Tag Archives: trouble

It’s A Good Thing God Is In Charge

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This past Friday was somewhat chilly and yet beautifully sunny. Even if only for a moment, it was as if spring welcomed summer to the podium for a few words of encouragement. Smiling brightly, he comforted his onlookers, promising eventual warmth.

“It’s nice to see all of you,” he said to his winter-worn Michigan audience. “Not to worry,” he continued. “I’ll be back soon, and I intend to stay for a while.”

Evelyn and I smiled at summer’s joyful appearance, the sun beaming brightly as we made our way to the church and school. I would spend my Friday as I usually do, catching up on the previous week’s unfinished business. Evelyn would enjoy the fast-fleeting days of her eighth-grade school year.

Thankful to the Lord for the lovely day, we cued an appropriate song for the morning’s travel: “Mr. Blue Sky” by Electric Light Orchestra. Singing along, the morning’s joy was seemingly impenetrable. I smiled. Evelyn smiled. Another song played. It was “Brown Eyed Girl” by Van Morrison. Still, nothing changed. We sang and smiled and enjoyed the sun-filled landscapes passing along beside us.

But then, near the end of our journey, as is our way, we took a moment to listen to the news.

The first and only story we could stomach was about a man on trial for beating his five-year-old daughter to death. Living in their car, it seems she soiled herself one time too many in her sleep. In a rage, he pummeled her brutally. After a few moments of gurgling moans, the little girl went quiet.

“I think I really hurt her this time,” he said nonchalantly to his wife before taking a bite from a sandwich. Unaware that he’d killed her, he shot up with heroin and then continued along his way.

For as effortlessly happy as the morning had begun, suddenly, the sun’s rays annoyed my eyes, and the sky wasn’t as cloudless and blue as before. It was motionless and empty. The passing trees no longer adorned but loomed. There were more shadows than sunlit spaces.

While just as dreadful as so many other atrocities available to this devolving world, child abuse is the one crime that cooks my arteries more than most. It’s the epitomized juxtaposition of powerful and powerless, strong and weak, predator and prey. Evelyn’s first words were that the man should pay dearly for his crimes. I agreed. However, I didn’t interpret my agreement for her. The newscaster noted he’d been sentenced to 56 years in prison. Prison wasn’t a part of my initial calculation. I had something much, much worse in mind. And so, my initial words to Evelyn were, “It’s a good thing God is in charge.” Evelyn

Why am I sharing this with you? I suppose partly because today is Mother’s Day, and I’ll while driving to the church this morning, I was thinking about all the ways my wife, Jennifer, is such a wonderful parent to our children—how she loves them with all that she is. Anyone thinking this way will make comparisons, whether they realize it or not. The newscast, still fresh in my mind, interrupted my thoughts. I couldn’t imagine a parent doing what that man did.

I suppose another reason I’m sharing this is because there’s a better point to be made. Friday morning’s happenings coalesced as a reminder relative to faith’s presence.

I described a beautiful day unexpectedly charred by tragedy’s flame. And yet, our initial inclination to rejoice in God’s beautiful creation, even as it turned dark, remained steady into and through the tragic news. We had a choice of proverbial replies in that shocking moment. Our shared response could’ve been, “How could God let this happen?” But it wasn’t. We didn’t blame Him. Intuitively, we both knew better than to think we could manage this world and its inevitable dreadfulnesses more skillfully than God. Instead, we gathered around the position, “It’s a good thing God is in charge.” In a way, this was both confession and thanksgiving. It confessed darker inclinations toward another human being while showing gratitude for God’s gracious hand in all things. It admitted that while we may not know what’s going on, God knows, and with that, we can rest assured. 

Now, I’m not going to examine the problem of suffering. Indeed, the girl’s death is terrible. Again, it’s a good thing I was not in charge of the universe when it happened. In the meantime, I’ll simply say that such tragedies should not surprise us in this fallen world. Sin enjoys many capable hands, and each perpetrated awfulness is just one more fingerprint proving sin’s infectious reach. God told us it would be this way (Romans 5:12; 1 Corinthians 15:21). Following the fall into sin, He said to Adam, “Cursed is the ground because of you” (Genesis 3:17). Regardless of what you may have learned, this is not God cursing the earth. It was resultant. בַּֽעֲבוּרֶ֔ךָ is the word God used. “Because of you” is its translation. Adam was to blame. His action (or, more precisely, his inaction during Satan’s interaction and allure with Eve) injected the fatal poison. Still, we know that two short verses before in Genesis 3:15, God promised He would reach into and fix what was broken. The Messiah would come, and the curse would be turned back.

