Argue All you Want... But Listen to the Music Anyway

There was once a colony of mice who lived all their lives in a large, magnificent grand piano. To them in their piano-world came the marvelous sounds of the beautiful instrument, filling all the dark spaces with rich music and sweet harmony. At first the mice were overwhelmed with awe. They drew comfort and strength from the thought that there was Someone -- though invisible to them -- who made the music, someone close by, yet above and beyond them, someone who transcended their little piano-lives. They loved to think of the Great Unseen Player to whom they attributed the lovely melodies. They honored Him and praised His greatness and magnificent creativity.

Then one day a daring mouse climbed up to another part of the piano. Soon she returned, very thoughtful and a little disturbed. She had discovered how music was really made.
Wires were the secret: tightly stretched wires of graduated lengths and thicknesses which throbbed and trembled and pulsated. They must revise all their old, outdated beliefs: none but the most ignorant simpleton could any longer believe in the Great Unseen Player.

Later, another adventuresome explorer-mouse carried the explanation even farther. Hammers were the true secret -- dozens of felt-covered hammers dancing and leaping on the wires. This was a more complicated theory, but it all went to show that they lived in a purely mechanistic, mathematical world -- let's hear no more about this mythical Great Unseen Player. Any thinking mouse could see that there was nothing to the Player myth. He did not exist!

Untroubled by their unbelief, the Great Unseen Player kept on playing anyway! And the mice still heard the rich music and pleasant harmony! Some insisted there was an intelligence, a design to the music that couldn't come simply by randomness, without a Player creating the wonderful music they so loved. The arguments churned on, and the piano-mice lived in conflict and disagreement.
Still the Great Unseen Player, untroubled by the heated debate, kept right on creating the rich, melodious songs that touched their souls, believer and unbeliever alike.

Paper Cranes... or God's Plan Has a Lot of Steps

People ask, "If God knows everything, why did he keep doing things that he knew would fail, when he could just skip ahead to to big finale?"
God's plan is like origami.
When you do origami, you know what the last step is to get the lovely paper crane, but you can't just go to that last step, make fold # 50 and have a lovely paper crane. There's a process of steps, some of which are annoying (especially when you have big hands and bite your nails like I do), that you have to follow, one after the other, to get to that crane.
God's plan is like that. He knows all the steps to get us where he wants us, and some of them have caused Him a lot of grief, but they all had/have to happen.
I used to think, "Man... that had to really irritate God." when thinking about a particularly bad spot in Christianity's history. I don't think that way anymore. He knew it was coming, and ALSO knew that things would get better once He was past that step. It helps that He never messes a step up and has to refold everything.

That would be a little awkward.