Human Arrogance

            It’s a part of human nature but it never ceases to amaze me. Throughout our lives there are many instances where we like to think we’re in charge. We feel like we can control our lives and that we’re at the top of the food chain, so much so that reality itself is contingent upon our decisions. Our lives are often guided by this arrogance as are our entire mindsets, despite the fact that we’re often shown how little control we really have. Never the less, we work our way back to thinking that our actions and decisions are the final say in countless areas.

           

            The biggest, and perhaps most critical, area where this ugly superiority complex rears its head is when it comes to God and our interactions with Him. When we take a look at Job, one of the oldest yet I believe to be most powerful books in the Bible, we see this problem display itself clearly. In this book, Job goes from having it all to losing everything from family to fortune, all in an incredibly short period of time. The whole thing leaves him reeling and the majority of the book is a long debate that Job has with a few buddies over why he just lost everything and what he can do to fix it, as shown in Job 22:6-11 for example: “you must have lent money to your friend and demanded clothing as security. Yes, you stripped him to the bone. ⁷ You must have refused water for the thirsty and food for the hungry. ⁸ You probably think the land belongs to the powerful and only the privileged have a right to it! ⁹ You must have sent widows away empty-handed and crushed the hopes of orphans. ¹⁰ That is why you are surrounded by traps and tremble from sudden fears. ¹¹ That is why you cannot see in the darkness, and waves of water cover you.” The whole thing is quite remarkable as they go around and around thinking that they know God and why He has let things happen the way they have. Finally, Elihu, a younger guy who has been sitting there listening to the others go on and on takes a stand and essentially tells them how ignorant they all are, such as in Job 35:6-8: “If you sin, how does that affect him? If your sins are many, what does that do to him? ⁷ If you are righteous, what do you give to him, or what does he receive from your hand? ⁸ Your wickedness only affects humans like yourself, and your righteousness only other people.” Then, God comes in and lays down the law big time on Job, starting in Job 38:2-3: “Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me.” God is even sarcastic throughout His rant and shows Job just how incredibly oblivious he really is, starting in Job 38:4-5: ““Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. ⁵ Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!” (which makes me think of the Wonka meme btw, had to make one: http://memegenerator.co/instance/39599244) There are a couple times throughout this tirade by God that Job tries to withdraw himself and say that he’s just going to shut up now but God isn’t finished with him yet. In the end, Job has what he lost and then some restored to him by God and he’s able to go on knowing now just how little he really knows.

            

            The reason I enjoy this book so much is because it’s still very applicable today. We can see all over instances where people assign things or events that happen to God, good and bad, and then we say what they mean or what has to happen because of it. In fact, often times we even take it a step further and use these things or events to determine our faith and decide whether or not we even believe in God’s existence. Our faiths, beliefs, and opinions change so rapidly and are so fickle, it’s astounding that we’re even able to function and hold a well-reasoned conversation or debate. For example, say you found ten bucks on the ground one day and you used it to treat a friend to lunch or maybe you put it in the offering plate at church. Must have been a blessing from God who is all loving and wanted to show His love by leading you to finding that ten bucks. Or maybe the opposite, maybe there was a plane crash or a school shooting which had dozens of casualties, so now we have to question whether a loving God really exists because He let these things happen….wait, what? Since when can we assign what we call good or bad things or events to God in such a way that either has us praising Him or questioning His existence? Say that ten bucks you found belonged to someone who really needed it but accidentally dropped it and now they’re going hungry for the night while you’re out spending it. Or maybe that plane crash or school shooting leads to a lot of people coming to Christ or a whole slew of new regulations that prevent such things from happening again. Well now what? That thing that was a “blessing” was bad for the other guy because he started questioning God’s existence and ultimately left the faith, all over the notion that a loving God would never let him lose that ten bucks and go hungry. And that horrific event that had you questioning a loving God’s existence was a great thing for dozens of others because they came to know Christ. My point of this is that it’s a matter of perspective from our human standpoint and we really have no clue what God was doing here one way or another. We quickly like to come out and announce that something was a blessing or a curse though and declare that we know what God was doing in whatever the situation may be, even though we really have no clue.

