Why Should We (You and I) Care?

September 26, 2023

FaithLafayette.org

September 26, 2023

Hi!  How is each and every one?  And why shouldn’t you and I care to know more about God’s plan? You and I are His children and we belong to His family.  Of course you and I should care.  God’s plans are about you and me, your happiness and mine, His love and our love. While it is true that God did not ask my permission to create me, He will not save me without my cooperation, my participation, my wanting to be saved, my reciprocation.  Love is a relationship, a giving of self to others, a sharing of goods among persons in communion.

So let you and I care to learn more about God’s plan (From Broken Gods, Hope, Healing, and the Seven Longings of the Human Heart, Gregory K. Popcak, Ph. D. Ch 1).

But so what?  What’s all this to us?  Sure, it’s a provocative idea, but what difference does it really make?  It would be easy to write off divinization as just some moldy theological concept.  But it is so much more.  Though we are often tempted to feel that our lives and hopes and dreams are burning down around us, deification is the blueprint that allows us to rebuild our lives from the ashes and become everything God intended us to be from the beginning.  It is the treasure map that helps us to rediscover just how truly wonderfully and fearfully we have been made (Ps 139:14).  Understanding deification enables us to finally stop running from our sins and instead begin running toward divinity.  It enables us to become not only our best selves, but so much more besides.  When we embrace the idea that God wishes to make us gods, we are set free from fear and encounter within our hearts the peace this world cannot give (Jn 14:27).  Along the way we become empowered to resolve all the conflicts that fill our days with exhausting, petty dramas and instead experience radical, harmonious union with both God and the people who share our lives (Jn 17:21).  Most important, God’s plan for our divinization enables us to stop the constant emptiness and aching of our hearts and sets us on a path of abundance and the authentic fulfillment of all of our earthly and heavenly desires (Jn 10:10).

Aleteia

In addition, the idea of divinization helps place in proper context the central and critical Christian belief that we are broken and in need of salvation.  Prominent atheist blogger Neil Carter illustrates the importance of this belief in his article “We Are Not Broken,” where he writes of his frustration in finding common language with even progressive Christians who agree with him on so many social issues.

But then I suggest that human beings aren’t broken—they aren’t sinful or lacking something essential to their wholeness—that they just are what they are and they’re not “supposed to be” something else and then the conversation changes.  I’ve just touched on something bedrock for them, immovable…This belief—that the human condition is fundamentally flawed—is so central and necessary to their way of thinking…If you take away human inadequacy, you take away the basis for the Christian faith.  If you don’t believe me, then try it sometime.  Try to suggest that we are fine the way we are.  Not perfect, mind you.  Not flawless or infallible.  But not fundamentally messed up, either—not broken, not wounded, not inadequate—and watch what happens next.  They won’t have it.  You can’t take this away from them (Carter, 2014).

Opusdei - Elevation to the Supernatural Order and Original Sin

Carter gets at what many Christians themselves struggle to understand and certainly can’t articulate to others.  Atheists like to think they are being optimistic about human nature—that it is Christians who are down on humanity.  But atheists like Carter are lost in pessimism without even knowing it.  From the very beginning, Christianity taught that humans were not meant to be merely human.  We are, in fact, broken gods.  Because of the reality of sin, humanity has lost its divinity, and it is exactly this ‘life more abundant” (Jn 10:10) that Jesus Christ came to restore.  You, and I and Neil Carter might want to believe that we are fine just the way we are, but we are not gods—we are not perfect and immortal—not yet, anyway, but by God’s grace that is exactly what we are meant to become!

Aleteia

How about thinking through the above ideas in our quiet moments of dialogue with God in prayer and guide ourselves with the following questions. Who created you and me?  Why did God create you and me?  Did God ever ask you if you wanted to?  I can attest to you that God did not ask me if He can create me.  I just happen to be because God did it so.  God wanted me to be like Him and so He created me unto His image and likeness.  What was God’s reason for doing so?  God wanted it out of love for me and for you; God wanted you and me to share in His happiness, and enjoy Him and His kingdom in Heaven forever.  God is Love, Goodness, Truth and Beauty all in One.  He is overflowing with all these qualities that He could not but overflow to you and me and to the whole humanity, His family.  “I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well” (Psalm 139:13-14).  Have you ever found or met anybody like him?  Nobody else but Him.  He is the Only One True God in Three Divine Persons and He is beyond anybody.  He is the Supreme Being, the beginning and end of each and every one of us.  Since He is Who he is, I AM, our little minds, hearts, bodies and faculties will never ever equal Him. His ways are not our ways, His thoughts are not our thoughts. He is everything and you and I are nothing. Without God you and I can do nothing.

May you and I learn how to relate to God as children of His, good, trusting and faithful.  Jesus, I trust in You.  May your most just and most loveable will be done, be praised, be eternally exalted above all things. Amen.

See you in the next post, “May tomorrow be a perfect day; may you find love and laughter along the way; may God keep you in his tender care; ‘til He brings us together again.”

Affectionately,

Guadalupinky