Even God has a challenge.

                My fourteen year old son has the curse of thinking too much. Some would say that is a curse but it’s really more of a gift if he learns to focus it the right way. Fourteen is a hard age to analyze the world around you and try to make sense of things.  Answers to everything are impossible to find and last night he wanted to talk God with me for a bit. He has reached that time in his life he wants proof of God and evidence that God is real. I wanted the same at his age by the way and I hear a lot of people looking for the same thing before they decide to put any kind of faith in what they can’t see.

                It’s a hard to explain spiritualism to a teenager who still has a ton of life experience ahead but one thing he wants to understand is how bad things happen and keep happening. Everyone wants a better understanding of that, because according to Sunday school as a kid God has the power to just stop it. I remember thinking as a kid God was this wizard in the sky that could just wave his hands and fix anything if I asked. I know now that is not exactly how it works but the way I was taught led me to believe that. He’s magic so why doesn’t he just wave his magic hands and make everything magical? It took me years to discover the answer to that.

                First I questioned God like my son and then I moved on to being mad about things God should have been able to fix which at one time in my life turned me into a non believer because I didn’t see any proof either. Even at that point I was still looking for a way to believe because I was raised to believe in God and wanted to. I had blessings in my life that already proved some kind of higher power.  There were many times over the years I snuck into the back of a church hoping I would find some kind of evidence in the sermon that would change my mind. It never happened and in fact every time I visited a new church all I found was a bunch of people either looking for the same thing or so flawed they made my questioning stronger. The last time I walked into a church for a sermon was nearly ten years ago and it was after 9/11 happened. The pastor gave a sermon in regard to terrorism and Muslims. He called them the enemy and made some reference to the devil but this wasn’t the God I was looking for. On my way out the pastor cornered me because I was a new face and asked me to return the following week. I told him how I felt about the service and I would not be back and that was that. His face was a bit shocked by how I felt but to me he was just another man speaking on behalf of God. He wasn’t any better or worse than me and I figured if he could do it, so could I. After all a sermon based on hate wasn’t exactly what I was looking for. I like to think most churches don’t do that and I stumbled into the wrong one that day but I might have needed to.

                At that point I found my answer that was actually always there, it just took some time to see it. God has a challenge and his challenge is people. Miracles happen, I know because I have had them in life and prayers get answered. Prayers also go unanswered and many times that is a very good thing but one thing I realized God can’t do anything about is the choices people make and what comes from that. He can come into our lives but he has the challenge of people making choices that lead to bad things. He has the challenge of people representing him wrong or representing him like a magic wizard in the sky. He doesn’t make the decisions of man that lead to all these things we want him to wave his magic hands and fix. I do know once I realized God was challenged by the human race, I stopped blaming him for things he didn’t cause. I started to realize I was one of his challenges and working with him was much more in my favor than against. Life changed and even the hard times caused by my own choices or other people in my life, weren’t so hard anymore.

                I didn’t write today in regard to autism unless of course someone reading this blames God for it or leans on him for strength. I wrote to remind us we are all challenged by something and even that big magic wizard in the sky is challenged by each and every one of us. Maybe if we took a bit more notice of him in a world set to deny him we would find that proof so many look for by way of strength and a little ease when times are hard. After all hard times are something just about everyone can agree on right now and the interesting part is it has all been caused by the flaws of man.