GOD-centric :

A life centered on the pursuit of a good and fair God of love

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Ch. 5 The Quest (continued)

The Lazarus Life

  A few years ago, in an effort to find common ground with a very dear but also very conservative Christian, I attended a Moravian church where we studied The Lazarus Life by Stephen Smith which is about finding meaning in Jesus' taking four days to respond to Mary and Martha's request for Jesus to heal their brother. The Lazarus Life brought back to the fore my anguished question from yesteryear: “Why, oh why, had God booted me out of the nest just when I needed Him most?” but now I was ready to face that question from a vantage of greater wisdom. Now I had come to a place in my development where I could hear the answer: God had booted me out of the nest just when I needed Him most because my desperate need is what fueled my quest. Had I been wrestling with anything less than Camus' one truly serious philosophical problem, I doubt I would have explored Judaism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Traditional and Liberal Protestantism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Baha'i, Unitarian and Quaker Universalism, the Perennial Philosophy, Process Theology, and Theistic Existentialism. I may not have taken on the challenges of the philosophy of religion: Arguments for God's Existence, Qualities of God, Aurelius' and Pascal's Wagers, Faith versus Reason, and The Problem of Evil. I would not have explored the perspectives of sociologists and psychologists of religion. Had I not been in such deep pain, I would not have gone to so much trouble. My desperation to build a new foundation was essential to my quest and my quest was essential to leading me to a more mature and authentic understanding of God and understanding of what I did not understand about God.