(Note:  This is a digest of two articles I recently read.)

There is great mystery in the suffering of the innocent.  Perhaps, it is better just to accept it as a mystery rather than try to explain it.  One of our earliest recorded examples is Job of the Hebrew Scriptures.  Apparently, Job did not take Satan into consideration in his complaints. As we see from the text, he is left with the fact that God is God.  The Creator who can do whatever he likes, and nobody can say no to him.   As Job is reduced gradually the acceptance of that fact, and to silence, the purity of his love grows.

This is the God who, much to the chagrin of Jonah, saved the rebellious city of Nineveh. This God is like a vineyard manager who pays a full day’s wage for just one hour of work, or like a father who welcomes his prodigal son home with a robe, a ring, and a feast.

We have the choice, every day, to join in the revelry, to imbibe the sweet wine of undeserved grace, or to pout like Jonah, argue fairness like the vineyard employees, resent our own family like the prodigal’s older brother.

The silent meditation portion of my Centering Prayer practice helps me identify issues that trouble me and affect my ability to “enjoy the feast.”  The Welcoming Prayer practice helps to “accept the things I cannot change.”

Sources:

Thomas Keating, The Daily Reader for Contemplative Living, p117.

Rachel Held Evans, Searching for Sunday: Loving, Leaving, and Finding the Church (Nashville, TN: Nelson Books, 2015) 132, 155–157.

Center for Action and Contemplation, Daily Meditation, April 27, 2022.