God's Love

I am continually amazed by the strenuous mental gymnastics most folks go through in order to answer the question, "Where is God in all this human suffering?"

Most attempts to answer this end up in an illogical jumble that allows that God does things we can't understand--for example, causes earthquakes or allows earthquakes--but He is loving, and therefore He acts in our best interests, either to make us repent or to test our faith.

One subset of this skirts the issue altogether, and answers the question, "Where is God?" with the answer, "God is suffering alongside us." This clever sleight of hand is meant to turn us away from these speculations and toward the wellspring of God's love that is in our hearts, either to find comfort in that love and/or to act from that love to aid and comfort others.

From a practical perspective, this maneuver is laudable. It gets us off our butts and engaged with others. For many people, in fact, this perspective is proof of God's existence. They have come into direct contact with this wellspring of love in the context of their "personal relationship with God" and they point to it as one of the sterling justifications for religion: "Even though religion can wreck great harm, it can also bring great good," they argue, as evidenced by this divine love in action.

I have to ask: Why?

You see, I am no longer a believing Christian, but this love still dwells within me. It moves me when I see suffering, whether among humans or animals. It touches my heart with the desire to help and to comfort. But I do not believe in God.

What would happen if people could separate their experience of "divine love" from their twisted and illogical belief in God? Wouldn't they come to understand that this love is not a special, secret gift from their personal God but, rather, the inheritance of all humans? It would be very powerful if people could look those around them and realize, "This love lives in every person's heart!" Then perhaps they would become more focused on inspiring and drawing out that love, rather than in isolating those who are different from them, especially as regards faith and religion.