easy to follow.


• Veggies and Fruits. I plan to NOT buy a great deal of the carb snacks we use during the school year. If it's here for them or me, it's not good for us. I plan to buy, wash and chop produce to have in bags on hand for snacks with peanut butter, almond butter and hummus for dipping. In the heat you don't usually feel like eating meals, you tend to want to snack but what you snack on is the key.


• I'm planning a bible time with the kids when we first come in or close up the house. I really have enjoyed reading the bible chronologically and though I don't want to hit them with the law stuff right now or some of the tough reading, I'd like to find a kid friendly plan to go through. I may just do a precept for kids study. I'm looking for something interactive. With kids in public school, it's hard to get that time in on school days. I'm hoping the summer will clear the academics for us to do this.


• Plan one beach outing a paycheck. If I can do two, even better. That would be one a week.


• Mama, get up early! This is my HARDEST part. I love sleeping in and staying up late. I'm very determined this year though to get up and enjoy the quiet and cool before the day. It's important because it's going to be my only time without the kids. I'm hoping to get out and do a morning walk outside to combat being in all day. I also want to have my quiet time out on the deck if I can.


• Last but not least, the evening family outing. I know we won't make this every night but I really want to walk as a family, or bike ride as a family in the evening. It's going to be important for the kids too because they can pudgy up just like me from vegging all summer.

That's what I've come up with so far. We usually have to come in and shut up the house by 10am and don't reopen it until about 7pm. If you have any other ideas for me, I'm listening.

Summer Book Club Plan and Schedule

Thank you for those of you who let me know you'd like to go through this book with me either in person or online. Click here if you don't know what I'm talking about!:) If you have not let me know you want to join in, comment here. There are four ladies who want to get together and at least two who are interested in following online. Pass the word on either way if you know someone who may want to join in!
For those of us getting together locally, here are the meeting dates:
June 11th
June 25th
July 9th
July 23rd
August 6th
August 20th (the reading plan actually ends Aug 14th but this gives some wrap it up time before our last meeting)

I cannot make the Aug 6th meeting because I'll be hopefully out of town spending five days ALONE with my husband for the first time in 13.5 years while our kids are at camp! YEAH! I still hope you ladies will meet. If there are any weird stalkers reading this hoping to rob my house, it's okay, you can have my 90's TV if you want it that bad.

The reading plan worked out so well! We are taking 11 weeks to do the study and there are exactly eleven sections to the book! Here it is:
June 1-5 - Intro and Section 1: Understanding the Problem of Evil
June 6-12- Section 2:Understanding Evil: It's Origins, Nature, and Consequences
(Meeting June 11th )
June 13-19th- Section 3: Problems for Non-Theists: Moral Standards, Goodness, and Extreme Evil
June 20-26th- Section 4: Proposed Solutions to the Problem of Evil and Suffering: Limiting God's Attributes
(Meeting June 25th)
June 27- July 3rd- Section 5: Evil and Suffering in the Great Drama of Christ's Redemptive Work
July 4th-10th- Section 6: Divine Sovereignty and Meaningful Human Choice: Accounting for Evil and Suffering
(Meeting July 9th)
July 11-17th- Section 7: The Two Eternal Solutions to the Problem of Evil: Heaven and Hell
July 18th-24th- Section 8: God's Allowance and Restraint of Evil and Suffering
(Meeting July 23rd)
July 25th- 31st- Section 9: Evil and Suffering Used for God's Glory
Aug 1-7th- Section 10: Why Does God Allow Suffering?
(Meeting Aug 6th)
Aug 8-14th- Section 11 and Conclusion: Living Meaningfully in Suffering/ Final Thoughts About God, Goodness, Evil, and Suffering
(Final Meeting Aug 20th)

The subject matter being so thought provoking as it is, I really recommend a blank journal for your thoughts. Just write down anything that comes so that discussion here or in the group can be more full as well. Sometimes you have a great thought and if you don't write it down, it's gone forever. I think personally, it would be good to write down what God is stretching you to know about him through the book too. Reading that later on will be good for you as well.

As far as blog posts go, I'm hoping to do one a week on each section. Between now and then I will have at least one related post to the upcoming reading, so check back if you want. Later on I will post the reading schedule and meeting schedule on the side bar for easier access.

Thankful Thursday

I was working on a deeper post yesterday but did not get it finished so I'm moving on. I'll have to finish it soon.

This week I'm thankful for many things!

• I'm thankful for our church camp out that went so well. Beside the fact that I was a very stupid mom and forgot that breezy and cold did NOT mean you could not get sun burnt, it was great. Now I have an exploded lip and cheek to remind me of the lesson I've learned. Emma had a rough time the last night and day but besides that it all went well and I'm very thankful for the Jordan's who let us borrow so much camping stuff we did not have.
• I'm thankful I went to see my MD for further help with my health problems because I was still having problems with loosing my appetite the moment I started eating which seemed bigger than just hormones and I was having other bodily problems the days the symptoms were there. The hormones were helping, I think, but I was still struggling. My MD has been my DR. since I was about 10 and is also my mom's doctor and was my dad's. He has seen our family through a lot and is a very gracious Christian man. He saw my family through my dad's tragic decline and passing and was convinced that my body had run out of serotonin over the last few years (to learn more about that go here). This can cause depression (which I was not experiencing) or adrenaline overload. My body was not handling stress well anymore on any level. When any level of adrenaline pulsed through my body it was over reacting with feelings of panic and symptoms of anxiety when I really had no reason to and did not feel worried or anxious at all. He did a good job of explaining to me how this works and is completely chemical in the brain. He agreed with the OB that my hormones were off and to still follow her advice but that this had to be addressed from both ends of the spectrum and it was all connected. Stressful events that you think you are getting through just fine at the time can come around and have effects you don't expect. Right after dad passed we transitioned from homeschool to public school, and felt led to pursue foster care training. The Lord lead us not to do the foster care when our finances got tighter and I'm thankful for that because I could never have known by body had had enough and would soon be showing signs of it. I am on a new medication and it seems to be helping very well. Today was a rough day but I'm thinking it's because I was feeling confident enough to have a full mug of coffee. I've felt off all day. My body still does not do well with much caffeine. This makes since knowing that coffee releases cortisol which spurs adrenaline and once again I'm reminded that I have to give this MORE time. I'm so thankful for this doctor's wisdom. I learned a lot, but still have a lot to learn. It looks like I need to make some good choices as far as what to take on and what not for a while.
• I'm thankful Emma's feeling better after the braces and teeth pulling the next week. She is a real trooper!
• I'm SOOOO thankful Rick's work gave him the time off to go camping with us. It would not have been as fun on my own Saturday.
• I'm thankful I work for a very nice lady. She is always looking out for me. This week she walked down to the bus stop to get the older kids (usually my job) so that I did not have to be out in the sun (yes, it's THAT bad).
• On that note, I'm thankful for healing! I hurt like you would not believe (there are way too many nerves in your lips....great for kissing but bad for burns) but I just keep realizing that my body is working hard to rebuild a whole new layer of lip!
• I'm thankful for some weightloss and my friend Trish and now Kendall who go to TOPS and spur me on.
• I'm thankful for forgiveness. That I receive it from Christ and that he gives me the call to give it over and over because he forgave me of so much and does still.
• Lastly, I'm thankful and encouraged for all you ladies who want to read Alcorn's book with me this summer! Thank you! I'm really looking forward to it!