by Neil Earle
There is this great scene near the end of “Fiddler on the Roof” where the hapless Jewish villagers have to pack up and leave Russia. Someone says, “Wouldn’t this be a good time for the Messiah to come?”
I can imagine many people feeling the same way about now, halfway through a frazzled and inane election cycle. One report from the Sudan puts this in perspective – the horrible civil war there has led to about 8 million deaths since 1998 according to the San Gabriel Valley Journal. Wow! How can we get our minds around suffering on such a scale.
Now that really does make you pray, Thy Kingdom come. Little wonder people ask if there really is a God. Or has he gone off somewhere?
People wondered the same thing in Isaiah and Ezekiel’s day as well (Isaiah 49:12; Ezekiel 8:14). The hopeless lament is not unfamiliar to readers of the Bible. At such times we need to turn to our mentors and spiritual guides in the faith. The English pastor John Stott (pictured left in blue tie, with author) was and is one of my guiding lights. The agile-minded Stott could extract so much spiritual encouragement from just one text – say, Romans 8:28. As Stott explained in The Message of Romans, this beautiful text has also been slightly mistranslated in the English versions.
According to careful scholars the verse should read, “In all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” It could even read, “We know that for those who love God he is working for good…”
This makes more sense. There’s no way that cancer or diabetes is good, or the second tragedy at Virginia Tech, or the head wounds sustained in Iraq or the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians who have suffered these past five years or the twelve year old girls beheaded in Afghanistan.
No. Nothing good here. But for those whom God has called he is still ceaselessly, energetically working for good in and through their lives, claims Stott. Let’s see how.
God works in the lives of his people. Jesus prays for us in heaven and sends His Spirit to intercede for us here on earth (Romans 8:26). He called us to his eternal purpose, to inherit eternal life. Thus, the evil that often occurs even in the lives of God’s people has a purpose. It perfects us, molds us and shapes us for our ultimate life in an eternal Kingdom.
But we are “now” people while eternity is God’s bailiwick. Ultimately, trials come to drive us back in utter dependence upon God who is our ultimate source. Paul said that about his death-defying episodes in Ephesus – “I fought with beasts at Ephesus” (1 Corinthian 15:32). Yet God delivered him again and again and for a higher purpose – to show him how to teach others that God will indeed deliver us as long as he has a further purpose in our lives (2 Corinthians 1:3-6).
God is at work for good. Last year one of my parishioners was sternly summoned to court because he had forgotten the date of a previous court appearance. He was scared. The judge looked tough. The man just before him was trundled off to jail. Then the judge looked at my friend. “Now, Mr. Jenkins, I don’t know you from Adam but I am here to listen to your story.” Our member was shocked but, realizing his fervent prayers for mercy had been answered, he told his story and escaped without paying a fine. I know, I was his supervisor during the community service to which he was “sentenced” and which he served faithfully. As the patriarch Joseph’s up-and-down life shows (Genesis 50:20), God makes bad things turn out good. He is just that wise…and wonderful.
In every day in every way, Ephesians 3:20 is fulfilled somewhere in his people’s lives. Problem is that God’s interventions don’t make the 6 o’clock news. But they happen all the time. Come to church and ask some people there.
God works for good in all things. That has to include the worst situations we can go through.
I read an article “How Diabetes saved my Life.” It showed how a man diagnosed with this wretched condition was finally forced to get a doctor’s help, get better life care, look after himself more as old age approached. He radically changed his life style for good. He eats better, sleeps better, works better. It can happen. “There is no power can conquer you/While God is on your side/Take him at his promise/Don’t run away and hide.” These words from a famous hymn are a good guide as we go through 2012 in his service.
God works for the good of those who love him. This is, as Stott says, a necessary limitation. We who have been given the love of God inside us do have to respond to God in loving service which means serving God’s people, the fickle children as well as the cantankerous elderly. We must love and serve the world as well, and today people cut off from God seem more miserable and harder to help than ever.
How to show forth the love of God? By returning often to our Source, spending time with God, being passionate in our pursuit of God, repenting, acknowledging our sins, and forsaking them by the power of the Spirit. Those who love God can’t stand being 2-3 days away from a Bible. It cries out to them and rightly so. In the words of that living Word are emblazoned the promises that God will not fail us or forsake us, no matter what our handicap. Here is one of my favorite promises: “Even the youths shall faint and be weary…but those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint” (Isaiah 40:30-31).
Let’s take him at his promise in 2012. That way, God’s blessing pouring into us through his Spirit will flow on out to others in love and good works. Our little corner of the world can be transformed, recaptured for the Kingdom of God.
God works for those called according to his purpose. The word “purpose” is used a lot in Paul’s writings. This shows us that life is not the random mess it sometimes seems. It is not that God is a Fairy Godmother or Magic Genie of the Lamp. But sooner or later true Christians realize that God is there, really there, in all life’s seemingly senseless predicaments. That means we have to complete the circuit. Part of God’s purpose in our loves is to transmit the love and faith we receive and feel to other people. We are his agents on earth – his hands, his arms, his eyes and ears.
This stupendous challenge is crystallized for us in 2 Corinthians 5:20. There we are called credentialed Ambassadors for Christ, “as though God were pleading thorough us.” That’s quite a mission statement. God has a Purpose. His purpose goes beyond us just “getting” salvation. It involves us being the people who display the love and mercy of God in 2012, to light up our little corner of the world. That’s an exceedingly high calling, one we couldn’t begin to attempt on our own. But with God’s help, all things are possible.