Well golly BD, thanks! Say, those ARE the tough questions, aren't they? What answers did you come up with for some of those? For me they fall into the general category of, "God is not responsible to us, we are responsible to Him." Because He gave us the greatest gift, the quality of His that is the most powerful-- FREE WILL. I believe it is even more powerful than love, although using it in and for love is amazing... Without free will, we don't count for much in anything, but with it-- !!!! And because we have that, He is not responsible for us; rather we are responsible for ourselves.

I am party to a situation now that helps me begin to see God's love in action, in correction. It's a hard one. Yet I can see, if I step back from my own feelings about it, that His correction in a specific situation I know of, one of amazing stubbornness and pride and using the will to harm, on purpose-- that for Him to correct the people involved rather than let them do MORE harm, is love not only for those they would harm but for those bent on doing harm, as well.

I see it because I can see all the power I have in that situation, and how the use of it would not really change the root problems, which are the hearts of the people involved. So it is in great love and sorrow that I hold back the hand that could change the thing, and with equally great love and sorrow that I stop interceding for them with God and stand back to bless His work to correct them.

You see, they have been loved as far as this woman is capable, and prayed for, and interceded for with God and with earthly powers that should have great influence over them. And yet they have organized their wills to harm, and only when they are stopped from doing this will they be able to look inside themselves to begin changing their hearts humbly.

I used to worry about why God had not stopped Hitler early, and personally. Now I see the decisions people made that led to his formation and rise, and all the people who were in a position to stop all of that, and didn't, and didn't ask God's help to do it. A lot of people suffered not because God would not lift His finger, and instead left us to our own devices and wills. They suffered because PEOPLE people would not lift their voices.

It makes me think twice before getting all riled up about the Old Testament corrections. If we wrote a testament now, looking back on WWII, might we say God had destroyed Germany, meaning that His correction had come at the hands of the Allies but had been His purpose? If we think of bombed out Dresden, does it sound like the OT?

I try to live the parts of the Bible I do understand, and I find that doing this helps me understand the parts that are hard to understand.

I also think it's like this. Imagine you came to Mudcat and spent a lot of time here and read everything and tried to understand it. Then imagine that you actually got to know Max, real well. Worked with him. Had lunch with him a couple of times a week. Sat with him while he dreamed up new things. Helped dream them up. Had him love your ideas and make them part of this place. Once you did that, it would change your whole perception of the place, and especially everything Max wrote here and why it is all organized like it is.

Don't you find that when you meet other Catters, your perception of their Cat-posts shifts to another level? It's like that with the Bible. When you live in relationship with Jesus, it all makes sense in a different way. Not all at once. But it unfolds.

There is more to say. I think this is enough for now. I know it is already more than some good people I love dearly will be able to tolerate. But if this is not the thread to speak openly in, I'm in the wrong forum. Max? Thanks for leaving us all our freedom here at the Mudcat. Lunch sometime?

~Susan