Jul 15, 2018

12 Steps to Joy (13)

The Word of Life (6)

In the beginning the Word already existed.

The Word was with God,

And the Word was God.

The Word existed in the beginning with God.

God created everything through the Word,

And nothing was created except through the Word.

The Word gave life to everything that was created,

And the life of the Word brought light to everyone.

The light shines in the darkness,

And the darkness can never extinguish it.”

John 1:1-5.

And nothing was created except through the Word.

The Word gave life to everything that was created,

And the life of the Word brought light to everyone.

I hear from many, especially those who do are trying to prove there is no God or a God of Love, that how can they believe in a God of Love when so many things are so bad today. Why does not this “God of Love” step in and fix things? That question has been asked from time immemorial. It does seem hard to imagine, why God would let things slide to where we live in pain and suffering, wars, natural disasters, sickness, and death. As the title of a popular book put it, “Why do Bad Things happen to Good People?”. Even Jesus, the living embodiment of Love on earth, died a painful death, put to death by the very people he came to show the love of God in action.

We can easily see the rational when we look at the behavior of humanity, where personal interaction was and is so often painful. But often this pain seems to be a product of the universe itself: earthquakes, floods, tornadoes, hurricanes – the list goes on and on. How could God permit these functions and still be called a God of Love? It seems easier to just roll ones’ eyes and say “there is no God; at least a God that we can say is love!”. The whole messy universe seems both too good to be true and too messy to be the product of One who claims to be Love itself.

We can say it seems too good to be true because the odds against all the pieces falling into place that the universe could still be here with all the ‘just so’ parameters that could, after 13.7 billion years, (that is 13,000,000,000 years!), then produce creatures who live 60-100 years that can ask the question ‘why?’. It is truly mind-boggling that this event could occur. (Don’t forget the odds are around 10 raised to the power of (10 raised to the power of 123!)) As far as we can tell, we are the only creatures in the universe who can ask this question and search for answers.

And yes, it is messy, but the messiness is required for things to progress sufficiently to permit the birth of a compound star based on complex carbon types that are the key for life as we know it to evolve. But why evolution if we have this all-powerful God behind everything? Why would not this force, if it is all-powerful as we claim, just metaphorically just snap it’s fingers and create everything running perfectly smooth according to the Garden of Eden story? Why this messy and too-often painful process that took 13.7 billion years?

There is no real answer we can give for sure, but it appears that our God is very orderly, and loves to do things in an orderly fashion, even to the point that it seems messy but oh-so-finely tuned. (See the odds of this happening above.) what appears messy to us who live for just a tiny, tiny portion of the age of the universe and are apparently caught in the web of creation that is constantly ongoing. The Love of God is on the grand scale, permitting the evolution of all that we see and are from a clean slate of just a few types of nuclei to the complex interaction we see today. The process involved the design of stars of very large mass and pressure to create all the heavy nuclei in their center, then the violent explosions that characterized the vast majority of space. That love continued, and after the birth of our star, what we call the sun, permitted that average star to be swept out of it’s birth place (we still do not know where our sun was born, even though they are just now seeing some hints.) where the ongoing continued birth of stars was too full of radiation for life to blossom. Our star has sat for about 5 billion years in a quite isolated portion of our galaxy without undue radiation, giving birth to a number of small planets that have continued to evolve.

And here we are. We claim to know so much, but the truth is as always, the more we claim to know the more we understand we don’t know.

Yes, we are a product of a God of Love, but we are also a product of a universe of violent evolution that just keeps evolving and changing, usually in very violent ways.

What kind of a God would this be to use these strange approaches to create beings, made in the “image and likeness of God”.

Meditation

Oh Gentle Lover, how I am in awe from what little I have gleaned about the process of life eternal. I am grateful for the opportunity to live and feel all the beauty and grace that supports everything that exists. As John says, “And nothing was created except through the Word.” The more I let myself relax into Your Love eternal, the more I am in awe of Your mighty force that keeps every electron spinning, and the network of Love that makes up our wonderous universe, and yet loves me by Your very Being in every molecule of my body and soul. I love you, more each day, as my soul opens up more and more .

---

MY BOOK, THE 12 STEPS TO JOY AND HAPPINESS,IS NOW AVAILABLE FROM HAY HOUSE, BALBOA PRESS, AMAZON, AND BARNES AND NOBLE, AS WELL AS OTHER SOURCES, IN HARD COVER, SOFT COVER, AND EBOOK FORMATS. Click on the “Learn More” button for further information.

We are bound in the music of life where we dance and weave within that glorious melody, or what some call God. Now, God has said that we are the very image of God (Genesis 1:27), and as images of God, we have the inborn ability to have Joy and Happiness forever present in our life. The author, David L. Peters, is an octogenarian whose life has always been filled with joy, regardless of outward appearances. The wonders of the Kingdom of Heaven is everyone’s birthright, if you know how to let your Creator and the Universe enter your spirit. Jesus put it succinctly: “The Kingdom of God lies within” (Luke 17:21). The Kingdom of God, Paradise, Heaven: these lie within you, right now, waiting for you to only turn and see, and join in the dance. Paradise is right within us, but how do we unlock the door to this wonder of joy? This book lays a path open that the author has followed for almost 80 years, starting as a young boy in rural Ohio, and it operates as advertised. No matter how things look in life, how bad it seems, all one need do is look deeper within and find the joy that can fill life: life is good! The life of abundant joy and happiness is yours for the asking. Dip your toe in the living waters, and taste the Beauty of God that is awaiting. Click on the “Learn More” button for further information.