Spirit Gives Birth To Spirit

Why do we pray for people who are experiencing pain?  And why do people experience pain in this world if God is such a wonderful God?  Isn't it better for God to save people from pain without the experience of it?  Here is my attempt to answer those questions from the Christian perspective.  We will start, "in the beginning..." In Genesis, scripture says that God did originally design existence without pain and evil, but like the Matrix, man would not "accept the program" as the agent says in the movie.  The story of Adam and Eve is that story. Man  eats from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  "Whole batches," they say in the matrix, "were LOST."  Lost to an existence that was unaware of spiritual life.   The "revised" rules of the universe were set up in collaboration with man. Man did not want utopia. So God set the rules up that way, out of respect for man's wishes and with the input of man's relationsh...

I wanted to say a little about the God I know - my God as I know him.  I know him from personal experience, reading scripture and studying at seminary.  I know him, at least in part, because I believe I have been communing with him for 20 years and from following Jesus, the great revealer of God, for many of those years. I had my first encounter with God reading Native American literature.  And now that I know God better, I see a lot of him in the accounts of the Native Americans deep respectful relationship with the Great Father Spirit.  Their love for nature and life culminated in a love for the creator and protector of it all. He was the creator of all the beauty and bounty available for us small humans living in a world of wonders.  I am sure this ruffles some feathers, but I think God meets people where they are. The boundaries of religion are man made - I don't think God need respect human constructs.  But if you are wondering, I identify as a Jesu...