Answer 4

OK. I’ve established that a lot of the stuff you blame on the church shouldn’t be. And that the waste and loss, far from surprising God, is even worse than you say it is, with God’s clear knowledge and consent.

I’ve declared that this is true of every person, including you, and that what it means to you, and for you, should be a much bigger issue for you than, well, anything else.

So. Let’s take a person who has accepted all this, that is, a Christian, and go back to the question: why is God so mean, arbitrary, and unfair?

This isn’t the journey I took, but it synopsizes it well:

1. Read Job as often as necessary until you know God has the right to do as He pleases, doesn’t owe anyone an explanation, and can’t be understood by us anyway.
2. Read Lamentations 3 until you have some sense of validation that things really do suck as bad as you think.
3. Read the gospel of John until you completely understand that God obeys His own rules, takes His own medicine, and let the heaviest blow fall on Himself. Isaiah 53 is also good, as it is God’s description of how He let us torture His son to death. Reflect that nobody could ever make this up.

That God should play the tyrant over man is a dismal story of unrelieved oppression; that man should play the tyrant over man is the usual dreary record of human futility; but that man should play the tyrant over God and find Him a better man than himself is an astonishing drama indeed.

- Dorothy Sayers

Repeat step 3 until you can get some kind of glimpse of what God is offering you in return for your trust.

Trust.

Right around here you’ll see glimmers that with God, as with all other people, trust begets understanding.

Trust. Look at the world--the whole picture--good and evil and people and personalities. Consider the available explanations. Nothing is so full, so comprehensive. Nothing speaks to all of the soul like this. It leaves God’s things up to God and gives you what your heart needs and all your mind can handle. It satisfies your rationality and destroys your rationalism.

Trust. And, while I didn’t intend to call your bluff about reading the Bible, it’s clearly what happened. You’ll have to read the thing. Go back to the steps.

Christianity, that is, Christ, is for broken people. God is merciful.