Top
News Stories of the Day
UFO’s, Economic Collapse, War, and More
\
UFOs sited in Missouri, man attaches
dynamite to a dog and blows it up (for you dog lovers, the dog survived and is
being taken care of by a Good Samaritan who renamed him Rocket), a man bites
off parts of another man's face, Greece's economic woes may eventually impact
banks in the U.S. and an emergency U.N. meeting is called to deal with the
crisis in Syria—these are just some of the news items of the day.
If I was an alien on a UFO visiting, I think
I would hightail it and find another planet on which to take a vacation where
there was more peace and less war. On a more serious note, how is it possible
to listen to the news stories that bombard us day in and day out and not become
depressed or despondent?
Many years ago at a Christian writer's
conference, an editor asked me what I do for a living.
"I provide closed captioning for
television," I told him. His eyes lit up as if there must be plenty of
writing material in those juicy stories.
I laughed at him and shook my head.
What good stories could I write? Oftentimes the news left me depressed. Perhaps
the same sentiment was felt by Nathanael in John 1:46 when he commented about
Jesus’ birthplace, "Can anything good come from Nazareth?"
But my response to that editor has always
bothered me. Can I not find good in the world if I look for it? Does God not
bring good out of evil? Can He not redeem the worst story I have ever reported?
Sometimes at night when I'm falling
asleep, I will think back to something I captioned during the day and will be
troubled. I won’t be able to get a disturbing image out of my mind. Perhaps
it's Satan's way of attacking me—after all, if He can make me doubt God's love
and providence, how effective can I be in my witness?
In my limited wisdom, all I can feel or
see is the pain and suffering inflicted. And while I despise someone else’s
gross behavior, as a sinner, I am just as guilty at hurting others. Sometimes I
wonder how God tolerates it all. How can He not get angry? If I have a righteous
indignation in my limited understanding, how much more so does God become
angry?
In I Corinthians 2:7, the Bible speaks
of God having a secret wisdom—a wisdom that is hidden, that not even kings and
presidents and premiers can understand. Not only that, but He says that He “destined”
to give that wisdom to us even before time began.
The Bible also claims that Jesus would
not have been crucified if the rulers had understood what it was they were
doing. That means it was necessary that the people not understand what happened
to Him as even today we don't understand many of the things that happen in the
world.
When I am closed captioning and wonder,
how could God let that happen, I remind myself that I am thinking this way
because I don't have the wisdom of God. It's not like God sits up in the
heavens wringing His hands and wondering how mankind screwed up His planet. Not
only does He know, but whatever He has planned for us far surpasses even the
most horrendous event that can happen in our lives.
It takes a lot of faith for those roots
to go deep into the human heart. I Corinthians states, "No eye has seen,
no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who
love Him." That means physically and mentally we can't know, but God has
revealed it to us by His Holy Spirit.
In Matthew 24:12, when referring to the
latter days and the signs of the end of the age, Jesus stated, "Because of
the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold..."
It's very easy to read this and
flippantly think, "Oh, I would never do that. I will always love my
neighbor, my family, my husband." No matter what happens, can we believe
that? Is our love greater than that murdered child or broken heart or abused
animal? Is God's love greater still? Even if I don't understand it now, it is
enough to know that someday I will.
As Peter said in John 6:68, "Lord,
to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life." My faith must be
strong enough to stand up to the worst of humanity because Satan is relentless.
His fate is sealed and he has nothing to lose. Whenever I start to doubt,
again, I remind myself it is God who holds the words of truth.
One thing we can do in response to the
news is be an intercessor. God never tires of hearing our prayers. Some of
those suffering souls that get reported in news stories may not know the
Savior, but we know as Christians the one who holds their future. We can be
assured that God's love is deeper than their pain and great enough to reach
across states, oceans, and continents.
On a grander scale, I fear not so much a
battle with weapons of mass destruction as I do the war imposed on Christian principalities
and beliefs—Sharia law, government intrusion on privacy, and the validation of same
sex marriage, just to name a few.
In light of that, some upcoming topics
may make you uncomfortable. Please feel free to leave comments as I love to
hear from you.
*~*~*~*
No comments:
Post a Comment