This Struck Me:
Yesterday, while reading a biography of Jonathan Goforth, a missionary to China in the early 1900s, I ran across a striking verse of Scripture.
The missionary kept a calligraphy copy of it in the pasted in the cover of his Bible.
The words were spoken by King David as he advised his son Solomon:
Be Strong and of good courage, and do it:
Fear not, nor be dismayed:
For the Lord God, even my God,
Will be with thee;
He will not fail thee,
Nor forsake thee,
Until thou hast finished all the work…
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posted by John Cowart @ 6:26 AM
5 Comments:
I feel the same way, Jaws! The conflict between my eternal belief and my dail life leaves me exhausted.
It doesn't sound very pious, but the way I deal with it is to say, "Screw it. I'm going to follow Christ as best I'm able at this moment".
Hudson Taylor, another missionary to China, said, "We are asked to do an impossible task, but we work with Him who can do the impossible".
That's the ticket.
But do you really believe in an interventionalist God, John? Because to me, the idea that God can help us if we only pray to him, or have faith in him, flies in the face of all those children who die from leukaemia, or young people who have tragic accidents, or even older people who die awful lingering deaths. Surely if God could change these things, he would. Hence the concept of a loving God who can watch over us, but cannot save us from tragedy. What do you think? (I understand if you don't want to answer - this is after all a very public forum)
Hi Jellyhead,
Thanks for the question you posed in your comment on my blog Thursday; it’s really profound and I don’t have an answer off the top of my head.
This is a problem I’ve worried for years and still I’m not satisfied with my own thinking on the issue. Ginny and I talked over your comment quite a while this morning and we came up with a few other thoughts but I’d like to think it over for another day.
Saturday, God willing, I’ll try a blog post about God’s intervention and the problem of pain and innocent suffering. This is way too deep a subject for me but I’ll give it a shot. OK?
Don’t mean to put you off but I don’t want to be flippant either; I think your question is the number one thing that bothers most of us about Christianity. I know it troubles me too.
And, no, it doesn’t bother me to worry the problem in a public forum but please e-mail me (johnwcowart@gmail.com ) if you’d prefer a private response. So unless I hear otherwise from you, I’ll post some thoughts about this Saturday.
John, thanks for replying. I'll look forward to hearing your thoughts in Saturday's post.
I'm interested in your post on Saturday too, John. As you know, I have been dealing with this issue for the past six months. Since Bug passed away suddenly, after fighting for survival for almost five years, I am having a wee issue with God. Yet, ironically, I want to believe in him even more than ever, just so I can see my boy again...
Quite the conundrum.
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