God Isn't Repairing Our Failures

We posed the question to all of you on our Facebook page and got a litany of interesting responses. Many of you echoed the sentiments shared by the Daily News, voicing instead that you would like to see our nation’s leaders instead put forth actionable solutions to the problems we face. Many of you also, however, voiced anger at the declaration of the Daily News and advocated for the power of prayer in difficult situations – particularly when a person may not individually be able to take direct action.

-- The Visionary

Why isn't God fixing this?  By "this" we mean problems, and death, caused by people?  Are we to assume God is expected to step in whenever man displays an inept ability to do what is right?  Think about this from a good sense point of view.  Why would you create something requiring constant attention and maintenance?  This would be like a parent giving a house to the children and saying, "Run it into the ground and I'll keep fixing it for you - burn it down and I'll keep rebuilding it."  And, if we wouldn't create it, what makes us think God would?  As stated above, The Visionary, where I found this article, asked this question to their readers.  The gist of the answers is shown in the quote.

I wonder about those who voice anger at any liberal rag touting liberal "godlessness" by stating our leaders need to be fixing this.  Really?  So, let me get this straight, we finally get a liberal newspaper to state something we should all be onboard with and, this time, the religious take on the mantle of the perpetually offended.  Personally, I think what the Daily News did was simply state what any truly spiritual person should already know - God gave us the earth and the heavens, and all the responsibility that comes with.  We are the caretakers so it is our responsibility to make sure it runs properly.

I think you should pray to God, for assistance and for strength to overcome.  We should pray for our many blessings and to give thanks for our successes.  And, most humbly, we should ask forgiveness for our failures, and pray for the strength and the tenacity to find the knowledge to overcome our shortcomings.  I find it a bit immature to go crying to God every time we fail, expecting God to do for us.  We should, all of us, get down on our knees, look to heaven and plead, "Please God, make us not be dumbasses."  What losers we are if it comes to praying for that.  

“Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.” 

--Winston Churchill

God gave us everything we need to succeed.  If you don't make use of the gift God gave you, it would seem to me that would be your problem and not someone else's.  We need to humble ourselves by king ownership of our failures, and not shift blame elsewhere.  God will show us the way, but it is up to us to travel the path.  We all need to get back to an understanding that any failure in our life is our failure, not someone else's.  We also need to understand that any failure in the world is mankind's failure, not God's.  We need to police our own house, and thank God for the opportunity to excel.

“The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing.”

-- Henry Ford

There are those among us for which everything in life comes easy; everything was handed to them on a silver platter.  Failure for these is devastating.  I think life without the humility of failure breeds an ego that negates any true enjoyment of their success.  It breeds the ego which demands that money can buy everything, as they take all credit while standing shoulders and crushing those who made their dreams reality.   I think, for many, it breeds life without knowledge of faith, love, thanks, understanding and forgiveness.

"Those who have failed are humble. They realize their limits through failure. They get to know so well that they cannot bring success in their lives with only their own strength. Those who have failed learn wonderful lessons through failure. They gain wisdom. They learn about human nature and gain new realizations on life. The most dangerous person is the one who continues to succeed. They are the ones who don’t know what failure is. People like them fall into pride. They are arrogant. In the midst of all of this, they suddenly crumble down at once."

-- Reverend JOSHUA CHOON-MIN KANG

This quote is an excerpt from one of Reverend Joshua Choon -Min Kang's weekly letters to his congregation of the New Life Vision Church entitled, Failure is a Road on the Way to Success.  I have included the link so you can read his short message.  It reminds me of the wealthy industrialist in the early 20th century who, when an employee lost a half million dollars he quipped something to the effect of, "I'm not going to fire him, I just spent $500 thousand dollars training him."  Failure is about learning, not just for the one who fails, but for all around them as well.  

"We failed, but in the good providence of God apparent failure often proves a blessing."

-- Gen. Robert E. Lee

Why does God let innocence die?  Well, for those believing in an afterlife, innocence never really dies then, does it?  And why is it God's fault because we allow innocence to die on our watch?  God gave us the intelligence to create an atomic reaction and we used our lack of good sense to build weapons of mass destruction with it.  God gave us the intelligence to create a gun to hunt and we come up with the slogan, "Guns don't kill people, people kill people."  Nice slogan, because it says it all.  God doesn't kill people, people kill people.  Scripture would try to placate us by saying that, even if we heard the answer, we would not understand it because the innocent are no more.  It would not take away the pain and loss we feel.  Again, we forget that these innocent are not dead, but have found everlasting life, right?  Only their physical shell is dead.  

But what about those things not in our control, like weather?  Hurricanes ravage coastlines all the time, worldwide, and kill people.  The survivors rebuild atop the ruins.  Earthquakes demolish cities, killing thousands, and we rebuild atop the ruins, again and again.  Throughout history we find cities rebuilt atop the ruins of cities. 

"Sometimes it takes a natural disaster to reveal a social disaster."

-- Jim Wallis, writer

Are people really that stupid?  Isn't it all God's fault that we're too stupid to move after, oh, several disasters on the same spot?  We still do it today.  Hell, I just built a house where a house once stood before hurricane Katrina.  How smart is that?  But, I'm not blaming God for what I do.  It is my choice.  I'm one of many idiots living for the next disaster, it is what we do.  

You see, God has a "get out of jail free" card.  He gave mankind the freedom to choose.  In this way, if man chooses poorly, God can sit back and say, "Dumb ass."  And, God would be right.  Not God's monkeys, not God's circus.  God is just here to save those that can be rescued, if we finally burn the big top down.  Will that be our final failure?  No, I don't think so.  It isn't in our nature.  

We will rebuild on the ashes of the old, and continue to give unto God that which is God's.

"Only after disaster can we be resurrected."

-- Chuck Palahniuk, novelist, journalist

Editor's Note 

(re: disclaimer cum "get out of jail free" card) 

Before you go getting your panties in a bunch, it is essential to understand that this is just an opinion site and, as such, can be subjected to scrutiny by anyone with a differing opinion. It doesn't make either opinion any more right or wrong than the other. An opinion, presented in this context, is a way of inciting others to think and, hopefully, to form opinions of their own, if they haven't already done so.

It is my fervent hope that we keep open and active minds when reading opinions and then engaging in peaceful, constructive, discussion and debate in an arena of mutual respect concerning the opinions put forth. After over twenty years as a military intelligence analyst, planner, and briefer, I have come to believe engaging each other in this manner and in this arena is the way we will learn tolerance and respect for differing beliefs, cultures, and viewpoints.

We all fall from grace, some more often than others; it is part of being human. God's test for us is what we do afterward, and what we learn from the experience.

Frank Anthony Villari (aka, Pastor Tony)

Pastor Tony is founder of the Congregation for Religious Tolerance and author/editor of the Congregation's official blog site, "The Path."