Is It "God's Plan?"

Reader: “You posted as the blog topic a participant's hope of how he/she would react to a terrible loss  - to forgive and be spurred on to greater action. We read stories of people who feel led to help raise issues to make change.  This is a desirable notion or hope - up to a point.  These stories give rise, I suspect, to the poster’s hope.  Those with faith ‘believe’ they, too, might do this.”

My response: I don’t believe that I wrote about people, in their grief, offering  “forgiveness” nor “greater action,” in my three posts on how the Holy Spirit/Advocate would prove us wrong in “sin, judgment and righteousness. 

Reader: “But what if the person can’t respond in a horrific situation that way.  What if that hope is obliterated by the sheer weight, senselessness, or inhumanity of the event.  What, as a pastor/blogger, would you say or do to help that person accept the inability to live that faith in their overwhelming grief - to a loss of the idealized faith in the face of reality.  What does a pastor do to help a person?”

My response:  Hopefully this will become clear as I move through your thoughts and concerns.

Reader: “The conflict must be great:  to believe that God has a plan and to feel as if they must have faith in it because it is his will.  Or to feel the reality of the distance from that faith. Doesn’t that set up a huge ‘failure’ for the person who had hoped strong enough faith to be different?  Unresolvable conflict for the individual already feeling huge loss and despair.  Doubles the hurt.”

My response: I am not at all sure where you got the idea that I think, or suggested, that people should take courage in their grief; because it is “God’s plan” for them.  I, would alway and totally, reject that kind of theology.  What the human physic prompts a person to do — act out in ways -- that affect another human being in negative and tragic ways; has nothing what-so-ever   to do with “God’s plan!”   Using a gun,  alcohol,  drugs,  knives,  trucks filled with explosive,  bombs on airlines or driving the wrong way at hundreds of miles and hour, to endanger other’s lives.  Is not in “God’s plan!”  I have spoken, and written,  many times about the flaw in that kind of thinking. 

Yes, people make the decision to destroy!  

That is not God’s decision!  

That is people choosing to act as a god! 

Reader: I hope, when you comment on the blog this morning, you might include thoughts about how this ‘hope’ in the ‘if’ situation is for those actually affected by the Santa Fe high school shooting (or all the others before).  It seems to me a verrrry long space between the ‘hope’ to the reality.”

My response:  Addressed at the end! 

Reader: “Maybe God is trying to get humanity to pay attention to the violence and mental illness issues but people keep praying that God’s plan will make it right.  “I have to spank you, and it hurts me more than you to spank you, but it’s necessary to get you to listen”  Does this actually work as a way to think about it?” 

My Response:  Well!  I will agree with you on two points!  

Yes, “God is trying to get humanity to listen!”  God has been at that task for thousands of centuries! 

And yes, “People have been praying that God’s plan will make it right!”  

However what you are leaving out of those two thoughts is that the people are not listening to God.   

To reverse the old saying:  “It wasn’t God that that made them do it!”  

God’s plan is for peace and harmony to prevail.  That plan got lost quickly after creations began.  However the beginning began!

Reader: “What would you say to help the blogger to accept THE POSSIBILITY of an inability to live that faith in their overwhelming grief - to a loss of the idealized faith in the face of reality.

My response:  As a person and a pastor  I would first tell those, who have to experience such horror,  that it was not God actions nor his plan.  Then I would gently sit with them and share my belief that God is with them to offer strength and comfort as they walk through their impossible sadness and loss.  

What I might say, if it seems okay at the moment, is that God never promised us that we would not experience pain or suffering, or grief.  But he did promise his never ending presence within any and all situations we face.  That God will walk with them, however long they need, to heal the awful pain.

I hope my thought have filled that  “verrrry long space between the ‘hope’ to the reality.”

Reality” is what is!  What is!  Regardless of God’s plan! 

 “Hope” is what can be!  However it is not what we often experience here in the messed up world!

“Reality” is seen, and felt!

“Hope” is not seen!  But hoped for!