"Isn’t God supposed to be good? Isn’t He supposed to love us? And does God want us to suffer? What if the answer to that question is Yes? Cause I’m not sure that God particularly wants us to be happy. I think he wants us to be able to love and be loved. He wants us to grow up. I suggest to you that it is because God loves us that he makes us the gift of suffering." - The character of C.S. Lewis from the movie Shadowlands
I wish God made sense. I wish the world made sense. I sit here in my office with a ridiculous amount of books, all of which have been written because God is hard to get to know, and the world is even more impossible.
I believe God is good. I believe God loves us. I believe we suffer, whether God's will or otherwise.
I do not believe God wants us to be happy according to the world's measure of happiness. That one is pretty easy to discern. Just watch a commercial or two. They all pretty much make the same empty promise.
"Do you want to be happy? Buy this car."
"Do you want to be happy? Get this security system."
"Do you want to be happy? Lose weight."
Sound like God?
So what does God want? I think Anthony Hopkins as C.S. Lewis is on to something. I am not as certain as he about some things, but one thing is inarguable: God wants us to love, and to be loved. Sounds good.
One more thing: God wants us to take big gulps of God's forgiveness every day.
This past Sunday our church drank for an hour from the deep well of Psalm 32. That song sings the authentic happiness of being found in Christ. No wonder the early churches loved to sing it.
"Happy are those whose transgression is forgiven,
whose sin is covered.
Happy are those to whom the Lord imputes no iniquity,
and in whose spirit there is no deceit."
Happy. Forgiven. Covered. No iniquity. Spirit.
"Happy are those whose transgression is forgiven..."
Happy.
This one is tough for most people. For many, it is easier to forgive than to be forgiven. Do you know what I mean? Do you have a hard time accepting God at face value when God says your sins are actually forgiven? Few would say that they do not trust God's Word. But functionally, it is hard for us to think that God really means what God says on that one.
But it is true.
"Happy are those whose transgression is forgiven..."
That was last Sunday. Then comes the next Psalm in the series for this Sunday, number 121.
"The Lord will keep
your going out and your coming in
from this time on and for evermore."
That sounds good.
But then I watch the news. I see the suffering of fellow human beings in Japan. It is heartbreaking. Some see it as a megaphone of God's judgment. I think that borders on blasphemy. But where some see God's judgment, I simply hear the promise of God's presence, both when we go out, and when we come in.
I hear echoes of the promises of God's forgiveness through the ages, during times of peace, and during times of disaster.
I smell the aroma of the prayers of generations of God's followers who dared to pray, "How long, O Lord?" for they were certain that the only one who could actually hear that prayer was the creator of the heavens and earth.
I touch the hands and faces of young brides and grooms full of hope and love, and then the hands and faces of those at gravesides whose entire world shifts in an instant.
And I feel the joy and pain of all humanity who longs for the fulfillment of time itself when all questions will come to an end, when a single answer rooted in the very heart of God will be all that matters for the remainder of eternity.