Having said these things, I’ll aim toward a conclusion by offering two quick observations. First, and similar to something I already said, when Christians don’t know what’s going on, not only can we trust in God’s perfect awareness and care, but we are empowered by the Holy Spirit for recalling what we do know, which is that God is by no means distant from this world. The most extraordinary proof is the cross. Behold the fulfillment of Genesis 3:15. Behold the suffering and death of God’s Son. Behold His intimate and inreaching love for a humanity mired in sin and destined for eternal condemnation.

Second, by the power of the Holy Spirit, Christians are equipped to endure this world’s bipolar mess. And it’s just that, a bipolar mess. No matter the road before you, life has sharp ups and downs. It swings back and forth suddenly. Still, by the Spirit’s power, a Christian can navigate both. In the good times, a Christian holds tightly to God, giving thanks for His kindliness. During the upheavals, a Christian holds tightly to God, too, assured that we are never left to our own devices and glad for His gracious care in all things, especially the care He showed by sacrificing His Son to save us from this temporary world for the unending world to come.

Let this be an encouragement to you today.

Goodbye, Summer

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This summer has been and continues to be a challenging one. I don’t intend to bemoan my circumstances. Neither am I pleading for a reprieve from the arrayed struggles. I’m simply relaying that I do not expect to look back on the summer of 2023 with any measure of fondness. It has been busier than busy, sometimes crueler than cruel, and occasionally sprinkled with some enjoyably restful moments. Our time together in Florida was one. Taking Evelyn to see a NASCAR race was another. In between, far too many negatives filled the gaps.

As I said, I don’t mean to complain. Complaining accomplishes nothing. Muscle through and do; that’s more my way. Complaining invites excuses and accepts defeat. Ask Jennifer. I don’t accept defeat too well, but mostly because there almost always seems to be a way to succeed. You just need to find it. The adage rings true that you can either be a part of the problem or a part of the solution.

Part of acknowledging any challenging situation means admitting to what’s really going on behind the scenes in this world. Sin is a very real thing, and it has infected everything. I should not be surprised when the season I look forward to more than any other becomes something to endure rather than enjoy. Sin will do that. God certainly doesn’t promise immunity from tragedy to His Christians—at least not in the way the name-it-and-claim-it charlatans of this world suggest.

On the contrary, He assures us we’ll experience trouble. Jesus said as much to His disciples, saying, “In the world you will have tribulation” (John 16:23). But He didn’t end His words there. He continued, “But take heart; I have overcome the world.” Here the Lord promises His care. He promises to give us what we need to endure. Saint Paul echoed the same, writing, “God is faithful…he will provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it” (1 Corinthians 10:13).

While He gives what’s necessary to each believer as He knows best, as you can see, there’s something He sets before the whole world: the Gospel—absolute hope through faith in Christ and the promise of eternal rest apart from sin’s terrifying grip. That hope is endurance’s fuel. Interestingly, Christian endurance produces some pretty neat behaviors. For example, in times of trouble, when I discover myself stretched to my emotional extremities, I become attuned to the humor in seemingly humorless things. Just this morning, my backpack on my shoulder, my rolling bag in one hand, and a cup of coffee and my keys in the other, I attempted to use my foot to open my office door only to lose my balance and stumble forehead-first into its solid oaken barrier.

It hurt. How I managed to fumble like that, I don’t know. Still, I laughed because it was ridiculously funny.

Over the years, I’ve come to realize that the man who can laugh at whatever befalls him demonstrates a type of lordship over this world. From the Christian perspective, he proves a Job-like verve capable of saying, “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21). He can speak along with King David who wrote so daringly, “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? (Psalm 27:1). He can be at peace because he “is not afraid of bad news; his heart is firm, trusting in the Lord (Psalm 112:7). He’s already asked and answered himself, “What can flesh do to me?” (Psalm 56:4).

Nothing. Everything sin has corroded is passing away. “Behold,” the Lord said, “I am making all things new” (Revelation 21:5).

With this trustworthy Word from our gracious Savior, bad news is a toothless beastie, tragedy is a pinprick, catastrophe is a mouse’s shadow, and heartbreak is a wound needing little more than a Band-aid. All this is true because, as Saint Paul wrote so plainly, we are justified before God by faith in Jesus Christ (Romans 5:1). The endgame has already played out on Calvary’s cross. Now, everything is endurable by the power of the Holy Spirit at work within us. I’d say, maybe even laughable. Paul explains:

“Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (Romans 5:1-5).

In conclusion, please don’t think I’m making light of anything you might be enduring right now. I’m not. And neither is our Lord. I’m merely setting a point of origin for steering into all of it. You have hope. God said so.