Categories: uncategorized
Date: 25 November 2004 22:59:49
I said a few entries ago that I might muse on my Bible reading from Saturday - I thought about doing this in the Bible Blog but it's still all a bit raw and personal and I don't want to use the Bible Blog to be self-indulgent. Actually I don't particularly want to use this blog to be self-indulgent either, but occasionally needs must ... :D
The reading was from the end of Matthew 10. "Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. And even the hairs of your head are all counted. So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows. .... Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it."
My questions all basically boil down to "why does my life seem so complicated when it seems so simple for everyone else?" Now I know that's simplistic, and that life isn't "simple" for that unknown "everyone else" - God knows I know enough people struggling with much more stressful and hurtful and complicated and mysterious and unknowable things than I am. I know, in a concept first introduced to me by the writings of Philip Yancey, that God's economy is totally upside down (for example the labourer who works the last hour in the field gets the same payment as the labourer who worked all day, and the widow's mite is worth far more than the rich man's riches) and most of the time I absolutely love that concept - it's one of the things that continues to attract me to Christianity, being, ultimately, all about grace and not about our effort - but nevertheless there are times when I really do wonder why some people seem to have it so much easier (or harder) than others, it all seems so random. As far as the sparrows go: "...not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father". The concept of God's will and plan is something I really struggle to comprehend - how much of what happens to us is God's plan (as suggested by nothing happening to the sparrow apart from the Father's will), and how much just happens? I generally veer towards the "it just happens, it's how you deal with it that matters" camp, and yet, thinking about my life this month I'm very sure, as I've said here before, that I don't feel that things are happening to me in a vacuum, that God not only knows but is Sovereign. But what that actually means is another thing entirely, and really quite unknowable for me.
And then the last bit: loving Christ more than our families etc, taking up our cross, losing our life in order to find it. Lots of stuff about this I've wibbled about incoherently in my personal journal and I won't bore you with here, but some more general points that I can cope with others reading: why is it that some people are called to give up more than others? Why is it that two people can seek the same thing, and one is blessed by God in that search and another is left floundering? Why do some people have it easy and others struggle so much? Why do some people seem to be carrying a much heavier cross than others?
I guess a lot of these are rhetorical questions, I really don't expect any answers. But if nothing else, these questions are where I'm at: this is me, raw and confused, yet hanging on to God as I know that hope is found nowhere else.