Life's A Puzzle

One of the perennial mistakes we can make is trying to figure out what God is thinking and why God did this or didn't do that. It gets us in all kinds of trouble, sometimes even causing us to doubt that God really cares for us or even bothers to give us a second glance after creating us.

That's the bad idea that the deists of the enlightenment wandered into and there are plenty of equally bad ideas about God still circulating. Believe me, I hear quite a few just in the rounds I make!

The crunch can come when we face a tragedy like cancer, or the death of a child, or the sudden strike of the insidious disease MS. And we can really go over the top when we think about the Holocaust or the thousands of children who are battered, abused, trafficked, and discarded in countries around the world.

'I want answers and I want them now!' we may in effect be shouting. If so, we're wasting our breath, for our time is not God's time, nor is our schedule God's. The Apostle Paul says it well: 'How inscrutable His judgments, how unsearchable His ways.'

So what are we left with? Both our faith in the goodness of God and our personal experience, part of it directly intuitive that God abides with us and never leaves, and that His love for us is undying. In the words of the poet, 'That's all you know and all you need to know.'


Loving Father, we do not presume to know Your plans. Help us to serve You without the weight of questioning Your love. Hold each of us in Your heart. Heal those who suffer from afflictions of illness, greed, vanity, lust, self-absorption, and those who use Your name to promote themselves. Teach us to learn to join hands to serve You each day and for every tomorrow. In Christ's name we pray. Amen

Caring for the Dying

When We Need a Little Help

Meet Our Children

World Trade Center and Events of September 11