Don't Complain: Spurgeon April 30

The following is my “translation” of Charles Spurgeon’s devotion for the morning of April 30.

“There are Christians who are grumbling and complaining about the situation we are all in right now just like the Israelites did when they were in the desert after being freed from slavery in Egypt. Some believers want to argue with God when He chooses to bring hardship or tribulation upon them. They ask Him, ‘Why are you treating me this way, God? What have I done to deserve this?’

"Let me share something with you that you may not have thought of. Do you think you know better than God what is best for you? Can you honestly say you don’t deserve some form of discipline? Think about everything God has forgiven in your life. You really shouldn’t complain if He uses uncomfortable circumstances to make you more fit for His kingdom. Does this thing you are going through now even come close to what you deserve if all your sins were tallied?

When you realize how deeply sin is rooted in your soul, is it so surprising that God needs to use a little discomfort to shake it out of you? Take an honest appraisal of yourself and see how often your sinful flesh overrules the Spirit within you; is the trial God has laid on you too much in light of your condition? Doesn’t your resistance to God’s superior wisdom prove that you still need some work to be better suited for His purposes? Doesn’t your complaining run contrary to a the fully submitted soul that trusts in God at all times? Couldn’t you use a little correction about now?

"If you insist on resisting God’s discipline, watch out; God has never been easy on those who resist. He will bring harder times on those who don’t submit to His first effort to bring them in line. However, you can be confident of this: ‘For he does not willingly bring affliction or grief to anyone.’ Everything God does is out of His infinite love and His intention is to purify you and draw you closer to Himself. It will help you get through the trial if you realize that God is only allowing it for your good. ‘Because the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and he chastens everyone he accepts as his son. Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father?’ Don’t be like the Israelites and complain about your circumstances. ‘And don’t grumble as some of them did, and then were destroyed by the angel of death.’”

What if God, in His wisdom, has brought COVID 19 upon the world as a form of discipline. Remember that the chastening of God is intended to bring us closer to Him not drive us away. In His loving discipline, He is constantly conforming us to the image of His Beloved Son. This is why we can follow James’ advice: “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”

The Winnowing Fork of God

Let me start by making sure we understand the agricultural terms I will be using. Before the days of mechanized wheat combines that do everything except bake the bread, people used simple tools to complete the process of getting wheat from the field to the oven. First the wheat was cut down by reapers with a sickle and bound in bunches called sheaves. The sheaves were taken to a hard surface – a threshing floor – and either beaten with sticks or trodden by animals. Once the grains of wheat were released from the stalk and hull, people used a large fork – the winnowing fork – and tossed the grain and chaff into the air so the wind could blow away the unwanted elements. The remaining grain fell to the threshing floor and could then be scooped up to be ground into flour for baking. Whew!

Who cares? I care because the imagery of harvesting grain is used throughout the Bible to describe the experience of believers. In Matthew 13, Jesus shares the parable of the weeds in the wheat. Jesus explains to his questioning disciples that the wheat represents believers and the weeds are “sons of the evil one.” He explains that, “at the end of the age” His angels will sort out the weeds from the wheat. This is usually interpreted to refer to judgment at the end of time.

I believe there is another possible interpretation. God has been separating weeds from wheat throughout the history of His people. It began with driving Cain away from his family. Then there was the major drama of the flood which saved a tiny remnant. Time and again God used separating forces to separate a people to Himself: plagues, serpents, earthquakes, Assyrians, Babylonians. God’s winnowing fork has been dipping into history from the beginning.

Each of the instances mentioned above were in the midst of God’s redemption story confirming the fact that His selection process will not be suspended until the Last Day. A note in the Faithlife Study Bible on Daniel 8:17 says that, “In apocalyptic literature, references to end times can connote the cessation of a particular activity [italics mine], a future period of God’s wrath manifested in judgment, or the end of time.” Many are predicting that the long-term effects of the COVID 19 restrictions will mark the “cessation of a particular activity,” namely, life as we have known it. I suspect God is using this situation to accomplish His will. (Of course He is; He always is.)

I have begun to wonder if the effects “social distancing” are more significant than the virus itself. Death from the virus is tragic. But one must be clear-headed. Far more people died from the Spanish Flu in the last century than the highest estimates of predicted deaths from COVID 19: the Spanish Flu took perhaps 50 million worldwide and over 600,000 in the US alone. Tens of thousands have died from flu each year since 2012. More recently, between 60,000 and 80,000 people died in the 2017 flu season in the US. (Statistics are hard to pin down.) Outside of the individual tragedies that families and friends suffered in those events, little changed in society as a whole.

Social distancing and shutdowns make things different in this COVID 19 crisis; certainly, anyone who depends on an income from work is being greatly affected. Those of us who have other means of living are inconvenienced by closed stores and such, but we are not going to be destitute. The long-term effects, however, are startling. According to one economist, shutting down the economy will cause between one million and four-and-one-half million businesses to fold, depending on how long the shut-down lasts. That will be devastating. Undoubtedly, many people tie their trust to a job rather than to God. They must be asking, “If I am trusting my job for my daily bread, what do I do now?

More to the point for believers is the closing of houses of worship. We have all heard it said -- I have said it here: it is not the building that constitutes the church; it’s the people. Even though many mouth these words, there are a great many people who still tie their faith to brick and mortar. (See “What is the Church?”) Christian researcher, Barna , recently revealed that fewer than one in five adults read their Bibles throughout the week. I suspect the number of families who worship at home between Sundays is a small fraction of the Bible readers. They must be asking themselves, “If the only time I worship is “in church,” what do I do now?

With both Sunday worship and daily employment on hold for so many people, I can imagine God calling us to bring our faith back to where it belongs: in God and God alone. If God is winnowing out the weak Christians, the church will be stronger for this crisis. Charles Spurgeon once said, “We need winds and tempests to exercise our faith, to tear off the rotten bough of self-dependence, and to root us more firmly in Christ. The day of evil reveals to us the value of our glorious hope.” We need God’s perspective now more than ever. Our entire lifespan on earth is an infinitesimal speck on the calendar of eternity. Pray that as the Heavenly Reaper threshes and winnows during this crisis, He will find us to be the wheat of hope, fit to be spiritual bread for His heavenly kingdom here on earth.

Confidence Versus Arrogance

I know that some people think I am arrogant. I think I am simply confident. What is the difference between confidence and arrogance? I like this quote: “There is a really great difference between confidence and pride. When you’re confident, it’s like, “I can do this.” But when you’re proud, it’s like “Only I can do this.” (Aakanksha Kesarwani) I know she used “pride” instead of arrogance, but I think that may be the key.

