Johnny is a toddler. He lives in his house with his parents. Johnny has no brothers or sisters. Every day, Johnny wakes up, descends the stairs to where his breakfast awaits him and consumes it like every other day before school. Johnny's mother takes his finished bowl of cereal to the sink and rinses it out. Johnny whines about how it wasn't the cereal he likes, and that if his mother loved him, she'd give him the best cereal possible.
His mother does love him, but knows that Johnny needs to learn that people can't always have what they want. Such lessons start with smaller things, to accustom ourselves to larger things.
Johnny goes to get dressed, whining that if his mother loved him, he'd have nicer clothes. Whining that he knows that the family can afford it, and why can't he have it?
Johnny slams the door on his way out of the house to the school bus. When his mom walks out to hand him his lunch, Johnny quickly takes it and runs to the bus. The kids on the bus ask him "Was that your mom?" He replies, "No, that's not my mom."
Johnny arrives at school, looking around for his friends. He talks to them about his parents not loving him, about how if they loved him, bad things wouldn't happen to him. How, if they really did love him, he'd have a perfect life. A happy life with no sadness or sorrow. Everything he ever wanted would be his, if only his parents loved him enough to provide it for him.
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Twenty years later, Johnathan wakes up in the morning in his apartment. He whines about 9/11. He whines about swine flu, he whines about how if God loved us He wouldn't let this stuff happen to us.
Johnathan whines about his work, how if God loved him, He'd give him a better job.
Johnathan complains about war, about corrupt politics, about sickness, death, poverty, sex scandals. If God loved us, he says, none of this would happen.
And God watches with the sadness of a parent watching a child that hasn't yet learned their lesson as Johnathan continues to complain. As Johnathan continues to complain as he cheats on his wife, scams people out of their money, passes people in need without a second glance, and looks at third world countries in contempt. Why does God let this happen, he wonders as he passes by every chance to help change the world that is put before him.
If God loved us, none of this would happen. Right, Johnathan?
Matthew 6:25-34 25"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? 26Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? 28"And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' 32For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
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Disclaimer: Johnathan was a name just randomly chosen. Johnny's just a common name to throw out in stories. I didn't base this off any one person.
