Life isn't perfect but it's pretty darn good. I have a great job. I live in a nice community. My wife and kids are healthy and happy. We are able to go on fun vacations and generally enjoy our lives, but sometimes there's a sense of anxiety that accompanies all of this and I'm betting you've felt it too.
I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop. In the newspapers and on television we hear of others less fortunate. Those who have lost their children or parents in car accidents, natural tragedies, and crimes. Those who contract some kind of rare disease from which there is no cure. Those who have the misfortune of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. We see these reports and silently thank God we're not the subject of them. But there are no guarantees and that's the disturbing part.
Bad things happen and there's no guarantee they won't happen to me, or to you. Those of us who place our faith in Jesus Christ often don't fair much better when it comes to worrying about our unpredictable future. Although we read in the Bible that God watches over us, that He loves and cares for us, we still witness bad things happening even to those who put their trust in Him. On rare occasions bad things even happen to people because they put their trust in God.
It can be a challenge to maintain a faith in a loving God with disaster and tragedy all around us. We know, at least in a logical level, that all of these things occur as a result of a fatal human flaw. We know that this is the cost of free choice in a fallen world. We can't have free choice in a fallen world and not reap the results of those choices. It seems like an awfully high price and we still wonder at how God can allow bad things to happen.
But there's one other thing we haven't taken into account. We haven't counted on the fact that our time in the world is barely a blink of an eye when compared to eternity. This physical world of ours is all we've ever known. We believe there is a world beyond, but it seems so far away, so impermanent. Fortunately, it isn't. It's real. The only way we can begin to grasp how God can allow bad things to happen is by placing the whole thing within the context of eternity. Right now is barely a blink of an eye in comparison. From God's perspective, any tragedy we face must be balanced against allowing us free will in the context of eternity.
If we could only, somehow, have that same perspective. If we could somehow hold on loosely to this present life and live it to it's fullest, come what may, then we can begin to understand the eternity that awaits.
The other illusion we live under is that we are alone. Consider what it would mean if we were to constantly acknowledge Christ is next to us at all times, invisible, but always there. How would it change us?
I'm linking you btw. We seem to have a lot in common.
DC
I couldn't agree with you more. It's hard for us to get it through our thick skulls that God is always with us - but He is.
-Jim.
The Scriptures do not promise an easy life, and in fact Jesus said that we will have "many troubles." However, even in this brief life in a bent world, we do have the hope of the Psalmist:
"I have been young, and now am old;
yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken,
nor his seed begging bread." - Psalms 37:25
Yes, but that's not what I'm getting at in this article. My point is that even when times are good we grow anxious because of what might happen in the future.
-Jim.