I am confident that I can write a complete sentence that carries thoughtful meaning. Confidence. If I were to say that I can write a better sentence than just about anyone else, I would be arrogant. I can be proud of my mastery of the language without slipping into the false pride that there is no one better. The thing that has caused me to begin questioning this issue is the thought that misplaced confidence, aka ignorance, may be arrogance. If I think I know something to be true about myself, but I am mistaken, does operating in that ignorance make me arrogant? (For more on the cost of ignorance see Well What Do You Know.)

This is all pretty abstract so far, so let me put some meat on the bones. I have filed my own federal and state income taxes since I was eighteen with only a couple exceptions. I have not had major repercussions except for one instance when I was audited and found to have made significant mistakes. Fortunately, I was not found guilty of the intent to evade, but I did have to pay penalties and interest for the five years between my incorrect filings and the date of discovery by audit.

That experience eroded my confidence in my ability to file my own taxes. However, because those filings were for my time as a self-employed business owner and therefore somewhat complicated, I reverted to doing my own filings after I ceased doing business. There were no problems until this year when I discovered that my electronic filing from last year was not accepted. I learned of this problem twelve months after the fact because I tried to obtain a transcript of my 2018 1040 only to learn that none was on record.

My question to the online tax service that I had used was answered: my return was rejected due to an error in the AGI. The problem is that I have no memory or record of them informing me that the filing was rejected last year. If they had sent me such a revelation, I would certainly have done something about it immediately. They claim they did; I claim they did not. They said – I said controversy. Guess who loses on this one!

One final example: I filed a federal tax form for a non-profit I am associated with. Some months after filing, I received a letter stating that a necessary schedule was missing. Reading the explanation, I believed that the error was theirs, not mine. I didn’t think the schedule was necessary. I did some research and follow-up and then forgot about the matter. I was reminded of the problem recently when the State of Michigan contacted me saying that our status with the state was in jeopardy because the federal filing was missing.

I pulled out the letter from the IRS from exactly one year ago and re-read it. I saw that the schedule they required was due after all; I had misread the clause explaining the requirement. This is especially shameful since I claim to be an expert in language, but I misread a simple clause that any elementary school student could have understood. Ouch! Confidence shattered.

When I discovered my mistake, I put it alongside several major life decisions I have made with confidence in the recent past and then doubted their sanity afterward. I was not pleased with what I saw. I walked into the room where my wife was watching television and declared, “I resign!” She gave me a puzzled look, so I clarified, “I resign from life.” This made her even more confused, so I clarified further, “I don’t mean suicide; I mean I am resigning from taking any responsibility for anything ever again.” I told her what I had discovered about the misreading of the federal letter. I told her it was the last straw.

I want to be four years old again. That has always seemed to me to be the perfect age. I can walk and talk and play and have no responsibility whatsoever. I want that. I am done being responsible. I have lost all confidence in myself, and I wonder if what I have been all along is arrogant. People have accused me of arrogance, but in my self-confidence, I have dismissed their accusation as mistaken. Yesterday my doubt in myself reached the tipping point, and I resigned.

I have a friend who is about ten years older than I am. He has had a full life: successful career, life-long marriage partner, generous with money and time to worthy causes. It is sad to see the effects of age taking their toll: speech often incomprehensible, memory unreliable, yet still in a position of responsibility – scary. I wonder if I am slipping into that category. I have always had a lousy memory, but now far too often I have a hard time recalling simple words or well-known names. I sometimes hear myself mouthing babble when I intend meaningful language. The oversights and mistakes are mounting.

I ask myself at what point does dementia move from being a trivial nuisance to being a serious problem. I suspect that when it happens in my life, as in most people’s, I won’t realize it. It would be arrogant for me to say I won’t let my failings affect anyone else. I am going to place my confidence in others to sit me down and talk straight to me when the time comes. My confidence in myself is already flagging.

In 2015 I wrote that I had begun to recognize things about myself that were uncomfortable. (OMG! It’s Me) Now I am wondering if there is such a thing as arrogant introspection. If I begin to lose it, will my pride (arrogance + ignorance = false pride) keep me from getting out of my own way or the way of others? Senility is like this dark cloud that sits on everyone’s horizon. The problem is that as life rolls us ever closer to the horizon, the cloud begins to dim the light. What I have just written is primarily for myself alone. I pray that when the light gets too dim for me to read this, someone will come alongside and help me remember it.

Rebuking the Darkness

My daily Bible reading had me in Matthew eight and nine today. In this passage, Matthew records several miraculous deeds Jesus performed early in His ministry: healing a paralytic, healing Peter’s mother-in-law, calming a stormy sea and casting demons into a herd of pigs. This list of miracles was probably written by Matthew to convince his mostly Jewish readers that Jesus is the Son of God. Something in the way Matthew presented these struck me today.

When Jesus entered Peter’s house, he found Peter’s mother-in-law sick with a fever. Matthew says he touched her, and the fever left her. I have always been fascinated by the way Dr. Luke describes what Jesus did because it seems to take a more scientific tone. Luke says Jesus “rebuked” the fever, and it left her. I don’t know if the rebuke was spoken or not, but I like to imagine Jesus saying, “Fever! Get out! You don’t belong here.” I think Jesus knew what we now know: the fever was caused by something in the woman’s body that did not belong. (Maybe it was an early form of the corona virus.)

The reason Luke’s version popped onto my radar this morning is the word, “rebuked.” When I read in Matthew that Jesus “rebuked” the stormy sea, I double-checked to see if it was the same word Luke used in reference to the fever; it is. The Greek word these two men used (ἐπιτιμάω) has a wide range of meaning, but in essence it means to put something in its place. When Jesus encountered the fever in Peter’s mother-in-law, He put it in its place: out of Peter’s mother-in-law. When Jesus was awakened to the stormy sea, He put the wind and waves in their place: they stilled.

Matthew’s point – and mine too – is that only God has the right to put such things in their place. Jesus could rebuke these elements because they are part of the world He created, and He still has power over them. The case with the paralytic is equally interesting because what Jesus did was put sin in its place: forgiven. Paralysis, fever, windstorm – all are elements of earth which exist because of the curse brought upon Creation by Adam’s rebellion. I think it is safe to say that there would never have been disease or destruction in the Garden had Adam not eaten the forbidden fruit.

