Why is God doing that to me? ...

Wednesday, Oct 6, 2010. Why is God leading me this particular way? Perhaps you have a very precise idea about that. Or you think it is a stupid question … since you do not believe in God. Perhaps you are too frustrated about your own fate or that of friends to ask further questions, being furious about fate and about this God, if he exists.

What is our path? …

In our bible study group we have evenings, where one of the participants tells the story of his own life. That is quite exciting. Most people bring some pictures from their youth, often of parents and grandparents. Then they walk the group through the parts of their life, through the highs and lows of the years. What can be more moving than a life story?

When we honestly tell our story, all the nice things come into light, but also all the difficult times and blows of fate, the curious paths and bifurcations, which we have been led. One does not have children. Another one would like to find a partner. Someone is desperate to find work, but nothing is moving, though he is searching intensively. Someone else cannot work in his job, which he wanted and has been trained in … there are no positions. But suddenly he has another job with far reaching responsibility.

I think sometimes, that God puts so many difficulties into our life, such that we do not arrange ourselves too deeply with it. We tend to make it our home, but even more: our center. But it is only borrowed to us. We are just on a journey through it.

One layer deeper …

What is it that God wants for our life? It would be too easy, just to name all the nice things. Of course, God wants us to be well. But he has many more far reaching goals! He wants that we are developing ourselves towards him.

Often we have a very reduced idea of love. We think that love means we pick up every wish of someone, that he or she gets everything, what she wants. We imagine a world trip in luxury, some big celebration or party, a calm walk in the sun … what do you think about?

God's love is one or even several layers deeper. It is a love which contains the suffering, even sincere suffering. He is putting such things into our life. Sometimes the image of sports comes to my mind: someone is training hard, he is suffering to be running much faster afterwards. But for many layers of our suffering that would be much to reduced. It is not like a training. He takes everything which we love and what we value. He leaves us naked and without possessions, with nothing to hope, nothing to praise, nothing to aim for or to do, just with a burning pain.

Why is God doing that? Where does he move us? There is a point where we just sit there in front of him. At this point we do not expect anything from ourselves any more, just from him. We put ourselves completely into his arms … in joy and in pain, in victory and in complete failure. Nothing is lost at this point, but everything will be won, since he is there and he is not letting us down. This is the point of the cross of Jesus, death and end, complete destruction, … but then a new creation: resurrection. Gods love is one layer deeper! ... more texts