Trailblazer
Veteran Member
This is primarily for believers in the Abrahamic God: Jews, Christians, Muslims and Baha’is, but anyone else can jump in if they want to.
What’s up with God? Is He really after us, sending us tests and difficulties (as Baha’is refer to them) in order to teach us lessons and help us grow stronger? If that is true, how am I supposed to love a God who causes me suffering constantly? I would not love a husband who beat me constantly. I would leave him. The problem is I cannot escape God.
For years I have been hearing the Baha’is telling me tests are for my own benefit and I should be thankful to God for the tests because they help me grow stronger and make me more spiritual. Of course they don’t know any of that, they just believe it, but they probably wouldn’t believe it if they had walked a mile in my moccasins for as many years as I have been walking the same mile over and over again.
Or maybe there are other Baha’is who are able to rise to the occasion, endure many tests and thank God for them, remaining happy. The problem with that is if they are happy despite their tests they are not really suffering are they? I guess they never thought of that. The hidden but not so hidden message is that if you can endure the tests and still be happy you will not suffer. The problem is that is overly simplistic because not all tests are of the same magnitude and all humans are not the same in their capacity to endure them, so to say we should all be able to endure them and still be happy is judgmental to say the least.
Or maybe God is not “sending” is tests, maybe this is just life. Nevertheless if God is responsible for our fate then He is not off the hook because He has a hand in everything that happens to us, unless it was caused by a choice we made for which we are responsible, since we have free will to choose.
Much of the time I do not want to keep living in this material realm of existence because I know there is something much better in the spiritual world. If something bad is not presently happening, it is just around the corner, so I am always waiting for the other shoe to drop, and unless something changes, it won’t be long before it drops. Doesn’t God believe in giving people a break?
It is very difficult to believe that God is loving and benevolent given all the suffering I see in the world. This is my struggle, to understand God and why people (not just me) have to suffer so much if God is loving and benevolent. I want to believe that God is loving and benevolent but I cannot just believe that because it is written in the Bible, the Qur’an and the Writings of Baha’u’llah. I need more than that. I need evidence.
What’s up with God? Is He really after us, sending us tests and difficulties (as Baha’is refer to them) in order to teach us lessons and help us grow stronger? If that is true, how am I supposed to love a God who causes me suffering constantly? I would not love a husband who beat me constantly. I would leave him. The problem is I cannot escape God.
For years I have been hearing the Baha’is telling me tests are for my own benefit and I should be thankful to God for the tests because they help me grow stronger and make me more spiritual. Of course they don’t know any of that, they just believe it, but they probably wouldn’t believe it if they had walked a mile in my moccasins for as many years as I have been walking the same mile over and over again.
Or maybe there are other Baha’is who are able to rise to the occasion, endure many tests and thank God for them, remaining happy. The problem with that is if they are happy despite their tests they are not really suffering are they? I guess they never thought of that. The hidden but not so hidden message is that if you can endure the tests and still be happy you will not suffer. The problem is that is overly simplistic because not all tests are of the same magnitude and all humans are not the same in their capacity to endure them, so to say we should all be able to endure them and still be happy is judgmental to say the least.
Or maybe God is not “sending” is tests, maybe this is just life. Nevertheless if God is responsible for our fate then He is not off the hook because He has a hand in everything that happens to us, unless it was caused by a choice we made for which we are responsible, since we have free will to choose.
Much of the time I do not want to keep living in this material realm of existence because I know there is something much better in the spiritual world. If something bad is not presently happening, it is just around the corner, so I am always waiting for the other shoe to drop, and unless something changes, it won’t be long before it drops. Doesn’t God believe in giving people a break?
It is very difficult to believe that God is loving and benevolent given all the suffering I see in the world. This is my struggle, to understand God and why people (not just me) have to suffer so much if God is loving and benevolent. I want to believe that God is loving and benevolent but I cannot just believe that because it is written in the Bible, the Qur’an and the Writings of Baha’u’llah. I need more than that. I need evidence.