You may be asking how this matters beyond establishing Jesus’ claim to be the Son of God. Here’s how: the same Jesus who was in the boat on the Sea of Galilee in first century Palestine is in the boat with us today. The kingdom rule He was exercising then is still being exercised today. I am not going to tell you that you have the power to rebuke a fever and expect the same results Jesus got every time. It could happen, but you have to get really close to Jesus to know if that’s what he would have you do. Remember the seven sons of Sceva who tried to use Jesus’ name inappropriately and how they got whupped by the demons.

What we can do without doubt is stand where Jesus stands: put the sin-wracked world in its place. It’s all about the attitude, the perspective. We need to see things the way Jesus sees them. Remember what happened to Peter when he foolishly jumped out of the boat to walk on water then took his eyes off Jesus. He sank. Ephesians says we are seated with Christ in the heavenlies right now. From that vantage point, sin is already conquered; the enemy is already defeated. But notice, in both stormy stories, the disciples were in fear; in both stories, Jesus chided His disciples for having little faith.

I find the most valuable lesson in Peter’s water-walking episode. Jesus called Peter’s faith small AFTER Peter stepped out of the boat. Really? What did the water-walking disciple do wrong? He took his eyes off Jesus. There it is: no matter what you are facing, keep your perspective – the heavenly perspective. We are not alone in this boat; Jesus is right here as promised. Whether it’s disease, destruction or death, put it in its place. It is not for nothing we are said to be, “More than conquerors.” We are assured that nothing, “in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” We walk by faith, not by sight. So, fear not, little flock; it is the Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”

Decade Two for WHAMM: Small Things Remembered

As I begin my second decade as a blogger, I am taking a step back to see what I have accomplished. At first glance, I am pleased to see that in ten years, I have approximately three hundred page views per month for a total of over 18,000. Anyone familiar with the blogosphere knows that is a teeny-tiny number compared to the most popular blogs. Even a moderately-read blog gets more than 18,000 pageviews per month, so my ten-year total is unremarkable.

Except it’s not. It is remarkable to me to think that without any marketing other than posting to my Facebook page, my thoughts have been shared with over 16,000 viewers. (About ten percent of all “views” are not humans but robots tasked with searching the web for various reasons.) This means that my message that Heaven Always Matters Most has been seen by a large group of people. I am hopeful that some of that number have come to Christ because of my words, or they have drawn closer to their Savior or become better servants because of me.

Audience distribution

More amazing to me is the geographical reach my tiny blog has achieved. For a long time, the second largest group of readers of my blog was from India. Of late, Russia has moved from third to second, with India falling off the chart. I suspect the original draw to each of these countries is that I have had contact with missionaries from each, and I suspect that they somehow influenced a number of people in their circles to check out my writings. I am at a loss to explain my sizable

Chinese readership.

It is no surprise to learn that Facebook is the number one referring entity. That’s the only place I “advertise” my blog other than an occasional direct email to someone I think might want to read a particular post. Google is the second most frequently used pathway to my blog. This is encouraging because it means that people who may not already be my “Friends” have searched for something and wound up at my site. I seldom get comments on the page, so I don’t know how things are being received, but I am confident in the truth of what I write, so I believe the cause of the Kingdom is being advanced.

Most widely read posts

I am curious as to why the most popular pieces have risen to the top. “Obama Isn’t the Problem” soared into the most read article in its early days back in the 2012 election season. I suspect I may have prompted this by using the article in an English composition class I was teaching at the time. I enjoy stirring debate, and this article certainly got my mostly millennial and largely progressive students riled up. However, those 27 students cannot explain the 145 hits this post has received. “The Uncomfortable Subject,” a piece about the homosexual movement in America, recently moved into number one. I have no clue why it became so popular.

The reason for the next two most popular items is also a mystery to me. “How to Watch Television (1)” became widely read over the years for some unknown reason, but the two subsequent installments have languished far below. I think “A Route 66 Adventure” became popular through people searching Google for travel tips; I know that’s what I did when we were anticipating our trip. I am pleased to see “Eulogy for Robert Rosencrants” come up fourth, though to reach that position every member of his church family would have had to view the piece. In any event, Bob was a good friend and a valiant warrior in God’s Kingdom; I hope many people will be inspired by his life.

The rest of my 300+ posts not on the list above fall gradually into an average view-count around 20-30 each. I would love to know if it’s pretty much the same people every time, or if there is a smaller cadre of regulars plus a number of first-timers who account for the statistics. I have had a “Follow” button on the blog from the beginning, but few people have bothered to click it. My shattered ego (ha-ha) wonders if so few people have joined in this way because they are reluctant to be associated with a guy whose opinions are often wacky and sometimes unpopular (in certain segments of the population).

I began writing a blog because I love to write. That fact alone is enough to convince many people I am unusual, to say the least. Years of teaching undermotivated English composition students made me aware how many folks just don’t like to write. I wouldn’t be completely honest if I didn’t admit that I also feel like I have something to say that is worth reading – most of the time. Once again, my bruised ego laments the lack of a large readership; he says to me it’s their loss.

Going forward, I have no plans to change the title and purpose of my blog, or the heavenly blue-sky background on the page, or the fact that many of my posts will have political overtones. I have recently added an email subscription option for those who want to be notified when I post a new article. I suspect there will be times when I post more frequently than others due to my life circumstances. As I write this, the country is in the midst of the COVID 19 shutdown, so my production is prolific. I am enjoying it, and I hope my readers are as well.

I once dreamed I would become a popular writer who could afford to sit around writing the days away, supported by the royalties from my many books. To date, the four books I have published have amassed me the great sum of just under two dollars in royalties. Given that my first novel cost me almost $2,000 to “self-publish,” I’m not exactly striking it rich. Fortunately, digital publishing is now free and easy enough for just about anyone. That probably explains why my self-published works languish on the Amazon.com virtual shelf with tens of thousands of other hopeful authors’ works.

Blogging my way to riches isn’t going anywhere fast either. In the beginning, I chose not to monetize my work because, like many people, I am annoyed by the ubiquitous pop-up ads that clutter most websites. Even if I had swallowed my principles and gone commercial, I would still be looking at only pennies of income – not anything like the top blog’s millions of dollars per year. But then, I didn’t begin, nor have I continued because it pays well. I do this because I like it. Even if no one reads a word, I find fulfillment in organizing my thoughts and putting them down in what I hope is a cogent, pleasant, and maybe even artistic way.

