August 5th

August 5^th 2012

Habakkuk

Today's reading answers two big questions for those doubting their faith. The first asks how can a God so caring allow evil to exist? The answer is so sophisticatedly simple: free will. God doesn't want to force anyone to follow Him; He wants people to follow Him because they want to, not because they have to. Because of this, He gave us free will. Free will is the ability to make choices without constraint. Sounds pretty great, right? No limitations, anything goes. People are free to do whatever they want, whenever they want. But doing whatever you want, whenever you want, doesn't always match up with what other people want. If I wanted to mow my lawn, and my neighbor has one of those nice ride on lawn mowers, free will allows me to go into his shed and borrow his lawn mower. Free will allows me to return it with no gas left, or to not return it at all. Free will then allows my angry neighbor to egg my car. Free will is starting to sound a little less awesome now, isn't it? If you think of this on a national level, free will is what allowed the Babylonians to do all of the evil things they did, but it is also what brings them down. When free will is abused, or used in an evil way, God doesn't have to do any work to eliminate the evil, it will eventually eliminate itself. This is why He allows it, allows being the key word. Obviously He would rather us choose Him and His path in the first place, but by giving us the ability to chose for ourselves, He is allowing us to grow as people, and to grow in faith.

The second important question is in the very second line of today's reading. "How long, O Lord, must I call for help, but you do not listen?" This is a question we have probably all asked while praying. It is in our nature to turn to God when we need some help. It is also in our nature to expect immediate and complete results. God doesn't work that way, however. Because He wants us to grow, He wants us to solve as many of our own problems as we can. This, for most people, seems entirely too hard, and it's understandable. A lot of us have a lot on our shoulders, and a lot of us would love to have someone take care of these problems for us. But if He just took away all of our problems, we wouldn't grow. He does not, however, neglect our problems entirely. When He sees us struggling, He sends help, sometimes subtly, and sometimes pretty bluntly, but either way He does send help. And for the rest of our problems, He knows that we can solve them ourselves, and that problems most often have a way of working themselves out if a little effort is put into it.

Hope that you all had a lovely Sunday, and congratulations to those baptized today!

Gina