Hey Dede (((((hugs)))) gurl,
As always when I read one of your threads...you got me thinking
I believe we all have felt like you.....we don't realy understand why God doesn't answer all good prayers.......like to save a child from abuse or feed a hungry nation.
We know what we were taught as JW's.....that we are to prove satan a liar and serve Jehovah even if he doesn't do anything for us......other then give us the gift of life.
Truthfully I think every person gets a little boost from God but,doesn't always realize it. Oh and by the way, you don't have to be a JW to get this boost The scriptures speak of how God's sun shines on everyone and his rain...rains for all.(Have they gotten any more rain by you Ozzie?) So even if you don't know about God at all or even choose not to serve Him you have the benefit of His Dynamic Energy and Creation. An example of this is going to the ocean......anyone who has been can feel the energy and warmth of a day at the beach. I have an illness that can drain the energy from a person but, this past summer my parents took us to the ocean ...The sun and the water!!! All the energy of the ocean atmosphere seemed to impart to me and that night I had the best sleep I ever had in years!! I felt cured!! I could have been there forever....I so wanted to go back everyday. Still that was a gift from Jehovah God and me by JW standards is dead being dissed undiserving of such a day...yet I had that gift...a day like I was well. Helped me to know one day I could be cured and now I have hope.
There are many people all over the world who have been abused.....and because they believe in a creator they were able to make it through all the bad done to them. What if they didn't beieve in a Creator? I mean not at all....had no one to speak too...or cry out too? No hope what so ever....would they have made it through? Even when you blame God for what's happening to you...you have someone to curse! But what if you didn't even have that and it all came crashing on you....no way out.... in your mind no one can even help....no one is even watching and holding back waiting to save you right before the last straw...? What if there were truely no hope?
Holocaust stories seem to be told and retold by every group that lived it....I think mostly because it is the most well documented and still told by survivors of all atrocities ever commited in history. Even the Nazis themselves documented thier deeds so well that thier horifying scentific research actually benefits man today in the fields of medicine and science.
On PBS I was watching a documentary about Shindler and all the people he saved during The Holocaust. All those people believed in God and looked at Shindler....a greedy profiteer as a gift from God! Can you imagine? Someone making a profit from thier demise?!?! But they had this hope and love for thier creator they coud see a gift where maybe others could not. Then came the day where Shindler's Jews were ordered away from him...and this womanising profiteer felt a panic in his conscience....he went looking for them and found them... ..where did that panic of his come from? All the people he saved believe God.Where else? If you look at this mans life he was never able to keep a business going even after The Holocaust!! Anyway,some of Shindler's Jews ended up in a death camp and they saw the most skinny un fed people who would fight you for a bowl of maggot soup! All looked bleak and they knew they were about to die.But this one woman said she could find happiness there. Can you imagine? Do you know how? She saw a little sparrow in a tree at winter time..chirping it's little chirps and the sight made her so happy she smiled! Where did that come from?This happiness in the darkest place on earth to be? I believe God....Our Heavenly Father and His Son Christ Jesus.Anyway as we know Shindler Saved all his Jews but how? Where did this extra bravery come from in a man who's morals and scruples were so low? Does anyone believe he could change a life time of weakness over night?
Shindler gave his Jews hope and because of him they knew God was with them.Hope is powerful stuff!! Even when knocked down and unable to stand often it is hope that is keeping you breathing.Sometimes you are just breathing but, that's the miracle....your alive and you can't believe it.
I know this is hard for some to believe and I admit a few times I have wondered but, then in my own life there are things that have happened and if God wasn't there holding me keeping me strong even when I wasn't asking Him too. I don't believe I would be here.
Romans 5 speaks of hope.....at verse 2 it says,"Let us exult based on hope of the glory of God" Romans 5 also speaks of endurance and at verse 5 goes on..."and the hope does not lead to disappointment;because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the holy spirit which was given us"
This gift is not for a select few....but for everyone now and forever.
As for the why these things happen.....all I can say that since God is not a mystery if we keep trying we will learn the answers. Psalm 119:73 , Prov.9: 9 - 10
oh, as for the whole demon thing that JW's alot of JW's have.....I never understood it because James 4:7 says,"Subject yourselves therefore to God but, oppose the devil and he will flee from you" So what's to be afraid of?
Ty for listening all
agape,
Utopian_Raindrops