There is also that matter of the Heaven I blog for. I can hope that I have touched thousands of lives with the truth that heaven does matter most. I think of the Ray Boltz song, “Thank You,” in which he is imagining his time in heaven someday, learning of the many people he influenced during his lifetime. If only one person winds up in Heaven because of something I have written, it will mean more to me than my sense of fulfillment down here or any amount of money I might have made had circumstances been different. I preach a silent word to an unseen multitude. God can use those words to lead people to the Word, the Way, the Truth and the Life. That’s no small thing.

The Purpose Driven God

I understand how dangerous it is to ask why God has done something or allowed something to happen. It may be arrogant to think a mere human can decode the purpose of God unless it is explicitly stated. On the other hand, Scripture repeatedly asks us to know God, and this surely must include knowing His purpose at least in a general way.

One of the three big life questions everyone must to answer is why am I here, or is there purpose and meaning to life. (The other two questions will be treated later. Stay tuned.) Most secular philosophies have failed to answer this question in a satisfying way, which is why they tend toward nihilism, which is the acceptance of meaninglessness. When the search for meaning turns up the answer that there is no meaning, people end up in despair. Suicide is often considered a blessed escape from a purposeless life.

A philosophy that is grounded in God’s Word leaves no doubt as to man’s purpose. The Westminster Catechism states it clearly in the first question: “What is the chief end of man?” it asks. The answer is, “To glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” As I have written before (The Meaning of Football), the essence of bringing glory to God is to show His goodness. Revealing God’s goodness is essentially what gospel proclamation is all about. It’s not far off the mark to say that a human’s purpose is to spread the gospel: Christ came to save sinners, of whom I am chief; if He can save me, He can save you.

This answers the question of why I am here, but it begs another question: why did God set up a situation where salvation from sin became necessary? We cannot fall into the trap of saying that God didn’t know sin was going to mess up His plans. God knew what would happen. Jesus is called, “the Lamb slain before the foundations of the world.” God knew redemption was going to be necessary to complete his purpose on Earth. He knew his creation would fall far short of perfection.

And yet, perfection is precisely what is required. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus uttered the frightening command, “Be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect.” Our problem with that command comes from our use of a secular definition of perfect: “having all the required or desirable elements, qualities, or characteristics; absolute or complete.” An honest self-assessment reveals a serious lack in that regard. We are all painfully aware that we fall short of all that is required of us.

Relief comes when we try to understand the word Jesus used, perfect, as it would have been heard by his first century listeners. The Gospel of Matthew I quoted comes to us in Koine Greek, a language which was widely used in Palestine at Jesus’ time. Matthew uses the word “teleios” (τέλειος). A Greek lexicon suggests this word is from a root, telos (τέλος) which means, “the end to which all things relate, the aim, purpose.” To borrow from a famous author, I say Jesus directed us to have a purpose driven life.

Some would argue that Jesus would have been speaking Aramaic to the Sermon on the Mount audience, given their predominately Jewish demographic. Since Aramaic is a close cousin to Hebrew, it makes sense that Jesus may have been thinking of the several places Leviticus makes a similar demand of God’s people: “Be holy because I am Holy.” This carries the same general idea as being perfect. To be holy is to be set apart or consecrated. A person (or a God) is “set apart” for some particular purpose. In God’s case, He is “set apart” to accomplish what He wishes to accomplish. For our part, we are “set apart” to accomplish what God wants us to accomplish. We are called to fulfill God’s purpose: be perfect.

Whether it is Jesus’ words in Matthew or Peter’s quote of Leviticus, the requirement appears to be the same: fulfill God’s purpose. This brings us back to asking what God’s purpose might be in creating a system He knew would fall apart and need to be rescued from destruction. For this answer I go to Ephesians 3:10-11. Paul says that a mystery was hidden for ages that is now revealed through the church, “so that… the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. This was according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

God’s “purpose of the ages” was that all people, not just the Jews, should be, “fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.” That promise was that we can all be adopted into the family of God through Jesus; it is the promise of the gospel which we are called to share. The interesting thing to me is to whom this mystery is being revealed now: “to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places.” God apparently created everything we know as a demonstration for His heavenly host to observe. We are a demonstration for the angels.

Paul indicates that the thing heaven is being called to observe is the redemption of all mankind. It is the creation of a family of brothers and sisters of Jesus, the Son of God. It is the re-creation of that which God intended from before time began: a people to represent Him on earth, to be His vice-regents with dominion over all creation under His ultimate authority. It is to be His Kingdom on earth. It is you and I living with Kingdom values and sharing the gospel with our neighbors. If that doesn’t give meaning to your life, I don’t know what will. Got purpose?

The Perfect Father

Several months ago, one of my pastors, Nick Wagenmaker, shared a teaching on good parenting. He made the point that the best parent is not the one who tells his children what to do and then makes them do it. Rather, the best parent lays out principles of behavior and lets his children apply those principles within the scope of their free will. In other words, a good parent helps his children learn what works and what doesn’t work.

Obviously, there are limits to the freedom a good parent allows. One wouldn’t allow his children to drink poison or run into the path of an oncoming truck. Locking up dangerous substances and monitoring activities near the road are examples of logical limits a parent must apply. On the other hand, if a child wants to exercise his freedom to do something that might cause minor discomfort or loss, the best parent allows the child to suffer in order to learn.

We have all seen the so-called helicopter parents hovering over every aspect of their children’s lives. As a coach, I was painfully aware of how desperately some parents wanted their kids to star on the field. Recently I came across the term “bulldozer parents” to describe the overwhelming pressure some parents place on their children, shoving them into situations the children either don’t want or cannot handle. I have also witnessed the disaster these parents have sometimes created when their children rebel as they get older.

It goes without saying that too little supervision also has a negative consequence. I think of the history of Eli’s sons recorded in 1Samuel 2. Eli was not only too loose with his supervision, he apparently failed to provide his sons with the proper grounding in righteous behavior. Giving children some latitude to experiment is fine as long as there are boundary principles within which they operate. When children are raised without such boundaries, we see results such as school shootings, teen pregnancies and all manner of social disorder.

As with human parents, so it is with our Heavenly Father. Most believers realize that having free will is an integral part of bearing the image of God. Absent freedom to choose, the requirement to love and honor God would be meaningless. Robots can obey commands, but they cannot return love to their creators. The freedom not to obey, not to love is essential to the status of God’s image bearers. God had to give Adam the choice whether to eat the forbidden fruit or not to eat it.

