{"id":110,"date":"2022-06-20T16:06:15","date_gmt":"2022-06-20T04:06:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.faithandpractice.nz\/?p=110"},"modified":"2022-06-21T17:07:25","modified_gmt":"2022-06-21T05:07:25","slug":"is-god-the-biggest-loser","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.faithandpractice.nz\/index.php\/2022\/06\/20\/is-god-the-biggest-loser\/","title":{"rendered":"Is God the Biggest Loser?"},"content":{"rendered":"

If everything I’ve been taught about God and salvation is correct, how could God be content with such a small percentage of humanity being in heaven?<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This was a question that I started pondering when I was a teenager.<\/p>\n

I could not reconcile what I believed about God’s omnipotent power with the common belief that only the people who prayed the correct prayer, or believed and said the correct things, would spend eternity with God. It seems totally wrong that Satan could out-maneuver God so completely that a mere 10% of the world’s population would get to heaven. Was I missing something, or was this really the cost God paid for giving us freewill?<\/p>\n

\"\"As I read and studied more, my questions only deepened. How was it that Adam did something which affected all humanity whether they wanted it or not, but Jesus could only reverse it for those who accepted it? Was Satan more powerful than Jesus? Was I just lucky to be one of the few who heard the message of salvation? What about all those who, through no fault of their own, never had a chance to hear about Jesus?<\/p>\n

As Jesus died, he said “It is finished<\/em>“. Did that mean this was all he could do, or that he had done everything that needed to be done, and there was nothing left undone?<\/p>\n

Was God the biggest loser?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Fortunately, I didn’t stop there and give up looking for answers. My gut belief was that God would find a way to overcome this paradox. I felt sure that somehow God would manage to out-maneuver Satan, and Love would win the day.<\/p>\n

Deconstructing faith is a painful and confusing process for many people, especially those who have been taught to accept everything that the Bible says as words directly from God. Richard Rohr often says, “First there is order, then disorder, and finally reorder”. He is speaking about the process of taking the orderly (and simplistic) beliefs we are taught, then allowing then to be exposed to doubts and questions, which will eventually lead to reorder as we come to a deeper understanding of God. We cannot go from stage one to stage three without going through stage two.<\/p>\n

Here are some resources from podcasts in the Recommended Listening<\/a> page that may be of interest to you, especially if you are looking for ways to reconcile your faith in the midst of the questions that appear to challenge what you have been taught. I hope these are helpful to you.<\/p>\n

Voxology Podcast<\/strong>
\nEpisodes 323, 324, 325, 327, 348<\/p>\nhttps:\/\/anchor.fm\/s\/4c5a5acc\/podcast\/play\/43765533\/https%3A%2F%2Fd3ctxlq1ktw2nl.cloudfront.net%2Fstaging%2F2021-10-23%2F035e97c5-3eff-4d4a-d916-fad8dacadbe2.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n

 <\/p>\n

In the Shift<\/strong>
\nEpisode 48<\/p>\nhttps:\/\/mcdn.podbean.com\/mf\/web\/pya9bx\/In_The_Shift_-_Ep_48b4w4i.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n

 <\/p>\n

Blessings for the journey.<\/p>\n\n\n

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If everything I’ve been taught about God and salvation is correct, how could God be content with such a small percentage of humanity being in heaven? This was a question that I started pondering when I was a teenager. I …<\/span> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,8],"tags":[6,12],"class_list":["post-110","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-deconstruction","category-faith","tag-in-the-shift","tag-voxology-podcast"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.faithandpractice.nz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.faithandpractice.nz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.faithandpractice.nz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.faithandpractice.nz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.faithandpractice.nz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=110"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/www.faithandpractice.nz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":157,"href":"https:\/\/www.faithandpractice.nz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110\/revisions\/157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.faithandpractice.nz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.faithandpractice.nz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.faithandpractice.nz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}