Many people ask the question, “If there is a God of love and he loves us, why is there so much suffering in the world?” Some might even wonder how I can put my trust in such a God when he has 'taken' my two sisters from me and the rest of my family...(One died aged 20 of a diabetes-related illness - the other died in her 40's of bowel cancer...)There are no easy answers, but to help frame a possible nudge in a good direction, I'm reminded of a sketch that I saw on TV, a long time ago...
There was a spoof on the old Channel 4 programme, ‘Right to Reply’, where viewers record a video clip relating to a programme that had been on TV, voicing their praise or criticism of what they had seen. In this sketch, someone was dressed up as God, complete with stereotypical long white hair and beard and flowing gowns. God was complaining about a programme that had defamed his character. As he was about to leave, he came back to the camera and said something which I think was very perceptive and insightful: “By the way – I’m sick and tired of all these whinging people who say, ‘If there’s a God of love up there, why does he allow so much suffering in the world?’ I’ll tell you why – because I’m a God – not a social worker! I can do what I want!”
There is a very substantial grain of truth in this, I believe... Isn’t that how many people perceive God to be (if he exists)? A sort of heavenly social worker; on-call to solve all of life’s problems and hassles, as and when needed. Kept in a very remote box until a crisis arises, and then we seek to manipulate him to look after our needs, and our needs alone; and usually forgetting to say ‘thank you’ if that cry for help is answered. For if everything works out fine…well, ‘we did rather well, didn’t we?’, we would say, with a self-congratulatory slap on the back. However, if everything goes wrong…well, God’s the one to blame!
Thought for the day - if there is a God, then he is a God – and NOT a social worker.
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