Here we come to the point of this lesson on parenting: God, the best parent ever, allows us the freedom to behave any way we choose. Before joining His family by uniting with Christ, we were more likely to do wrong than right. After being adopted into God’s family, our revived spirits get help from His Holy Spirit to overcome the drag the world places on our souls. The pull of the flesh, the world and the devil is still there; the difference is whereas we had little power to resist before, we now have the power of Almighty God to steer us correctly.

I purposely chose the word “steer.” As the perfect parent, God does not force us into righteous behavior; He guides us through His Word, our renewed conscience and the community of fellow believers. When Paul tells us it was, “For freedom that Christ has set us free,” he adds the reminder that prior to our life in Christ, we were bound as slaves to sin. We now have the “freedom” NOT to sin which was not possible before. Sadly, we often still choose to sin anyway, breaking our commitment to the One who bought our freedom.

The writer of Hebrews points out that, like an earthly father, our Heavenly Father disciplines us when we make those wrong choices. While the discipline is not pleasant, it is proof that we are legitimately children of God according to the Hebrews’ author. If God didn’t care about us, He wouldn’t bother to help us stay on the right track. He wants us to obey Him out of love, but He will use discipline to convince us to obey when love fails to do so.

My children are all grown now. I don’t have the same control over them I once imagined I had. I am happy to say that they are each living lives that, in large part, honor the God they chose to serve while still under my roof. Each of my adult children has made choices at one time that I would have wished to countermand, but I have no power to discipline them anymore. But I am not without the power to affect their lives. I pray daily that God will draw them close and take whatever means necessary to keep them safe and sound – sound meaning grounded in His love. After all, He is the perfect Father.

The 2020 COVID Easter

I am sitting in my living room writing this on Resurrection Morning, as people in my childhood faith tradition call Easter. To my knowledge (forgive my terrible memory) this is the first Resurrection Sunday I have stayed home from church in my life. My mother used to joke that she started taking me to church nine months before I was born; I have missed very few Sunday services since then in my sixty-eight-plus years.

For many nominal Christians, Easter Sunday may be the one Sunday they attend church all year. For me, this raises the question why Easter is so important to some people. True believers celebrate the resurrection of Jesus every Sunday, and if they are truly committed, the Lord’s resurrection colors their thinking every day of the week. Please don’t misunderstand what I am saying. Easter is really the only celebration on the church calendar that belongs where it sits, despite the hijacking of the name.

Early in church history, in a misguided effort (my opinion) to attract pagans, the celebration of our Lord’s resurrection was named after a pagan goddess, Astarte which became “Easter” in English. The date remained connected to the Jewish calendar and the time of the Passover when the crucifixion occurred. This explains why Easter moves around the calendar; the Gregorian Calendar we follow does not match the Jewish calendar, so Easter floats.

Anyway, it is fitting to celebrate Christ’s resurrection at this time, and it makes sense to tie it to the actual day in history when it occurred. But I wonder why so many of what I call “nominal Christians” give a hoot. Perhaps it goes back to a time when many people in Christendom believed the Roman Catholic church held the keys to grace, and it was necessary to attend a mass to receive that grace as distributed by a priest. It appears obvious to me that there are also quite a few people who sit in a pew Sunday after Sunday thinking they are getting access to the power of resurrection grace while living Monday through Saturday with no connection whatsoever to the Lord of the Resurrection.

This brings me to COVID 19 Easter Sunday. If we believe the truth of Scripture, even though we are sitting apart this morning, we are seated together with Christ in the heavenlies today and every day. I admit that I have had many moving experiences while gathered with my fellow-believers at special Easter services. I even attended a few sunrise services, even though I realize they are a throwback to another pagan rite celebrated by sun worshippers. No matter; gathering together is good and proper. My word this morning is to remember that we are “really” together in the Spirit whether we sit in the same room or not. Our fellowship with Christ and each other is spiritually based, not physically based.

The truest “reality” is the spiritual reality of our existence “in Christ.” The physical universe we usually refer to as real is not the ultimate “real” thing in our lives; God is. God exists outside of our created reality, having created it long ago for His purposes. One day (soon I hope) God will wrap up His operations on this earth as we know it, and He will cause it to vanish to be replaced by the new heavens and the new earth where I believe we will spend eternity worshiping Him. That is reality. That is the reality our Lord suffered and died to purchase for us. That is why we can celebrate “Easter” today even if we are sheltering in place. We know our place is truly in the heavenlies where we sit together with Christ. Hallelujah!

Living in Zerubbabel’s Day

God showed me something today that really helps explain where we are in the ever-unfolding story of redemption. As you probably know, the history of human redemption began soon after Adam failed the test of obedience in the Garden of Eden by eating forbidden fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Adam’s disobedience caused God to sever the intimate relationship they originally had. This severing is referred to as “death” because it created a distance between God and Adam that could only be bridged by a payment for Adam’s wrongdoing: a redemption.

Adam was to have been God’s representative on Earth. The language of Genesis 1 gives Adam dominion over the creation. When Adam rebelled against God, he forfeited his dominion, and the evil one who had initiated the temptation snatched it up illegitimately. We know God saw it that way because of what He said to the serpent in Genesis 3 about crawling on his belly (metaphorically bound to Earth) and eventually being crushed by the seed of Adam.

Just about everybody knows the following stories of Cain and Abel and Noah and the flood. However, Bible readers often overlook the significance of the events recorded in Genesis 10. The chapter ends with this, “These are the families of the sons of Noah, according to their generations and in their nations. And from these the nations spread abroad on the earth after the flood.” This “table of nations,” as it is called, is significant for what is missing: the nation that would issue from Abraham. The reader must wait for the scattering of these nations in Genesis 11, and then witness the call of Abraham in Genesis 12 to see what God was doing. In Genesis 10, all the descendants of Noah were dispersed to their respective locations, but the nation promised to Abraham (Gen 12:2) was not mentioned.

This is where the story of redemption really ramps up. Besides promising that Abraham would become a great nation, God promised Abraham that the blessing he received would ultimately lead to the blessing of “all families (nations) of the earth.” (Genesis 12:3) It has been debated whether God intended the nation of Israel, Abraham’s descendants, to be that blessing. History records that they kept the blessing to themselves, more or less, and eventually squandered it royally. I intended a pun with “royally,” because God’s dealings with Israel eventually led to the royal line of David being promised the throne forever.

