Do you know the way to heaven?
A preacher, newly called to a small country town, needed to mail a letter. Passing a young boy on the street, the pastor asked where he could find the post office.After getting his answer, the minister thanked the boy and said, “If you’ll come to the community church this evening, you can hear me tell everyone how to get to heaven.”“I don’t know, sir,” the boy replied. “You don’t even know how to get to the post office!” ~ (From The Big Book of Church Jokes)
As you’ve probably guessed, the post is about us thinking that we need to have all the answers. Some of us even feel the need to pretend we do.Life is not always easy. Therefore, there are no easy answers to the many questions that come up from time to time. Questions like: Why is there suffering? Why do the undeserving seem to prosper, and the deserving not be rewarded? At a more personal level, it is questions like, ‘Why did he leave me?’ or ‘Why can’t I have a baby?’ or ‘Why are my children so ungrateful?’ that seem to haunt us.
There are no easy answers to the many questions that we ask ourselves.Click To TweetTo some questions, like ‘Why is there suffering?’, perhaps the only answer is another question, ‘What can I do to ease the suffering of another?’ To the question, ‘Why is there so much injustice?’ our answer might be ‘How can I be more fair and just in my dealings with others?’
Perhaps too, we are not ready to receive answers to some of the questions we ask. ‘Will I ever find love?’, we ask. The answer will be ‘Look inside you.’ But, we’re not ready to hear that. We want to find it outside ourselves. I believe that when we are ready, and the time is right, the answer will come.
I believe that when we are ready, and the time is right, the answer will come.Click To Tweet
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I think these are the mysteries of life. If we had all the answers what purpose would life serve? Nice one Corinne.
We really cannot have definitive answers to all our questions. We can try to make some sense of some of them, but some will always remain a mystery. That, in a way, is the beauty of life!
I absolutely love this post. It’s a reminder that we need to look within and then ask things that we have no control on. Why me over what can I do to make it better for me? Such a perfect reminder for me this morning, Corinne. Thank you!
There are indeed no easy answers…we often look outside for our answers while the answers lie within. Great post as always.
I can remember a time when I thought I knew most of the answers and that I was working on the rest of them. I’m sure God found that perspective to be most amusing! The most valuable piece of information I’ve picked up since those days is that when we go banging on the door, looking for answers, God opens the door with the gift of Himself. The hard part is the space between the banging and the revealing, which can be so very long and dark.
True, we dont have all the answers and in fact we are not supposed to know everything. If that was the case, life would be so methodical and boring 😀
That’s a true story about the boy and the preacher….the preacher’s name is Billy Graham who passed away recently.
Great questions and honestly it’s not easy to answer them, sometimes we think we know the answer but then again the comfort one has if they are a believer in God is that He is in control no matter what.
I love this post! Of course there are no easy answers to difficult questions. The complexities of life is not clear at every turn if ever!
Do I really want to go to Heaven Corinne? I think my heaven is here and who knows what the afterlife really holds? But you are right about the answers coming to us at the appropriate time. I think the message here is not to lose sleep over questions that have no obvious answers…..
Thanks Corinne. This post comes at a time, when I sat this morning questing about a whole lot of things. I was lost in depressive thoughts for a ling time, and decided to switch off by reading a few blog posts. This seems to have been sent from the heavens above tailor made for me.
Feeling far better now, and am going to learn to let go and not get into the nitty gritties and question things 🙂
I liked the thought – ‘God (does not) runs a reward point system’. Isn’t this what majority of the religions or their preachers preach to their followers? Do this and you earn browny points (Punya in Hindi), do that and you get negative marking in the form of sin or Paap. And in this event thus establish fear. Whereas spirituality gives a different path – to look inwards, to be continuously working and improving upon ourselves and outside. I may have digressed from the meaning of this post with my thoughts.
I will share a song which inspired me to carry on in my erstwhile days – ‘Tum besahara ho to kisi ka sahara bano’. The main thing was to keep moving whether or not the questions got answered.
This post reminds me of the song ´Let it be´. This blog prompts me to write on the same thread 🙂 Good reflective post, Corinne!
This is so true. The more we search for an answer the more agitated we would be. The sooner we just settle with the things we can do nothing about, easier it would be to have that peace of mind.
Watching the health of my 90 year old mother in law continue to deteriorate, I am wondering about so many things. I was never that philosophical or spiritual person, but I am rapidly…well, I am doing a lot of thinking and wondering about the meaning of life, and similar topics. What if there is no answer? I think the only answer is that each of us has a duty to be kind to those we interact with every day.