God is good

Thinking about this next writing segment, I wanted to spend time on how so many of the doctrines we know are the only things that make sense, where in the long run everything is fair and has good outcomes.

I had a hard time getting started. It seemed like perhaps the issue was a need to demonstrate that the doctrines would have to ultimately be fair to everyone. 

I believe in a loving Father in Heaven who cares for his children and wants what's best for them. I forget that may not be a given. 

In high school, one of my friends had "Who created whom?" written on her notebook. I didn't appreciate the skepticism, but despite my belief in our origins, people often do believe in a god created in their own images: spiteful, petty, and vicious.

The other memory that comes up was from a book about the Salem Witch Trials and the hysteria. There was a verse about infants dying without baptism being a sin, but because they had not had a chance, they were promised the "easiest seat in Hell". 

With a god like that, who needs a devil?

If what I am going to write about are things that are necessary due to love, then that love needs to be a given. 

I can't give you logic for that; very logical minds have come up with hard and uncaring universes, and so have illogical minds.

That's not anything against logic, but it does have its shortcomings. 

There are topics when we need to be led by faith and intuition, but there are answers out there. In the church we refer to the Light of Christ. We can build on that light, and be helped by the Holy Ghost, and build our own relationship with God.

That's the starting point.

There are obstacles. 

I remember reading a book once about codependency. I didn't think it was a great book, or even that it really described codependency, but the insight that I felt gave it some worth was that parents who don't let their children make mistakes make it difficult for their children to build a relationship with God. 

That self-recrimination for imperfection makes it hard to approach someone who is perfect, especially when our parental models make us feel worse about that imperfection. 

There is a lot of pain in that, for which I sympathize, but I also promise that people who have too high a belief in their own perfections also have difficulty building a relationship with God; they just have their difficulty in a different way.

I still know it is possible. There are answers available. That there is acceptance and patience and help.

So often when people say "God is good", they are saying it after getting an outcome that they wanted. 

When you are hurting and you still know it, and when that is your pattern, that is part of the path to something better.

Wherever you are along your own path, I invite you to seek more.