God is not the author of every source of heartache or agony. There is a huge gap between God’s perfect will and his permissive will. I’m still not sure why insurance companies categorize them as acts of God, but fire has the capacity to destroy and incinerate. In contrast, fire also has the capacity to provide warmth and light.
Gravity has the same impact on the just and the unjust. There was a neighbor, a dear lady who attended our church, who slipped and fell and hit her head. It was a fatal fall. Everytime I walk past the weekend home where she spent a lot of time, it always tugs at my heartstrings. Whether it is an accidential fall or a purposeful plunge to one’s death through an act of suicide, gravity is no respector persons.
God is not the source of every stupid decision that I make. Actually, he his not the source of any stupid decision that I make, but he does provide each of us with a freewill and sometimes our choices prove deadly.
The bold headlines in the Los Angeles Times caught my attention. It was a story out of the State of Washington. The headlines read: “A choir decided to go ahead with rehearsal. Now dozens of members have COVID-19 and two are dead”. It was early March and the Skagit Valley Chorale debated whether to go ahead with weekly rehearsal. The virus was already killing people in the Seattle area, but that was about an hours drive to the South. The choir’s conducter communicated to the 121 members in the choir that the weekly scheduled rehearsal would take place. Only 60 of the choir members actually chose to be in attendance. They kept their distance, didn’t make physical contact by shaking hands or exchanging hugs. Three weeks later, forty-five of the sixty members present tested positive for COVID-19, three were hospitalized and two had died.
In addition, you can rest assured that the choir members who attended, subsequently were a source of contagion for others. It isn’t just that the unwise decisions I make have the potential not to be in my best interest, they also have the potential to negatively impact other people.
By the way, God is not the cause or source of any of that. So where is God when it hurts? Both Mary and Martha said to Jesus when he arrived at their home following the death of their brother Lazarus, “If you had been here, our brother wouldn’t have died.”
John chronicles the experience: “When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.’ When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. ‘Where have you laid him?’ he asked. ‘Come and see, Lord.’ They replied. Jesus wept. The the Jews said, ‘See how he loved him!’ But some of them said, ‘Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?’”
When bad things happen, some often make the same accusation of God that Mary and Martha made of Jesus. “Lord, if you had been here, our brother would not have died”. The reality is, nothing touches our lives that also doesn’t touch God. The Scripture reads, “Jesus wept”. Jesus said to his disciples, “If you’ve seen me,you’ve seen the Father.”
This morning in “The Daily Article” written by Dr. Jim Denison, he references a 38-year old doctor in Italy who previously was exclusively scientifically focused and professed not to believe in God. The man’s story highlights that how a priest with COVID-19 impacted the life of his doctor. The doctor is now a believer.
Dr. Lulian Uran Lorenzo reportedly said of himself: “ I used to look at my parents at church and mocked them. A 75-year old clergyman arrived here nine days ago. A poor man. He was struggling to breathe. But he always had a Bible in his hand. He reads it to the patients who are dying and reads them quickly. He places the Bible in the hands of some and we looked at it intently.”
“Two of my colleagues have passed away. Some are sick. In total despair. We have been mentally and physically whole. We see at this point. Now we agree. As human beings, we have reached our limits. There is nothing we can do except increase the death toll of the people we care about. We began to notice his work. We begin to feel that God begins where man ends. Slowly we approach the priest; We started talking slowly. Truth be told, we who were atheists until yesterday, now pray to God for peace. Pray for us to help care for the sick. The courage that was supposed to be lost has somehow returned. We are more energetic now. Yesterday, that seventy-five-year-old priest died. That means 120 deaths in three weeks. He helped to give us the peace we never expected in just nine days, when all hope was shattered. Remembering that we were helped by his weakness…the good shepherd went to the Lord”.
Would to God, that our Christian witness could have that same impact on others.
All My Best!
Don