When I was a kid, I was full of questions. I was constantly trying to understand the world around me and why things are the way they are. My curiosity has also passed down to my oldest son. He also is always asking me tons of questions, and my parents are secretly smiling as they see me getting a taste of my own medicine.
We all have lots of questions when it comes to our faith. How could anyone go to Hell if there is a loving God? Does it really matter if I don’t go to Church? Why is there suffering in the world? Is Jesus really fully present in the Eucharist? What’s the meaning of life? I won’t be answering all of these questions today. You will have to wait for another blog or possibly a book to get the deep dive on those. However, we can uncover the answers better if we focus on thinking more like God.
Although we aren’t God, we can work towards thinking like Him. When we look at things from His perspective, a lot of haziness becomes clearer. He has revealed a lot to us through scripture, tradition, and even some private and public revelations, but some things are written in our hearts. How many times have we said, “I don’t know how it’s possible, but I know in my heart that it’s true?”
It sometimes helps to put ourselves in God’s “shoes” in order to understand why He may allow something to happen. In this week’s Gospel, Peter questions Jesus when He says that He must suffer and die. Peter is thinking as a human and doesn’t understand the big picture. We can all see the big picture now, but at the time Peter didn’t understand. Many times, bad things happen to us, and we question why Jesus allowed it. We may look back at our life in the future and understand how a bad thing brought about a change for the better in another way.
How do we get better at thinking like God? Have you ever seen an old married couple finish each other’s sentences? The more we get to know God and the closer we get to Him, the better we understand Him. We may even finish His sentence when He asks us to do something. Our ultimate goal in life is to know and love God better, and when we do, we will find the answers we seek.