Now I am back to where God gave me insight into the Scripture I read today from the prophet Haggai. Read this, and then I will unpack it. “²¹ “Say to Zerubbabel, governor of Judah: I am going to shake the heavens and the earth, ²² and I will overthrow the thrones of kingdoms and destroy the military strength of the kingdoms of the nations. I will overthrow chariots and their drivers; horses and their riders will fall, every one by the sword of another! ²³ ‘On that day,’ _⌊declares_⌋ Yahweh of hosts, ‘I will take you, Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, my servant,’ _⌊declares_⌋ Yahweh, ‘and I will make you a signet ring, for I have chosen you,’ _⌊declares_⌋ Yahweh of hosts.” (Haggai 2:21-23)

The prophet quotes “Yahweh of hosts,” a military designation, using what has been called “divine warrior” imagery. Throughout much of prophetic literature, God is described with military imagery. Many of the prophets record oracles of doom and destruction on “the nations” surrounding Israel. Sadly, the judgment for Israel’s disobedience is also couched in warlike terms. In this instance, Haggai quotes God saying, “On that day” He will, “overthrow the thrones of kingdoms and destroy the military strength of the kingdoms of the nations.”

The other thing that happens “on that day” is, “and I will make you [Zerubbabel] a signet ring, for I have chosen you.” Making Zerubbabel a signet ring means God was restating the promise he made to David (Zerubbabel’s ancestor) to keep the throne of God’s kingdom in the family. Read the Matthew 1 genealogy in of Jesus, the ultimate King in David’s line, and you will find Zerubbabel. On that day, God continued His fulfillment of the promise that went from Adam through Abraham to David/Zerubbabel and eventually was completed in Jesus. The New Testament clearly ties that promise to us as believers in Jesus. Paul asserts that Jesus is the “seed” that was promised to Abraham; the metaphor undeniably recalls the seed of Genesis 3 as well.

In Colossians 2:14, Paul echoes the divine warrior imagery found in Haggai and elsewhere by describing Jesus’ work on the Cross as a military conqueror defeating, “the rulers and the authorities, [making] a display of them in public, triumphing over them by it.” Throughout Paul’s writing, “rulers and authorities” is a reference to the evil powers in the spiritual realm. This is the language of Ephesians 6:12 where Paul reminds us that, “our struggle is not against blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the world rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.”

The same imagery of military triumph is found in 2 Corinthians 2:14: “But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ.” Christ defeated the rulers of “the nations” of Genesis 10 (the spiritual wickedness in the heavenlies) and bought us a place in the family of the Second Adam by completing the task at which the first Adam failed. Eventually, even the death that began with Adam’s disobedience will be defeated. Paul says, “The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For ‘God has put all things in subjection under his feet.’” (1 Corinthians 1526)

Someone might be saying, “Wait a minute! I thought “On that day” referred to the Day of the Lord which is Judgment Day at the end of times.” That is true… sometimes. Other times the “Day of the Lord” refers to intermediate judgments or blessings not associated with the end of all things. I am comfortable saying Haggai’s “day” happened with the coming of the Messiah because Zechariah, who prophesied about the same time as Haggai, told Zerubbabel’s counterpart, Joshua the high priest, that Yahweh would, “bring [His] servant, The Branch” on that mysterious coming day. The Branch is a name used for the Messiah throughout the prophets.

Fast forward to Jesus’ day. Even His closest disciples were a little confused about the timing. Just before He returned to the Father for the last time, one of His disciples asked, ““Lord, is it at this time you are restoring the kingdom to Israel?” ⁷ But he said to them, “It is not for you to know the times or seasons that the Father has set by his own authority. ⁸ But you will receive power when* the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the farthest part of the earth.” (Acts 1:6-8) The day Jesus had pointed to was the Day of Pentecost.

Another proof that the Messiah’s day was that which the prophets foresaw is found in the sermon Peter preached on the Day of Pentecost after the disciples did what Jesus commanded and waited in Jerusalem. Peter quoted Joel saying the prophet was referring to the things that happened in Peter’s day when the church was established. (Acts 2:20) Joel called the time he saw "the last days." (Acts 2:17) The appearance of fire above the disciples’ heads, the sound of a strong wind, and the speaking in many different languages each find their roots in prophetic words about the coming kingdom. It was on that day that the message of the Kingdom began to be spread worldwide.

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This makes more sense when you realize what it means for the kingdom to be restored. The word kingdom is usually thought of in geographical terms: this river to that mountain and everything in between is the kingdom. The geography is just the result of what “kingdom” means; it means rulership or dominion. Everywhere the king exercises His rule becomes the kingdom. It’s not a place, really; it is a state of being ruled. This is why we can say the kingdom of God came on Pentecost but is not fully restored yet. Everyone who has accepted Christ’s rule has entered the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom will be fully restored when the last person God has chosen is ushered in.

Where does that place us? We are in the awkward place of already-not-yet kingdom come. The kingdom has already arrived as announced by Jesus. The cosmic battle between the kingdom of darkness and the Kingdom of Light has begun. But the kingdom is not yet fully come until the end of the “last days” when the trumpet sounds and Christ returns. The great thing is that we already have kingdom power over the enemy; we already have a restored relationship with the Father; we already have complete forgiveness of sin and the imputation of Christ’s righteousness. That’s not a bad place to be, even if it does leave us looking forward to a day when we will have even more. And as sure and the sun rises every morning, that Day is coming. Maranatha!

Today’s Chaldean Chastisement

A recent visual verse on my Logos app was Habakkuk 1:5, “Look among the nations and see; be astonished and astounded. For a work is about to be done in your days that you will not believe if it is told.” I was struck by the word “astounded.” It made me want to re-read the book; so, I did. In summary, the book details Habakkuk’s lament and God’s answer. The prophet wanted to know why God didn’t seem to be doing anything, and God’s response was to explain that He was using the Chaldeans to accomplish His work. His work was to chastise Judah. Habakkuk might have been sorry he asked.

I am not a prophet or the son of a prophet (as they say), so what I am about the suggest should not be misconstrued. I am not 100% sure even the application is correct, but it makes sense to me, so I will let the reader beware and take it with a grain of salt. I am toying with the idea that there may be a near parallel situation in our day, and I am wondering if it is safe to assume that God may be responding to it in a similar way to Habakkuk’s day.

Habakkuk wrote between the time of the virtual extermination of the ten northern tribes (Israel) and the coming captivity of the southern tribes (Judah). God’s judgment on His people was in response to their repeated infidelity or wickedness. The irony is that God was using a “wicked” nation, the Chaldeans, to punish those who should have been righteous. Habakkuk noted this irony in the first chapter. If you are at all familiar with the Old Testament prophets, you know that God repeatedly used foreign nations, wicked nations, to chastise His people.

