Can we prove God's existence?

Some years ago, on a summer evening, I watched a car pull up outside my house.  It was a fairly old Datsun or Mitsubishi or something of that ilk. A gentleman got out and began to search the area of my nature strip.  He was obviously looking for something. I’d found a small dog’s collar the week before when I was mowing and had put it on top of the fence in case someone came for it.  I went out to speak to him and tell him where it was

He was about 15 years older than me, with fairish hair, thin build and a beard; tidily dressed with clean shirt and pressed dark trousers.  He looked up when, across the fence I asked him if he was looking for his little dog’s collar, so I was able to retrieve it from the fence top and hand it to him.   

What struck me most about him was his ordinariness; an inhabitant of the planet who was, essentially, of the same stuff as me – probably not famous, no status, high school education, driving an old car. I thought it curious that he would bother to come back to look for the collar at all;  it was, after all, a flimsy thing, inexpensively replaced.  Perhaps it was of sentimental value, but I suspected that, like me, he would rather find the lost item, than have to buy another.

He looked like a nice man;  his face, as do our own faces, showed the outward evidence of the journey his life and his thoughts had taken him. 

I only spoke to him for a few minutes, but in those brief moments, I felt God’s spirit reach out to him through me, and I prayed that joy and blessing would alight from God’s heart and rest on his head.  As he drove away, I asked God to follow him through his life.  Maybe it sounds big-headed of me to think that God’s love should pass through me to him, but that’s what happens sometimes.  It’s something I experience, not as an emotional high, or an extroverted, visible, exciting experience.  I can’t recall a single time this has happened, when I have even said anything to the other person about God.  It is like God’s love passes from Him, through my presence with the person, to them. It is a gentle, unobtrusive thing. I think they experience it too, but perhaps are not always sure what it is or how it happens.

I went inside and started the washing up.  The Saturday night programme on ABC Classic fm was just beginning and music by an American/German composer was on offer. His name was Franz Waxman and I’d never heard of him, though he wrote a lot of music for films, including the theme music from the 1957 film “Peyton Place”  This music is quiet and calming.  It has a gentle melody which keeps returning as the theme through the whole piece.  The link at the bottom of this blog only goes for a few minutes and holds the main tune/theme but the whole piece goes for about half an hour.

I finished the washing up, pulled a chair to the back door and sat there in the fading light, the better to watch the flaming sky and the cooling dusk settle on my garden.  I listened and pondered.  This was a time when my life was a bit of a lonely, unrelenting grind.  There was always a waiting weariness; always too much call on my inadequate and depleted resources.  The tank was always full of care, frugal living and hard work, and sometimes a tiny leaf of bad luck or the sting of unkind words would fall on the lapping cistern and I would spill over into self-pity or depression.  I sometimes doubted God’s provision for me and felt disillusioned about my faith in Him to guide, protect and help me.

But as I sat there, for a few moments letting the music wash over me with its gentle cadence, I thought about the ordinary, un-wealthy man and of the way God’s spirit had risen in me and flowed to him.  It’s witness spoke to my trudging faith and I knew afresh that God is love and that God is good.  I know this because His Spirit is an active, living thing in me.  It is experiential, not intellectual;  it is, as described in Romans 8:10 & 11, a result of inviting Christ to be part of my life;  allowing His spirit to dwell in me.

This calling down of blessing is not like some emotional outpouring of prayer about someone I care about, because I didn’t know the man.  I had no connection to him;  no reason to feel anything at all for him..  I could not possibly, from the scant reserves of my own storehouse, invoke joy and goodness to another’s life.  Such things come only from God.  They are his gifts to us.  Every day, they flow from the great ocean of God’s character through us, to the streams of our lives and society, refilling the rock pools of our sorrows with His living, healing stream.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6i90ha-890

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans%208:10-11&version=NIVUK

What does the book of Job tell us about God and how he interacts with people?

What does the book of Job tell us about God, people and the creation?

