Thursday, February 24, 2011

God's faithfulness and the troubles of this world

We live in interesting times. You can feel the uneasiness in the air. People are worried about the future more than before -- and after the last two years they were already worried enough, thank you very much. So I wanted to ask: How many times do we know of that God watched out for those who stood by him?

Peter the apostle started the list, showing the people of his day that even through lots of trouble, God knew how to take care of his own.
  • In the days of Noah, the whole world went down. But God saved Noah.
  • In the days of Sodom, the whole city went down. But God saved Lot. (2 Peter 2:5-7)
It's not like Peter had exhausted all the Biblical examples, either. In the flight from Egypt, plagues struck the whole land. But he saved Jacob's descendants. He has worked time and again to show his faithfulness to his people. They all suffered hardship. They all were spared from worse. And they all lived by faith, trusting that the one they followed is faithful.

If it's our turn now, our part is to show the hope that we have: that God is faithful; and to be ready to answer the reason for our hope: Jesus' resurrection from the dead. I think that, even if things don't get any worse, it's time for us to start living out our trust in God more boldly. Times are dark enough already, don't you think? No need to wait for worse. That is one way we can be a light in dark times.

Where to start? Peter said to cast our anxieties on God, because he cares for us (1 Peter 5:7). That sounds like a good place to start.

I should mention: Noah had to build an ark, and Lot had to get out of town. So trusting God goes hand-in-hand with taking action.

2 comments:

Anastasia Theodoridis said...

So trusting God goes hand-in-hand with taking action.

Always.

Build that Ark. Get out of town. Work out your salvation with fear and trembling.

Always the synergy.

Weekend Fisher said...

Hi Anastasia

You know, controversies do funny things to words that get caught up in them. "Synergy" is one of those words in the west. So don't be surprised if you have to re-phrase that to get many in the west to understand what you're saying. They're likely to hear "merit the attainment of eternal life" or "before our rebirth, we contribute to our rebirth", depending on which argument they've been caught up in more often.

And with that word having been ejected from the game for being caught in too many brawls, it does leave us looking for a language to discuss how, in our new life, we live it as children of God.

Take care & God bless
Anne / WF