Pentecost Sunday
One concept that I’ve struggled a lot with is why bad things happen even when we are faithful. Why does the Lord give so generously but also take away so abruptly. I always would fall into a rut after something bad happened because I felt as though God was punishing me, which was weird because I was always told that God does not punish. Confusing. If God isn’t punishing me, then why is He allowing it to happen to me?
I feel that the readings for this Sunday kind of answer this question. In all the readings we see the eyes of the people turn to the Lord in His saving power and He delivers. He pours out His spirit on them, so much so that thousands of people from different places begin to understand each others’ languages, and the dry bones of corpses come to life to form an army. Unbelievable instances of the Lord generously pouring out His spirit. It’s tempting to think, if God can do that, why doesn’t He always just do that? Why can’t He just let me get this job or get this grade on a test? He literally turned dry bones into people and He leaves me while I’m writing a paper? Nice.
In the story of the tower of Babel which is one of the readings, God pours out His spirit on the people, but they misuse it. Rather than use the gift of tongues to preach to one another, they use it to build a massive tower to showcase how great they are. They immediately let their pride get in the way of God’s plan. Now what God does next is not a punishment, it’s a reminder. He sends down His spirit once more to return the people back to their original languages to confuse them in the building process. In this action God is saying, “Remember me?” He gave them the gift, yet they began to rely on themselves.
I saw a video recently of a skit of this guy talking to God and he’s asking similar questions to the ones I asked a few paragraphs ago. He is panicking because things are going wrong and he turns to God asking why all of this is happening to him, to which God replies “Do you trust me?” The man replies back that of course he trusts Him and loves Him. That’s why he’s so confused that God would be letting this stuff happen, it feels out of control. God replies, “If you trust me, then why are you panicking even though I am the one lowering you. You have been relying on yourself. I have not abandoned you, I’m simply lowering you to show you what your life is like when you try to take it all on by yourself. I have so much to give you, I promise. I just need you to trust in me.”
It was here that I understood a little more. When I am frustrated or even flat out angry with God because things didn’t go according to MY “perfect plan,” He is not abandoning me and He’s not punishing me. He’s simply saying to me, “You’ve lost sight of the goal, son. Let me show you again.” This is not to say that life with God is always easy. The reality is, God has given me so many gifts, but the more I rely on myself, the less I actually open those gifts and use them, rendering them useless. Then, my life gets hard because I did not properly accept the tools I needed to take it on. Then, I am reminded of how I can’t do this alone, and turn to the Lord and am welcomed back with open arms every time. Another thing, since God exists outside of our time, sometimes He allows painful things to happen to build up strength in an area of our life that we will need at a later time that only He can see. God can give us the gift right away, but He knows we will encounter people that will not listen to a word we say unless we have actually experienced the pain. The suffering prepares us to help even the hardest of hearts. Trust in the Lord. You don’t have to do anything alone ever again. God bless you!