            

            Let’s take this a step further and apply it to certain things that happened that are talked about in the Bible. For example, in a recent discussion I was in, people were discussing God’s good-ness and talking about the tenth plague in Egypt when the firstborn children are killed. In regards to this story, one said that they didn’t think they could believe in a loving God who allowed this to happen or even was the reason for it happening. Points were made back and forth all over, but the one I kept stressing was that it didn’t entirely matter. What I mean by this is, sure our own personal faiths and relationships with God are something that we for the most part control, but our decisions regarding belief in God doesn’t affect His existence. Our personal belief in an all loving, all powerful, etc. God doesn’t change the objective fact of His existence or non-existence. It’s hard to draw a direct comparison, but that’s like saying you believed in the sun and thought it could only do “good” things but then you got sunburn so now you choose not to believe in it. There are many flaws in this comparison, I know, but my point is not the details of the comparison but the fact that the sun’s existence/non-existence doesn’t hinge on your belief in it. Its existence is an objective thing that doesn’t change based on how we’re feeling that day. Same thing goes with God; his existence isn’t hinged upon whether or not you believe in Him. Along those same lines, His actions aren’t hinged upon whether or not you approve of them. Now, take all of this and go back to Job. Look at what God told him when he questioned God’s actions and whether they were right or not. God basically slammed him and told him that he simply could not comprehend what He was doing. God’s actions and existence didn’t depend on whether Job still liked Him or not. God invites us to be a part of what He’s doing, but that does not in any way signal Him turning over the keys. We are the creation, not the creator, and we cannot think that we can grant ourselves that kind of power.

            Now, in discussing all of this, I’m not saying I have the right answer or that I have some new further objective way to prove to non-believers that God does in fact exist. We’re already for the most part staring at the same objective pieces of evidence, we just have that whole different perspective thing going on again. What I am saying is to really consider what you’re saying when you say something along the lines of how you can’t believe in a God who would do x or would allow such and such to happen. At the end of the day, or at the end of your life as it may be, your belief or not in God doesn’t change the fact of His existence or not. I must stress again, as I often do, that it also doesn’t change the consequences of our choice that He so nicely laid out before us. So, when you’re thinking about God and whether or not you believe in Him because of something He may have done, check your arrogance at the door and remember that you’re not in control, He is, and that you will never fully comprehend an infinite God with your finite mind. 

                                                                                                                              Just a thought...

Transformation-My College Experience

       College. The four year paradise. The training session for the real world. The stepping stone to your future. I heard what I just spent the past four years doing called many things while I was doing it but no words can quite sum up the experience. It’s described as a place to find yourself and get a degree so you can go and pursue your dreams, but it’s so much more than that. When my older siblings and others tried to tell me about what they did or were doing in college, I could only grasp at pictures in my imagination. Once I earned my way into UMD and started there in the fall of 09, things became much more clear and incredible beyond my imagination. When I first started there, I had barely ever left St. Mary’s county and had never spent more than a week away from home. I was so lost and confused, surrounded by dozens of other guys on my dorm floor who liked to do wild things, that I barely came out of my room that first semester, other than to go to class and a couple of Navigator events. I honestly didn’t know what in the world I was doing there and if I would make it. Time went along though, and I started to get the hang of it and I branched out to new people. There were a couple of guys from Navs who played a huge role in shaking me from my extremely introverted nature that I had. One of them knocked on my door and invited me to join him and some others four floors down for a bible study they were having. The other was some dude who I randomly got placed into a car with for a hiking trip and we became good buds, and had one of the greatest bromances UMD Navs has ever seen, when he taught me Settlers and I taught him about how MD snow days worked.

       Things really grew from there as I got more and more involved with the Navs and I started to realize what it was I really wanted to study once I discovered the journalism was not for me. I kept on rolling, moving up from being a sophomore and welcoming in a huge new freshman class in Navs to being a junior and really starting to dive into the business school, so much so that I decided to add another major on. I finally hit my senior year where I had some of the worst and best times of my college career, wrapping things up on a high note with my what and why mission, which if you haven’t heard about yet, read my last blog post to read about the experience that impacted my life more than anything else ever has. The thing is, I never would have known what this was like and have had all of the amazing experiences and met all of the new friends I have if I hadn’t done all that I did. Like I said, people try to describe what college is like and you get a whole mix of different answers. As with most things, you don’t know until you try. College just happens to be unique because it’s an environment built to have anything and everything happen, whether it be 4 in the afternoon or 4 in the morning.

       As I start off on this next phase of life, through what I’m sure will be quite the transition, I know that I will have many more wild adventures and a whole lot of learning. I’ve already kicked things off and I’ve learned more stuff in the past couple of weeks working then I had in a long time. Things will certainly look different and my schedule won’t allow as many nights of crashing at 3 am, but I know that this is where I need to be. Whatever comes my way, I know that I have the people I just spent my college years with and the Big Guy himself with me all the way, and that I can have just as much fun if I dive right in and see what the “real world” has to offer a guy from St. Mary’s.

       And remember, this all started with just a thought.