Reason vs. Emotion

I'm learning that most of our rational or intellectual hangups about God are rarely the issue. I mean, if God was able to be comprehended completely by simply using reason and logic, I think a far greater number of people would believe and follow Him. There's a lot of smart people out there! But that's not how we relate to each other, so I'm beginning to see that we don't relate to God that way either, try as we might. The way we know a person is completely different from the way we know our way home or how to do long division (if we remember how!)...

The real issue that we have with God is when He doesn't do things that we think He's supposed to. I'm not even meaning that we think we know better than Him and He should do things our way. I'm talking about the times when our experiences with God and the things we've been taught about God have lead us to expect certain things from Him, or to assume He interacts with the world a particular way. And when He doesn't, it hurts. It confuses us. I thought God cared. I thought if I trusted Him, this wouldn't happen to me. So, in an effort to understand our pain and confusion, we start deconstructing the things we thought were true. And this is dangerous territory, I think, because as I believe God is real, then I must logically allow for the devil and fallen angels and spirits to be real. In the midst of pain, we can succumb to all sorts of deceptions and false conclusions. Sure, God loves the world, but I guess He doesn't really love me. Something must be wrong with me that this happened. Maybe I deserved it. Maybe God just doesn't care. I guess I'm alone in this. We take concepts that we were taught to be true, like that God is good, and let our experiences become the deciding evidences. At least, that's what I tend to do.

And so, without going into detail, I have realized that my intellectual hesitations are probably just defense mechanisms to bury or distract myself from unhealed emotional pain. I feel like this is a good first step. To realize this, that is. The next step seems to be allowing myself to feel the weight of that brokenness and crying out to God, by being honest.

I'm thankful for friends who are walking with me through these things and praying for me.