{"id":263,"date":"2015-02-03T01:20:08","date_gmt":"2015-02-03T09:20:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/wrestlingwithgod\/?p=263"},"modified":"2015-02-15T17:05:17","modified_gmt":"2015-02-16T01:05:17","slug":"god-too-good-to-be-true","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/wrestlingwithgod\/2015\/02\/god-too-good-to-be-true\/","title":{"rendered":"God \u2013 Too Good To Be True?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"Sky<\/a>
He \u201cthat stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain.\u201d And \u201cthe inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers.\u201d Photo by Barbara Newhall<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

For most of my adult life I wasn\u2019t so sure about God. That such a thing could exist seemed far-fetched, too good to be true.<\/p>\n

But now that I\u2019m firmly located in the second half of my life \u2013 okay, okay, the third third of my life (and no, I\u2019m not calling it the last third of my life \u2013 I\u2019m not ready to go there \u2013 yet) . . . now that I\u2019ve moved along in my life, past the time when I have to make my mark on the world, produce those babies, get them raised to adulthood, achieve some success and glory as a writer, stash away some money for retirement . . . now that the gotta-do part of my life is behind me \u2013 I find that God\u2019s existence is right there for all to see.<\/p>\n

You can\u2019t miss it. Something is going on out there. Of course it is. It\u2019s common sense. How else could things be?<\/p>\n

Isaiah appears to share my sense of the of-courseness of God. Here\u2019s a reading\u00a0from\u00a0Hebrew Scripture \u2014\u00a0Isaiah 40:21-22. It\u2019s one of the passages from the Bible that will\u00a0be read aloud in\u00a0many Christian churches this coming Sunday.<\/p>\n

Have ye not known? have ye not heard?<\/p>\n

hath it not been told you from the beginning?<\/p>\n

have ye not understood from the foundations of the earth?<\/p>\n

It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth,<\/p>\n

and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshopppers;<\/p>\n

that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain,<\/p>\n

and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in . . .<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That passage from Isaiah feels about right to me. But there\u2019s an aspect of the Jewish\/Christian\/Islamic God that I\u2019m still not so sure about \u2013 yet: It\u2019s the immanent, ever-present, caring God, the one \u201cwho brings out their host and numbers them, calling them all by name,\u201d as Isaiah goes on to say. The one who answers prayers.\u00a0The one who, in Mark 1:31, takes Simon\u2019s ailing mother-in-law by the hand and cures her.<\/p>\n

Perhaps one day that immanent, caring God, the one who knows our names and numbers the hairs on our heads, will feel as obvious to me as the foundational creator God who upholds the world and keeps things from falling apart. And maybe that will be the same day I\u2019m ready to concede that, indeed, I have reached the last third of my life.<\/p>\n

\u00a9\u00a02015 Barbara Falconer Newhall<\/em><\/p>\n

If you\u2019d like to know what Bible passages\u00a0some of the Christian churches in your neighborhood will be reading this Sunday, here\u2019s\u00a0the Revised Common Lectionary list:<\/em><\/p>\n

Isaiah 40:21-31<\/a>
\n<\/a>Psalm 147:1-12, 21c<\/a><\/em>
1 Corinthians 9:16-23\u00a0<\/a><\/em>
Mark 1:29-39<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Read Barbara Falconer Newhall\u2019s riffs on life as an empty nest mom at\u00a0<\/em>BarbaraFalconerNewhall.com<\/em><\/a>.\u00a0<\/em>\u00a0Her interfaith book,\u00a0<\/em>Wrestling with God: Stories of Doubt and Faith, will be published this season\u00a0by Patheos Press.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For most of my adult life I wasn\u2019t so sure about God. That such a thing could exist seemed far-fetched, too good to be true. But now that I\u2019m firmly located in the second half of my life \u2013 okay, okay, the third third of my life (and no, I\u2019m not calling it the last […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2144,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[89,90,92,93,91,66,86,88,87,5],"class_list":["post-263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-abrahamic-god","tag-aging","tag-bible","tag-doubt","tag-gods-existence","tag-hidden-god","tag-isaiah","tag-mark","tag-revised-common-lectionary","tag-wrestling-with-god"],"yoast_head":"\nGod \u2013 Too Good To Be True?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"For most of my adult life I wasn\u2019t so sure about God. 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