Believe it or not, I have already presented 8 stupid ways and 7 smart ways to think about God. The 8th smart way to think about God is
GOD IS FULFILLMENT.
The authors that I am using for these ideas, start this eighth way of thinking about God by saying: It is always there, lurking in the shadows. It can slither up to us at any time, coiling itself around our hearts, paralyzing our mind. It begins to squeeze, ever so gently at first and then, tighter and tighter, until it suffocates our faith. It’s not a serpent. It is doubt!
It is easy to believe when we are not challenged by life. Sickness, failure and a host of other life-challenges, can truly challenge our beliefs. So often we hear: If our God is a loving God, why does He allow bad things to happen to good people? We hear this a lot when people encounter serious illness in children.
The death of a child often provokes even good people asking: If God is so great, why can’t He change this?
People frequently doubt the true love and efficacy of God when things, perceived from a human perspective, seem to be unjust. Perceived injustices often result in doubts!
For our intellectual doubts, God can say little. We seem to think that God should act in a manner dictated by our sense of justice, that is if He is the God that we have made in our image and our likeness. God should, we humans often say, should act in a manner that is very consistent with our idea of justice. The problem is that He frequently doesn’t seem to act as we think He should. Even though we humans cannot see the “bigger picture” about life, we insist that we have the bigger picture and want to insist that God acts in accord with our perception of what is just and good. As a result of God not acting in the manner we think He should, we begin to doubt that there is a God.
There are other kinds of doubts that arise as we experience life. One of the big doubts that seems to arise is: Does life have any meaning or purpose? Many people allow the challenges of life to allow them to question the meaning and purpose of life. Why? Because we humans don’t want to change and, when life doesn’t turn out the way that we think it should, we question what life is all about. We ask, why should we have to face challenges and struggles? Why is there illnesses, failures and difficulties? We fail to realize that without the various challenges that life presents we would never change or grow. Personal growth only comes when we are challenged to accept things that are not in conformity with what we think are just and appropriate. We begin to doubt that God really knows what is right for us!