"Why We're Alive at All"

So a few months ago, a few of the the students in the youth group I'm a leader of were going through some insanely intense things and I was thinking "What if they ask me 'Why is God making me go through this?" and I didn't want to give the clique "God is in control." to reply. Yes, it is very much 100% the truth, but I wanted to know more to back it up on. So around the same time I found this book titles Shattered Dreams: God's Unexpected Pathway to Joy by Larry Crabb. I'm only on the third chapter, and I'm liking it so far. I thought I should put a few excerpts up that may help others as well.

Why We're Alive at All

One of the problems people have with god is: To people whose souls have been inudated with pain, God seems unresponsive. We pray and nothing happens. We cannot manage to write His name on the top of our most cherished friends. We know we should and we know we would... if we could see things as they really are.

How do we find the faith that lets us see what is invisible, the passionately believe that He's wonderfully and lovingly responsive when He seems so callous? That's the question: What does it mean to hope in God as we continue to live in a world were good dreams shatter and God seems to do nothing about it?

There is an answer, and it is repeated again and gain in the Bible. But the answer, the only one that squarely faces the enormous challenge of trusting a seemingly unresponsive God, requires a change in how we naturally look at life. It demands a revolution in our understanding of why we're alive at all, of why God keeps us living in this world for so long before He takes us to heaven.

The problem sincere Christians have with God often comes down to a wrong understanding of what this life is meant to provide. We naturally and wrongly assume we're to experience something God has never promised. More than perhaps ever before in history, we assume we are here for one fundamental reason: to have a good time- if not good circumstances, then at least good feelings. We long to feel alive, to sense passion and romance and freedom. We want the good time of enjoying godly kids, of making a difference in people's lives, of involvement with close friends, of experiencing God's peace. So we invent "biblical" strategies for seeing to to it that our dreams come true. We call them models of godly parenting and disciplines of spiritual living and principals of financial stewardship- all designed to give us a legit good time. what's wrong with that?

But when we uncover the deepest motives that drive our actions, we discover a determination to feel now what no one will feel until heaven. We long to experience a compelling pleasure that eliminates all pain. How we try to satisfy that longing will vary, depending on our ethical philosophy. We accept the Playboy philosophy, we do whatever generates immediate pleasure. We buy nice clothes, attend important functions, and take an occasional cruise. Sometimes we change spouses or cheat on them.

As long as our purpose is to have a good time, the have soul-pleasure exceed soul-pain, God becomes merely a means to an end, an object to be used, never a subject rightfully demanding a response, never a lover to be enjoyed. Worship becomes utilitarian, part of a cunning strategy to get what we want rather than a passionate abandonment to someone more worthy than we.

And when He fails- when the One we depend on to give us a good time doesn't do His job- we feel betrayed, let down, throughly disillusioned. He neither reverses the tragedy nor fills us with peace and joy. We may jump through spiritual hoops to persuade Him to respond, but he typically remains aloof. Out souls remain unsatisfied.

I was going to rephrase what I liked, but I figured, I couldn't reword it to make as much sense. haha.

Maybe more to come?

....We'll see :)