This raises a thorny question: in what sense does God use “evil” to accomplish His purpose? I covered this at some length in an earlier post (Finding God in COVID 19). The uncomfortable conclusion is that God does, in fact, use what the Bible sometimes calls “evil.” As I wrote previously, the Hebrew word translated “evil” is broader than our English meaning of moral evil. The Hebrew encompasses ideas like calamity, distress, or adversity. It should not disturb us to know that even “calamity” is under God’s control; our reaction should be relief knowing that we are not beyond God’s reach even in the tough times.

Nor should we be surprised that God disciplines His own. The history of the nation of Israel is full of disciplinary incidents from the wilderness wandering to the captivity in Babylon. Habakkuk and many other prophets warned of God’s coming judgment. In the New Testament, the writer of Hebrews makes the point that any loving Father uses discipline to bring out “the peaceful fruit of righteousness” in His children. We may not like the thought, but as the writer of Hebrews suggests, the discipline itself is proof that we are children of a loving, disciplining Father.

This brings me back to the contemporary application of the Chaldean chastisement. When I first saw the possible application, I thought of the actual modern-day Chaldeans – the Iranians. The radical Islamic clerics leading Iran call America “The Great Satan.” Rather than be offended, perhaps we should try to see what the clerics base the title on. Adultery, fornication, abortion, support of homosexual lifestyles, lewdness, crudeness and all manner of moral evil abound in this country. Perhaps the Muslim clerics see us more clearly than we realize.

 The sad truth is that the preceding list of evil deeds is descriptive of many who call themselves Christian. How far out the limb am I to suggest that God could be using the Islamic jihad to chastise His people? His people are no longer a nation that can be treated as one entity; military defeat or captivity don’t apply anymore. The “war” initiated by the Islamic terrorists is not directed at any nation in particular; instead it is aimed at destroying what was once called “Christendom,” Western society generally. Nominally, these are God’s people.

Another method God has used to discipline His people is to bring a plague on them. The plague that struck Israel in the wilderness and the one in David’s time come immediately to mind. The HIV-AIDS epidemic certainly seems to be a type of judgment on unrighteous behavior. I would not go so far as to say that COVID 19 is that type of judgment, but as I wrote before, calamity should push us to a deeper reliance on the God who is in control.

Maybe I am wrong to equate the present Islamic terrorists with the ancient Chaldeans. Maybe I am wrong to suggest that COVID 19 is more than just the result of living in a fallen world. In any case, I do believe that the proper response to terrorism or this pandemic is to get on our knees, repent, and turn more fully to God and away from the powerful attractions of our “wicked” society. The last three verses of Habakkuk are poignant: “Though the fig tree does not blossom, nor there be fruit on the vines; the yield of the olive tree fails, and the cultivated fields do not yield food; the flock is cut off from the animal pen, and there is no cattle in the stalls, Yet I will rejoice in Yahweh; I will exult in the God of my salvation. Yahweh, my Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the deer; he causes me to walk on my high places.”

Understanding the Bible as Literature

Some of my friends will be “offended” at what I am about to say. What I mean is they won’t like it; they will disagree vehemently. I know this because I expressed the thought one Sunday morning, and a dear friend misunderstood, and our relationship was never the same. If you are willing, please read to the end before you form an opinion.

I finished reading the book of Jonah this morning, and I was reminded by a commentary I had open that some people think the book is an extended metaphor or perhaps a parable. I asked myself what difference it would make if the events recorded in the book were fictional. I wondered if that would have any effect on the truth of the message. I think not, but I know the arguments against that opinion.

The most serious argument against the events in the book of Jonah being fictional is that is diminishes the truth of all Scripture. Those who hold this opinion usually also express the idea that the Bible must be taken “literally” in every instance. I say we cannot take the Bible literally in every instance. This is the point at which my friend lost his cool. The problem is with the definition of “literally.” My friend thought I was challenging the truth of Scripture. I am not.

A dictionary definition of literal follows: “taking words in their usual or most basic sense without metaphor or allegory.” This explains why we cannot take the Bible literally all the time. Scripture is full of metaphor, allegory, parable, symbolism, imagery and apocalyptic literature. So, for example, if we take Isaiah 11:1 literally, the then-coming Messiah would be a vegetable of some kind: “a shoot… from the stump of Jesse.” That implies Jesse was a tree or something too.

We understand that Isaiah was employing a metaphor to teach that the Messiah would be born in the line of Jesse, hence a descendant of David which was necessary to fulfill many promises God made to David in particular and Israel in general. The same is true of Scriptures that speak of God’s judgment shaking mountains or an enemy’s advance being like locust or rivers of water flowing from a believer’s belly. We do not take these passages literally, but we do not doubt the truth they teach using metaphor or symbolism.

A second good reason some people think we must believe Jonah’s circumstances represent physical reality (they really happened) is that the New Testament, Jesus particularly, uses the lesson of Jonah. It is held that if Jesus referenced Jonah, then the story must be true, historical fact. This sounds convincing at first, but it is not logical. Jesus told numerous parables that teach truth but do not find their truthfulness in the fact that they actually happened. I doubt there was a Samaritan man who helped a poor traveler who had been robbed and beaten. I doubt there was an actual person who sold everything he had to buy a field in which he had discovered treasure. And so on; you get the point.

Regarding Jesus’ use of Jonah, it is not necessary for the events to have occurred for the meaning to be true. Consider this: when we say someone has the strength of Hercules or Superman, it does not require that our listeners believe Hercules or Superman actually exist. We understand the reference to unnatural strength to be the point. Angelo Siciliano changed his name to Charles Atlas because Atlas is a mythical figure who had the strength and fortitude to hold the entire world on his shoulders. I don’t think Angelo believed Atlas ever existed. That doesn’t take away from the reference.

So it is with Jonah: Jesus could refer to a parable from the Old Testament with just as much effect as if it were an historical event. The meat is in the reference, not the referent. I know I am on shaky ground here; some would say a slippery slope. I am not suggesting that there is no historical basis for anything in the Old Testament (or the New, for that matter). I am simply saying that whether Jonah was really swallowed by a huge fish or not, Jesus point about “the sign of Jonah” being parallel to His three days in the tomb still rings true.

In other words, I believe the Bible is all truly the Word of God. I believe everything in it was put there by the supernatural methods God chose to make His revelation. Sometimes God orchestrated human events so that, as Paul says, they could be an example for us to learn from. Sometimes God used symbolism, imagery, metaphor and any other literary device He chose to make His point. The literal parts and the not-literal parts are equally God’s Word.

