Considering answers to those faith-questions we all ask…
Tag: Love
How does a couple stay "in love"? How can they stay together? My parents were married for sixty-five years before my dad passed into the next world. As their son I observed their relationship or lack of it for decades, often with horror, disgust or a sinking heart. What I'm about to share is not my opinion only but the shared observation of several family members, male and female: we all saw the same things.
Jesus told his disciples, and by extension us, to stand firm to the end in an increasingly cold world. It isn't easy when you can't trust most of the people around you, when you can't trust your own leaders, when the world appears to be falling apart, and when there is very little or no genuine love or affection to keep you going.
My title may strike some as expressing an un-Christian sentiment. Surely, Christians should like everyone, shouldn't they? What does it mean to "like" a person anyway? I would say that in loving we don't have to like everything people do or say or think. We don't have to like that which is evil or that which offends the Spirit within us. We don't have to smile at something we're convinced is wrong or which we have no affinity for. We have the dignity and right to have our own views, tastes and preferences. If I say I don't like your music I'm not committing a sin. However, we are required and commanded to love.
Many of us secretly or even openly wish we were special in some way. We admire the celebrities, the successful and the achievers, and we quietly judge ourselves for being plain or for being nobodies. Yet almost all of us miss the one simple opportunity to become very special.
The most common cause of unbelief, according to surveys, is the problem of evil and suffering. If there really were a God, people reason, there would be no suffering. Putin's Russia would not get away with the invasion of Ukraine, Uncle Joe wouldn't have died of that awful disease, and the cat would not have got caught up in a tree.
Fuel for Faith, Food for Thought 