Many, if not most, people worldwide worship or acknowledge a higher power. This external force goes by many names, but the moniker "god" has become commonplace in many languages. "Oh my god" doesn't necessarily refer to a specific deity (such as the Christian God) but to that which we cannot understand through logic. I have even heard avowed atheists use the expression.

Believers, however, are rather fickle people. In Christianity, my heritage faith upbringing, we are taught to pray to God. We ask God for blessings, what we want or need and to thank God for whatever we believe God has given us. One foundational belief I was taught was that God always hears our prayers, but God's answer might be "no."

In many Christian traditions, we are taught to pray for God's curing mercy for disease and other maladies. "Please cure me of cancer" is a common one. In my tradition, we visit sick people and pray for their recovery from whatever ails them.

When tragedy strikes, we are told that God "never gives us more troubles than we can handle." This teaching is not in the Bible but has become commonplace in most Christianity. Its source is likely the book of Job in the Hebrew Bible, but the words of that story have been controverted somewhat. Well-intentioned empathizers use this "excuse" in all kinds of situations — in the most unimaginable horrors that could ever befall a human or a parent or a family. What kind of a God do those people believe in? My grandfather died brokenhearted because "God" took all three of his sons away from him in his simple way of understanding God. He declared that no parent should ever be subjected to a God who would do such a thing. He wasn't wrong. But I remember my mother trying to rationalize it with him without success.

"Tragedy" is that inexplicable and unexpected, horrible event that many of us lose sleep over and "pray" will never happen to us. Most of us should remain speechless when dealing with others who have lost. Sometimes, our words cause more pain and harm in an already painful situation. Family friends tried and tried to have a baby, but pregnancy was not happening despite both being healthy. An older, supposedly wise, church lady told them they needed to pray harder, and God would "bless" them with pregnancy. They had been praying unceasingly for years. While well-intentioned, the church lady stabbed them to the very core with her words.

As a pastor, I have dealt more with sadder ministry (sickness and death) than happy (baptism, marriages). When there is a death in the family, the pastor is one of the first to be called. But even with my training, I often lose words and try hard to keep my mouth shut. I learned that the hard way. A dear friend died at 98. He had been sick and in nursing care for several years, physically diminished but mentally acute. We had many wonderful chats at his bedside. After he died, his son, also a friend, came to me, and my stupid brain said something like, "You must be relieved your dad isn't suffering anymore." That is not the right thing to say.

Believers are fickle people. When things don't go our way, we blame "God." We prayed fervently, yet such-and-such still happened. Why didn't "God" answer our prayer (the way we wanted God to answer it)? Was "God" even listening? Where is "God" when you need "God" the most?

At the same time, when we get what we want, we praise "God" for giving "it" to us. "I won the lottery! Praise God." Or, even worse, there was a terrible crash, but one survivor's mother declared in an interview that God saved her loved one because he was a good "church boy." What about the hundred or so who died? Surely, there were good church boys and girls among them, too.

Humanity's twisted sense of the Divine harms one another and harms the Divine itself. We clearly do not understand the forces of the universe when we try to make life as simple as a wish list. The epithet "God's will" may be true, but in the other sense, it shows a hopelessness in human nature when we cannot find the answer we so desperately seek. We want to know and be sure, but the world and the universe constantly change, and we cannot grasp it all with our frail human psyche.

Stop blaming God when things don't go your way, and stop praising God when you get what you want. Praise "God," the Divine or whatever you choose to call The Force, in all things, good or bad, and then, just maybe, we'll start understanding what humanity is about.

Rev. Steven L. Shields, FRAS (slshields@gmail.com) has lived in Korea for many years, beginning in the 1970s. A Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, he is also a lifelong member of the Royal Asiatic Society Korea, of which he was a director, vice president and president. He was a copy editor of The Korea Times in 1977. The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not reflect The Korea Times' editorial stance.