The book of Job is an enigma.  It seems to address the issue of human suffering, and yet there is so much in it which we find hard to understand, not the least of which is God’s final answer to Job about why so much suffering was allowed by Him. He seems to say “I have made all things, and who are you to question what I do”. (Job 38:2-4)

I believe that the book of Job is as much a book of comfort as it is of wisdom, and is, therefore a book which resonates with our emotions.  When awful things happen to us, our emotions are engaged and so the book of Job is able to put our anguish into words, because Job has spoken them long ago;  we can say “yes, that’s how it feels for me too”.  The book of Job has much to tell us about our own human condition, about the nature of God and his response to our frailty.    What can the book of Job tell us….

About God?  We can certainly learn about God’s sovereignty.  God has the power to “place bets” with the devil against Job’s faithfulness and integrity;  he has the power to allow every type of suffering both emotional and physical, in Job’s unblemished life;  he has the power to create life and to destroy life.  In fact, it almost seems like he is simply displaying this power at Job’s expense.

But we can just as surely learn of God’s integrity, His intelligence, His changelessness and his willingness to interact with the human life He has made. The whole story is about God’s willingness to take an interest in our lives.  Even if what happens to Job seems unfair, God is still there at the end, to rebuke the friends and to vindicate as well as rebuke Job.  Would a disinterested Being do this?  God does care what happens to Job, and he doesn’t give up on him even though Job rails at his predicament and questions the purpose of it.  However, in the end, God rebukes Job’s friends because what they have said to Job is wrong.   In this, we see God’s compassion and understanding of Job’s predicament.  He also vindicates Job;  Job has asserted all along that he hasn’t deserved such suffering.  There is no answer to the “why”.  God has the final say, in our lives as well as Job’s.  His methods are better than ours;  his superior knowledge of the past as well as the future, the earthly as well as the heavenly, puts Him in a better position to decide what happens to us.  He made us and his wisdom is above ours.  His right to do what he does, is not to be questioned.

In the poetic sections of the book it seems to Job that God is silent. It seems to Job that while he is undergoing this physical and emotional suffering, God is far away; remote and hidden  – the God who ‘hides his face’ (Job 13:24).  If only there were some point of contact, some common meeting ground, then Job could present his case to God and receive a fair hearing (Job 23:3-7)”.  In the poetic sections, it's Job's faith which is discovered and examined.  Perhaps we should view these sections in the context of the whole book, especially the climactic part when Yahweh speaks.   But it’s such a strange reply.  It’s as though God hasn’t heard all of Job’s anguished arguments. Finally, Job, through this strange communication realizes that he is just a mortal;  a human being whose finite resources and thoughts are completely ineffective for judging the Creator.  Job repents. The book of Job is certainly about human suffering and it's also about divine mystique. It speaks to me about the sometimes puzzling nature of our interaction with God;  of how he seems far away just when we need Him most.  This was Job's experience too and I find that comforting.  And in the end Job came back to trusting God, even though his questions weren't answered the way he wanted.  His trust transcended his circumstances and we can do that too. He trusted a sovereign God with the unanswerable questions and in the process found peace.

About people? 

Their fickleness in the face of our need and suffering.  Rather than offering Job comfort, sympathy, solace or understanding,  they tell him that it must be his sin which has caused all this trouble.  We learn that people can be blind to their own sin, whilst pointing out and judging the sins of others, for if Job, whom the Bible calls “righteous” was punished for  his sin, then why aren’t they similarly punished? . Their logic, as well as their compassion, is flawed.  We learn that, in the face of sorrow and hard times,  people can be insensitive, self-righteous and completely unhelpful. They failed to even acknowledge his pain;  their confident assertions that he only had himself to blame, effectively  invalidated his suffering and he was left stranded and bereft by it. 

 

From Job we can learn much;  goodness, and a desire to live by God’s commands; courage in suffering; integrity in the face of opposition and loss (Chap 27);   acceptance of tragedy, and in the end, God’s involvement in the tragedy. But we also see very clearly, his absolute honestly.  He is bewildered by what has happened, and he tells God this.  He is bowed down;  Chapter 19 makes for chilling reading. He despairs of life and wishes he hadn’t been born (3:1); he has no hope (Chap 7)  and he tells God this too.  We would be wise to do the same when our own life becomes difficult.  Job continues to cling to his ideals.  He also maintains his belief that he has done nothing to deserve such “punishment”(23:11-12).  In his final summary in Chapter 31, he lists all the evil things he could have done but didn’t.   He is honest in this too; he knows who he is and what he has or hasn’t done, as measured against his own set of “life rules”. Amazingly, he still believes God values him.  Thus, he continues to believe in his own self-worth;  his self-worth is built on his honesty as well as his righteousness.  He accepts God’s sovereignty in his life, even after he has lost so much.  Chapter 23: 10-14 resounds with the victory of Job’s belief in this Creator/Father who knows the way he takes.  It’s as though Job knows in his innermost self that all this testing is for a Godly reason and that he will be a stronger soul than he was before (“when he has tried me, I shall come out as gold).

