How much is too much?

When I was writing all my many essays way back at university and later at college, it was often a dilemma to work out how much of what I wrote came from my own thoughts and how much from books and articles I had read. I remember one of my college lecturers writing on an essay of mine, ‘Cite your sources!’ in big, red letters. Yet, I thought I had done that via my many quotes and footnotes. Was I fooling myself—and even perhaps trying to fool that lecturer, as I felt he was implying? Or had all that reading I had done in preparation for writing my essay become part of my own thinking?

I thought I had left that dilemma behind years ago now. Yet, in writing my current non-fiction manuscript, a similar challenge has emerged, this time concerning the number of Scripture quotes I include in full. How much is too much? What could I perhaps say in my own words instead, simply citing the relevant Bible reference at the end? And how much Bible content is already present in everything I write from my own heart anyway because of the fact that I have read and reflected on the words of Scripture almost every day for so many years now?

Recently, as I read through my whole manuscript again before sending the final version off to the publisher, I decided to remove a number of Bible verses I had included in full. But then I came to a chapter entitled ‘Words of comfort’, then another entitled ‘Words of peace’—and later, one entitled ‘Words of wisdom’. I believe wholeheartedly in the words I myself have written in these chapters and hope they will encourage many. But surely the greatest source of comfort, peace and wisdom is to be found in God’s Word itself as the Spirit speaks through it into the depths of our hearts?

Then one morning while still pondering this issue, I came to Isaiah 40 during my own time of Scripture reading. And there, among so many other strong, beautiful words, I found the following stirring section:

O Jacob, how can you say the Lord does not see your troubles?
    O Israel, how can you say God ignores your rights?
Have you never heard?
    Have you never understood?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
    the Creator of all the earth.
He never grows weak or weary.
    No one can measure the depths of his understanding.
He gives power to the weak
    and strength to the powerless.
Even youths will become weak and tired,
    and young men will fall in exhaustion.
But those who trust in the Lord will find new strength.
    They will soar high on wings like eagles.
They will run and not grow weary.
    They will walk and not faint. Isaiah 40:27-31 NLT

No, I decided, I could not bring myself to cut out any of these words from this blog—or anywhere else really. They are far too powerful and merciful and comforting. They are God’s very words, piercing our hearts and causing the Spirit to rise up in us to enable us to keep going. So, as I write, I will find space for them—and others like them. Such words can surely never be too much.

Advertisement

Read Full Post »

Big questions

Some things in this life are hard to understand, aren’t they? Often when we hear of some tragic event, we can feel so helpless and dismayed. We may be able to be there for those involved, provide practical support and pray for them, but still those big questions can remain.

This whole matter of life’s hard-to-understand questions was brought home to me recently, as I helped our granddaughter with a uni essay. This involved reading C S Lewis’s The Problem of Pain and grappling with how the idea of a good, all-powerful God could be reconciled with the reality of all the pain and suffering in our world. What a challenge for an eighteen-year-old—and what a challenge for me too, to help formulate a reasoned defence of Lewis’s Christian position!

During this time too, I heard a tragic story about a young mother who had just passed away from cancer not long after the birth of her second child. The mother was so ill that the baby was delivered early—and the grieving father is now left with two young sons to rear, one a premature newborn. It is hard to get our heads around such awful events, isn’t it?

As our granddaughter and I persevered with her essay, however, we came to some basic conclusions at least. We do not claim to be clear, logical thinkers—and we would not want to give any pat answers either. But we decided that God chose, from a position of strength and authority as the Creator of the universe, to give us free will—the ability to choose how we act. In one sense, it could perhaps be said God’s options then became limited, yet God is not intrinsically limited. God is still good and all-powerful, even though we may not be able to see that clearly at times.

Yet we also felt that, while our wrong choices may account for much of the world’s suffering, this does not seem to be the case with the young mother’s death mentioned above. Nor does it account for those large-scale natural disasters in our world, although it could be argued some are the result of man’s not caring for the earth’s God-given resources. We remembered too how sometimes God has judged the world in this way, such as in the days of Noah (Genesis 6). And we wondered too if, at times, God may allow suffering—sometimes suffering teaches us things we might never otherwise learn and refines our faith. Yet right now, through it all, God also longs to comfort and strengthen us in our troubles—God does not leave us to struggle on alone.

It is all so complex, isn’t it? Truly, we know only in part—but one day, we will know fully (1 Corinthians 13:12). And one day too as Christians, we have the wonderful hope of eternal life, where there will be no more pain and suffering at all.

God will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away. Revelation 21:4

One day, those big questions will be answered—or perhaps then they will not matter anymore. But until that day, let’s keep on trusting and walking with our loving, good, all-powerful God.

Read Full Post »