It is time to SHARE MY WORLD AGAIN!

This is the weekly challenge where our hostess, Melanie, asks five questions from her blog, SPARKS FROM A COMBUSTIBLE MIND, In answering them we all share our worlds.

This week Melanie’s questions are super deep (mostly). I hope I can do them justice. When you have finished reading my answers, take a jaunt over to Melanie’s place, using the underlined links, and see how her other contributors answered the same questions.

Here are the questions:

Must we have evidence to know the truth?

I would say yes. Truth always become evident eventually, even when the world conspires to keep it submerged beneath oceans of lies. The first evidence of truth is faith according to Hebrews 11:1. That said, even faith needs something to stand on. The Apostle Paul said it this way in Romans Chapter 10….that message is the very message about faith that we preach: ⁹ If you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. ¹⁰ For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by openly declaring your faith that you are saved. ¹¹ As the Scriptures tell us, “Anyone who trusts in him will never be disgraced.”^[e]…But how can they call on him to save them unless they believe in him? And how can they believe in him if they have never heard about him? And how can they hear about him unless someone tells them? ¹⁵ And how will anyone go and tell them without being sent? That is why the Scriptures say, “How beautiful are the feet of messengers who bring good news!”^[h]……….Even faith needs the evidence of a testimony to get it started.

How much control does a person have over their life?

Romans 8:28 says this. “And we know that God causes everything to work together^[m] for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.”

We have precious little control over the events of our lives. Our decisions do have some bearing, but I believe the river called life dictates much of what actually happens to us.

Still, that decision to love God and put Him first, puts us in the hands of someone who can mitigate the outcomes life throws at us to turn even the darkest moments into blessings eventually. I have ridden some very deep and dark water. Yet God has brought me through it and made me blessed as I held on to Him.

What is gravity and how does it work?

I think gravity is the Earth’s version of a flannel graph. The Earth is the flannel board, and we are the felt characters who stay stuck to it. Yeah ….I don’t know how flannel graph boards work either.

Can a person be happy if they have never experienced sadness?  How about vice versa?

This is the greatest question of the day. In our current context the answer to this question is “no”.

That answer is an indicator of how much we lost in the fall from Eden. It is also an indicator of how much we will regain at the return of Christ.

Right now we live in a world where conflict is not only inescapable, the lack of it is undesirable. Think about it. Would you watch a TV show that didn’t have a conflict of some kind? We humans crave and seem to need our anger, our sadness, our conflict, and our enemies to help us define our forgiveness, our happiness, our peace, and our friends. This is why man by himself has never succeeded at creating a utopia. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil destroyed our ability to live without evil.

But, what will the world be like when evil is no more? When war is not needed for peace? When sadness is not needed to help us know joy? What will the world be like when there is no more conflict and the lack of it no longer bores us?

Please feel free to share a song, a poem, a quote or an image or photo to show what you were grateful for during this past week.    (Optional as always).

This photo brought me great peace this week. When I came upon this end of day sun, I just needed to photograph it.