 

The book of Job has much wisdom.  To be able to  accept that bad stuff happens to good people, is wisdom. From the book of Job we learn that life isn’t always fair;  we don’t always get what we deserve either as reward for our righteousness or punishment for our disobedience.

 

About creation?

The language about creation is rich and poetic.  They are strong and beautiful images pointing us to an intelligent, loving and imaginative Creator.  They draw us to this Creation Being.  We are drawn to worship the One who made such beauty.  Consider this: “What holds up the pillars that support the earth?  Who laid the corner-stone of the world?  In the dawn of that day the stars sang together and the heavenly being shouted for joy.” (Job 38:4-7). Perhaps this descriptive language about the Creation has been deliberately used in the book of Job to keep us centred on God’s might and omnipotence because otherwise we might see him as a lesser being, not able to see the big picture or wise enough to know what’s best for us.  A God who created such wonders of nature is surely big enough to hear all we can say to him in anger, frustration, sorrow, anxiety, or doubt.  We can surely trust someone who can build something as amazing as the world and all that’s in it.

I have used some thoughts from a book by :

Anderson, Bernhard W. (1958). The living world of the old testament (4^th Ed.). Essex:  Longman Group UK Limited.

facing disappointment

At times I have looked back on my life, and found it a bit disappointing.  Disappointment is hard to cope with.  I suppose I didn’t expect to be divorced;  I didn’t expect that my husband would reject his Christian faith and drag me through a terrible marriage of conflict and emotional abuse; I didn’t expect to be the sole breadwinner for the family;  I didn't expect my life to produce poverty in such unequal measure to my hard work.  I didn’t expect to lose a child.

It’s taken me a long time to come to terms with my disappointing life. I have railed against God.  I felt that I sowed good seed, but harvested weeds. I sowed faithfulness and gathered betrayal.  I treated others as I would like to be treated, but discovered it provided people with opportunity to bully me.  There was so much call on all my resources for years on end, that eventually, I felt like a wasteland of broken reeds had grown up inside me;  watered with sorrow and blighted by strife.  At times, ignoble, faithless thoughts raced through my mind and caught like fouled fleece on the brambles of my heart. I doubted God’s provision for me.  I took my eyes off the example of Jesus and thought God owed me something for my obedience to Him.  I had always tried to do the right thing, and felt hard done by when everything seemed to go wrong.   

I looked for the wrong things from his hand and was disappointed and disillusioned when He didn’t provide them in the way I expected.  I asked for financial help;  there was none.  I asked for another husband and the chance of a relationship with a good and decent man, but instead, a married man preyed on my loneliness.   I asked for safety and provision;  I got bullying at work and the threat of my house being taken away.

It has been hard for me to realize that God will not give me back the fruitless years;  the years I harvested weeds;  the years the locusts ate. 

He gave me instead, His own self.

My ragged, faltering faith still declares that God is good.

My life was lumbered with these stones of inappropriate expectation. To throw off their weight,  I had to learn the way of acceptance;  acceptance of how things are;  of being content whatever my situation;  of giving thanks in all circumstances.  Difficult lessons.  But God doesn’t promise life will be easy;  he promises that He will always be with us;  strength in our weakness;  victory over evil;  to soar like eagles despite the weight of our disappointment and difficult problems.

This faith life will not let me go.  This barely understood, mysterious, unfathomed Spirit of God which long ago claimed my soul is a restless, defining, cleansing current, ever washing my grudging, faulty humanity in it’s refining tide.  It is the tide of God’s purpose;  ever wanting my soul to be as pure and full of love as His own. 

I would never have made room for it, if my circumstances were as replete and comfortable as I thought they should be.