The key to proper interpretation of Scripture vis a vis this literal conundrum is to recognize that the Bible is made up of many genres of literature. Each genre or type of literature must be read according to the logical rules of interpretation. When Jesus used hyperbole, we don’t take it literally; we are not supposed to poke out our eyes if they lead us to sin. When Jesus recommended believers take up a sword to advance the kingdom, He was not advocating jihad.

A slavish, literal interpretation of all Scripture leads to gross misinterpretation. At one point in church history, people were put to death because they suggested the earth revolved around the sun. The church leaders thought this contradicted the clear teaching of the Bible that the sun rose and set (revolved) around the earth. Again, the Bible frequently uses the idea of the earth having “foundations” because the cosmology of the day pictured the earth as a table with legs or foundations.

The inspired Word of God uses the understanding of the original readers to make its point. The Old Testament, particularly the wisdom literature and the prophets, is full of metaphor, imagery and symbolism. The original readers were accustomed to literature that was not meant literally. While it is true that some people in church history have taught that the entire Bible is allegorical, their overreach should not cause us to swing the pendulum too far the other way and assume the Bible is all to be taken literally.

It should go without saying that the Holy Spirit is the final arbiter to determine how a passage of Scripture is to be interpreted. I suspect that He, after all, is the agent through whom the words were originally inspired and written. This fact, however, does not absolve us of the need to use our God-given faculties of reason and logic to reach an understanding of the meaning of Scripture. To paraphrase a popular aphorism, read Scripture like it all depends on the Holy Spirit to reveal the meaning, and think like it all depends on you to figure it out. That should give the necessary balance to reading the Bible as literature.

Later posts: Take the Bible Literally; Taking the Bible Literally Part 2

Finding God in COVID 19

Whenever something bad happens, thoughtful people ask why. We are created with a sense of fairness and a rational mind that lead us to expect things to be done for a reason. In its simplest form, even children grasp the concept that good behavior brings good consequences while bad behavior brings bad consequences. Although the adult world becomes much more complex, we continue to look for what may be called either fairness or justice.

Fairness and justice are not the same thing. They overlap at times; when someone gets what he deserves, we say that is fair, and it may also be just. However, there are times when justice is served, but it does not seem fair. If two people are found guilty of committing an illegal act, but due to unique circumstances only one goes to prison, the prison sentence is just, but it seems unfair that the other person goes free.

On a global scale, we know that the rain falls on the just and the unjust; the Bible says so. Many of the Psalms cry out against the unfairness of this reality. The wicked often prosper, as the Psalmist frequently laments, while the righteous suffer indignity. This seems unfair; it probably is. For most of us, fairness is a human construct while justice, true justice, belongs to God. Taking the long view, the Bible assures that ultimately, the wicked get what they deserve. Fairness and justice meet in the end – God’s ordained end.

In the case of our current global pandemic, neither fairness nor justice seem to be present. History teaches us that this is not a new phenomenon: Bubonic plague, Spanish Influenza, H1-N1, SARS and now COVD 19. To varying degrees, each of these disasters has swept across humanity with no regard for fairness or justice. Some would claim that either there is no god who controls events, or that any god who may exist is fickle or even malicious. Obviously, the Bible contradicts both of those conclusions.

The Bible makes it crystal clear that God is in control of even the disasters. Isaiah 45:7 is uncomfortable for some people as it clearly states that our God “forms the light and [creates] darkness; I make peace and I create evil.” The Hebrew word “evil” can be translated as “disagreeable, unpleasant, calamity, distress, adversity.” These things are only “evil” or wicked if one takes the view of Heaven which asserts that they do not belong in a perfect world.

There’s the rub: this is not a perfect world. To be sure, God created it perfect, but Adam’s rebellion against God brought on the curse that still holds creation in its grasp today. We often think of the curse being sin, and that is not altogether wrong. However, a close reading of curse in Genesis 3 describes what might be called a dissolution of order, otherwise known as chaos. Sin is chaos inasmuch as it represents a departure from the orderly way God intends His creation to operate. As a consequence of Adam’s rebellion, the earth began to devolve into chaos rather than continue in perfect order. Relationships between beings also fell apart, both human and divine. Even the human soul became a hotbed of chaos.

The chaos we are experiencing now, COVID 19, is just another result of Adam’s rebellion. Not all viruses are harmful to humans, much the same as not all bacteria being harmful and not all plants being poisonous and not all sea creatures being as dangerous as great white sharks. The order of Creation has been disrupted, but the Bible is clear that God uses even the disruption to accomplish His will. Allowing Joseph to be kidnapped and brought to Egypt set up the eventual saving of his family. God used the Assyrians and then the Babylonians to chastise His chosen people, then He used a Persian to bring the remnant back to the Holy Land. The things we call catastrophes are often used by God for His purposes.

The most stunning and meaningful example of this is the way God used the wickedness of the Jewish leadership to bring about the sacrifice necessary to bring His people back to Himself. When you think of the first disciples, especially Jesus’ mother, grieving for three days over the loss of the One they believed to be the Messiah, you can imagine they were asking why. By the third day, everything began to become clear. The coming of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost a few weeks later sealed the deal. The disciples then understood what had happened; Peter said as much to the crowd that day asserting that the “lawless men” who crucified the Christ were unwittingly fulfilling God’s plan. (Acts 2:23-24)

As we struggle through the unsettling times created by the COVID 19 virus, we know why it is happening in the larger sense: COVID 19 is just another example of the chaos that pervades the creation. On an individual basis, we can also look for meaning if we try. Bible sales are at an all-time high; hopefully this means people are turning to God. Many people are behaving in more gracious ways than they would absent the crisis. As believers we should be doing everything we can to reach out with the love of God to whomever we can.

Also, believers should take the message of Psalm 62 to heart: worldly wealth and power are like a vapor that passes away, but God is a strong rock, a refuge in whom we can place complete confidence. We can rest amid the confusion because God has promised to be with us through the waters and in the fire. (Isaiah 43:2) Notice the promise is not to deliver us from calamity but to be with us in the midst of it. If the worst happens and the economy collapses while we suffer the loss of millions of people, believers should take the opportunity to draw closer to the God who promises justice but offers grace (aka unfairness) at the same time. The advice of the prophet Micah is timely: love justice, act kindly, and walk humbly with God. And remember: this chaotic world is not your home.