1. Sometimes, no matter how good a person is, lessons remain to be learned. When you pray to God to help you out during these inevitable "bad times" of your life, He may seem to not be listening or there is a delay in answering your prayer. In that situation, He is telling you to take an active role in resolution with Him as a much needed back-up. Yours become the hands and He is the strength and courage to see it through.
2. As a Christian, I have asked this question over and over again to my Pastor and to others in authority to know. One answer is that there is always a reason behind every tragedy and that God is working behind the scenes. When you are close to dire circumstances, it's hard to notice the hand of the Creator at work. (It occurred to me that in some mythologies the god of creation is also the god of destruction. The Biblical God has also been known to play that dual role …) This past year, my mother died of brain cancer – that was a family tragedy. She was a strong, vibrant, intelligent woman who quite suddenly began to manifest violent personality changes. We took care of her at home and thank God, she passed away without pain. Bad arrives with good- at least that has been my experience to date. When my Mom died, she left me in financial hardship- unpaid medical bills, reverse mortgage people trying to take our home etc. I had to terminate my employment at a job where I worked for 21 years to get my pension to attempt to remedy the situation. Unemployment is tough, but the little things I did not appreciate before have become big blessings –A life lesson! So the bad is coupled with the good: quitting my job = it was a position of mental and physical slavery in which my soul was under a crushing weight for too many years. Sure, we're scrambling and sticking it out – not fun by any means- but I received an unexpected scholarship to study at an accredited seminary and hope to be ordained as a pastor within the year. That's a good thing! I am going to be able to help others, pass on the blessings that I was fortunate enough to receive, in whatever ministry the Lord leads me to. It's a dream come true! I hope this makes sense.
3. This is a hard question. I think that when you do a good deed, positive energy is sent out into the world. In contrast, those who do not care about their "neighbors," those who are set on revenge, are always angry and deal unfairly with others, send out negative energy which seems to compound. I wonder why the negativity is stronger than the good. Good deeds may not receive beneficial gains in return but evil will without a doubt multiply. The doer of malevolence, the so-called "bad" person will eventually be caught up in the whirlwind of results which he has set into motion. I think that we must always keep it in mind.
4. Karma may be a factor but I think that human beings have some control over their circumstances. I really have to know a bit more about reincarnation and the laws of Karma to give an intelligent answer. Perhaps if you teach another course dealing with these subjects specifically? I'll be the 1st to sign up!
Rev. Judith
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The ULC, run by Rev. Long, has created a chaplaincy program to help train our ministers. We also have a huge catalog of Universal Life Church materials. I've been ordained with the Universal Life Church for many years and it's Seminary since the beginning and have loved watching the continual growth of the seminary.
