God the Father, Mentor's Guide, MG06

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G O D T H E F A T H E R

He Doesn’t Know or Doesn’t Care

Over lunch break, in a remark about a horrible terrorist bomb that recently went off and hurt many innocent bystanders, one of your coworkers seeks to put you on the spot. Knowing you to be a Christian he says, “How can you say that God exists when all of this bad stuff is happening to people who are totally innocent? It just don’t make any sense. You see, if God knows about this kinda stuff, he ought to stop it, right? If he knows about it and doesn’t do anything, then well, how can God care about people at all? You see, it just doesn’t make sense that these things keep happening without God doing somethin’ about it!” If all eyes turned toward you and asked you to explain how this all works, what would you say? In talking with one of the young fellows in the neighborhood, you are stunned to find out that he believes that there is no overarching purpose for life, no single reason or purpose behind all things. He says that all that he has known in this life has been sorrow and tragedy; things have never worked out for him in anything, he’s always been last, always been without, never been happy. He cannot even conceive of times being different from this since his experience is mirrored in the lives of those at home, and his entire extended family. For him, he says, the thrill of life is like the B.B. King song; The Thrill Is Gone . How do we engage in a conversation with this brother on his level without giving in to his despair about life? The Thrill Is Gone

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God Is Everything and Everywhere

In one of her classes at the local junior college, one of your young adults in the Sunday School class says she does not know what to make of her teacher who believes that God is a part of the entire universe. The instructor said in class, “God is everywhere and in everything. We don’t need organized religion because everything is sacred, for everything is God.” How might the college student answer her teacher’s claims about God being all of creation?