Angered by the filing of frivilous law suites, the AP reports that Nebraska State Senator Ernie Chambers filed a suit against God last week:The defendant in a state senator's lawsuit is accused of causing untold death and horror and threatening to cause more still. He can be sued in Douglas County, the legislator claims, because He's everywhere.
State Sen. Ernie Chambers sued God last week. Angered by another lawsuit he considers frivolous, Chambers says he's trying to make the point that anybody can file a lawsuit against anybody.
Chambers says in his lawsuit that God has made terroristic threats against the senator and his constituents, inspired fear and caused "widespread death, destruction and terrorization of millions upon millions of the Earth's inhabitants."
Chambers says "he's trying to make the point that anybody can file a lawsuit against anybody." However, as the AP article hints, Chambers suit may not be completely without personal motivations:
The Omaha senator, who skips morning prayers during the legislative session and often criticizes Christians, also says God has caused "fearsome floods ... horrendous hurricanes, terrifying tornadoes."
Interestingly, I think Chambers suit puts form to something a vast majority of folks wonder about (and some struggle deeply with): does God cause these events? If so, how could a good God allow bad things to happen?
These ancient questions are some I've struggled with for years, and with which I've come to a place of momentary rest. I've touched on this before on this blog (see here and here). The bottom line? My struggle begins to ease when I remember the whole Story--the one where all was created in Light, Life and Love, was invaded and broken and now is being restored by (to borrow a turn of phrase from Andrew Peterson) the God of Uncreated Light and Love. This world isn't as it should be. It isn't as it was created to be. And "fearsome floods . . . horrendous hurricanes, terrifying tornadoes" remind us of that (as do the evil and selfish acts of others and ourselves). But God won't let that continue. He's working at bringing it all back to himself, as it was meant to be. Yes, there is mind-boggling evil and brokenness; but there is also amazing Life and Love.
For me, however, just knowing the Story isn't enough. It goes even deeper than that. It wasn't until I spent some time really trusting and walking with God that my heart started to really rest. God has and is proving himself to be who says he is. He is doing what he says he can do. I've stumbled upon a Love that boggles my mind and makes my head and heart swim. It is something I didn't expect and something for which I am deeply grateful.
And it really wasn't until I stumbled upon that amazing Love that another part of the puzzle fell into place: That Love is most often manifested and experienced as we live together in that Life and Love. And that has profound implications on how we face the problem of suffering and evil. That Love, in a way I don't really comprehend, works in and through us (to borrow a quote from Dallas Willard) so that we, "assisted by the grace of God, foresee, forestall, or transform most of the painful situation before which others stand like helpless children saying 'Why?'"
Like my ruminations on struggles with the Dark Night, however, I realize even as I write this that little of what I say may actually reach, help or make sense to someone else who struggles with these questions. I can't answer them for anyone else. I can only tell what happened to me. I can only tell you that, so far, my journey's been one of deepening relationship, which leads me to further trust that God is Good and Love and Life. And that leads me to walk on, step by tiny step in trust--in faith. Not in a "blind" faith but one that sees a bit more than it used to. A faith, as Rich Mullins says, that
. . . gives us the courage to face our fears and puts those fears in a context that makes them less frightful. We walk by faith and not by sight because there are places to go that cannot be seen and the scope of our vision is too small for our strides. Faith is not a denial of facts - it is a broadening of focus. It does not deny the hardness of guitar strings, it plucks them into a sweetness of sound.