Sex and C.S. Lewis

Among the many questions I have wrestled with over the years, in and with my faith in God, stands prominently and dauntingly the inquiry of why a Good Lord, who is omnipotent and unchanging would allow His creation, whom He says he loves, such suffering.
We as humanity have experienced suffering in many forms and facets. Some know it so much as hell on earth, some know just enough to know that heaven exists...and this is not it.

A week or so back, I told God that if he wished the life of Job for me, however noble in endurance, however great with steadfast faith, however sweet the end reward...that I would be much obliged if instead, he would just spare me the hassle and take me right then. After all, I know this world is not my home, as my soul feels its lack here...and what better place to be then in the arms of my Maker - my redeemer, my savior, my father, my lover, my friend and my God?

But alas, he did not.

I was reminded of my recent resurrection, where in, I stated, wholeheartedly that I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God - who loved me, and gave himself for me.

I started reading Rob Bell's book "Sex God" yesterday. And by start, I mean I read 5 of the 9 chapters. I've had it stuffed with other books and gifts among countless other boxes, for almost a year, honestly. It was apart of a 'try-to-win-me-back' package from a man I'd recently broken up with. I'd wanted us to read it together, months before but...it never happened. Not when I needed it to. In the book, the author writes

"Love is handing your heart to someone and taking the risk that they will hand it back because they don't want it".

Its funny, because I feel like I was created to love, and yet...for so much of my life, my adventurous, silly, risk taking heart has been handed back. I've been under the impression for many of those years that there was good reason behind it - the handing back of a heart from friends, and family and strangers and yes, of course, and most often in my case, the opposite sex. But I've decided not to take that SAME risk this next year. Not because I won't ever again take the risk, or because I won't love at all...but because I want all the room in my heart to be a gift given and received by Jesus. From Him, to me, and out into the world.

A broken heart is just one (though not to be taken lightly) small portion of suffering.

There is loss, as in death, from which there is no cure.
There is hunger, and physical pain.
There is disease and war, and poverty.
There is injustice and cruelty.
There are physical and mental illnesses that effect every one around them.
There are betrayals, and harsh words; there are house fires and national distasters...
and really, the list goes on and on.

I have it SO good, if you compare, with human eyes, my life and world to the majority of those living on earth and YET, I too, know pain. We all do.

Just this week, I've been in 2 car accidents, have been confined to the couch, home sick, missing 2 work days, my grandma was put into the hospital because she broke her back, I was overlooked by both of my brothers in our traditional gift exchange, though I put a good deal of though into theirs, lost 1/2 my paycheck - a full time weeks wages on getting my new car (which is now totaled) out of the ditch and also, and in the meantime, I don't know what the hell I'm doing with my life.

And as tempted as I am to throw my hands in the air and write up comedic line or two for the fine readers of fmlquotes.com, I know that I am SO blessed, still.

"There's so much to enjoy, and yet we fixate on something we don't have...Until we can center ourselves on what we DO have, on what God has given us, on the life we DO get to live, we'll constantly be looking for another life. That is why the word 'remember' occurs so often in the bible."

Beyond gratefulness, though... is this:

"Our tendency in the midst of suffering is to turn on God. To get angry and bitter, and shake our fist and the sky and say 'GOD! You don't know what its like! You don't understand. You have no idea what I'm going through. You have no clue how much this hurts...

The Cross is God's way of taking away all of our accusations, excuses and arguments.

The Cross, is God taking on flesh and blood and saying "ME TOO."

(Sex God pg 106)

I believe this is where, how alive in Christ we suffer WITH Him.

I began to read the series of spiritual classics by C.S. Lewis. The kickoff of the 6 books, fittingly, is "The Problem of Pain - how human suffering raises almost intolerable intellectual problems" In the introduction, he explains -

"Christianity is not the conclusion of a philosophical debate on the origins of the universe: it is a catastrophic historical event following the spiritual preparation of humanity which I have described...

It is not a system into which we have to fit the awkward fact of pain: it is itself one of the awkward facts which have to be fitted into any system we make. In a sense, it creates, rather than solves the problem of pain, for pain would be no problem unless, side by side ith our daily experience of this painful world , we have received what we think a good assurance that Ultimate Reality is righteous and loving."

That last line really brings it home for me. "Unless, side by side with our daily experience of this painful world, we have received what we think a good assurance that the ULTIMATE REALITY is righteous and loving.

As Christians, we believe that ultimate reality, what is truly real...is also truly good.

In a letter to the church in Corinth, Paul writes, "For Just as the sufferings of Christ flow into our lives, so also through Christ, our Comfort overflows."

Now I can't say that everything happens for a reason. I don't think it does - I think that God mourns with us, and is also angered by injustice. I KNOW bad things happen to innocent children, and good people who the world could use, die while people who take from others, live. I don't think that there is always a REASON for our suffering, but I do know this: That God calls himself the God of Comfort. And that He, above all else, is Good. And that in His Suffering, which he DID, as he became flesh, and was tortured and murdered for OUR sin, while we rejected his love...he defeated Death.

"Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?"^h]"> The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

That is reason enough to keep on swimming, for me.

p.s. if any one reads this, and you think "that there is no answer good enough for suffering, and any explanation just feels like a cop-out, and you kind of just want to laugh at the attempt to rationalize it, because its so bad, and there is just no excuse that even God could give...i feel that. and i think i understand. because i've told that to God a great number of times.

love,

naomi