FC Inspiration...

Sitting here in awe of FC once again, this is about how I feel. I was looking at the calendar, realizing that 9/11 is coming up….I’m going to warn in advance, this may be a little long, so pull up a chair. Most of the time when I answer on FC, I respond to what was said, and have little time to really think, so I wanted to answer a couple of thing on my blog that have been brought up there….more to think through things than anything.

9/11 reminds me, that we really do live in a tragic world. This is a result of living in a fallen world…no one is exempt from it, even the most Godly. Paul was one of the most effective and dedicated workers in history, yet his life was full of tragedies until it ended under the blade of a Roman executioner.

Paul suffered at least as many heartaches and hardships as any of us ever will, and yet their painful occurrence never shook his confidence in a good and loving God. Why not?

Paul didn’t see tragedy as evidence against the existence of a compassionate heavenly Father. In fact, he wrote, “for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:10) He delighted in them not because he enjoyed pain, but when life overwhelmed him, he knew God would step into help. I delight in my weaknesses because it is in that weakness that God has the opportunity to display to the world His own strength, for that I am grateful!!!

Jesus himself told us to expect pain and difficulties in this life. John 16:33….I thank God tho that this isn’t where it ends for the believer.

God is in control even when it doesn’t feel like it. We don’t understand how this can be when we face tragedy, but our lack of understanding doesn’t destroy the truth, nor diminish it. Before we were born, God knew exactly how long we would live and how we would die. “All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be,” the psalmist said to God in Psalm 139:16 – that will remain true for all time.

God has a purpose for what He allows even if we don’t know what it is. From our perspective, tragedies look meaningless and senseless and chaotic, but God knows how to take even tragedies and bring good out of them.. When we get home to heaven, we will finally see His purposes even in the tragedies of life. Sometimes it is a wakeup call… CS Lewis wrote once that “pain is God’s megaphone to a deaf world.” Sometimes that’s what it takes for spiritually dead people to wake up. Thank God that He would allow that, but what a shame it would take such a wake-up-call to open the eyes of some…

We can find hope in tragedy…..this world in not our home. We were created for eternity.