As Hurricane Matthew barreled toward South Florida, I thought this was it. With a mixture of nervousness and anticipation, we were ready for our first hurricane. We stocked our provisions and battened down the hatches waiting for the worst and the inevitable power outage. But the lights didn’t even flicker. To our relief, it skirted just far enough east of us that it was a non-event. It didn’t even rattle the shutters.
That, of course, was not the case for many. It mowed down Haiti and wrecked half of the eastern seaboard. Social media, the platform for all wannabe savants regardless of qualification, couldn’t help but debate the attribution of this hit or miss destruction to God versus dumb luck. Someone started it with how “we were so lucky that the hurricane went around us and we were spared.” That person was immediately corrected by one of the faithful writing, “No, we weren’t lucky. We have the mercy of Jesus Christ to thank for sparing us.” That, of course, set up a schoolyard brawl as facebookers ducked their heads, closed their eyes and flailed their digital arms at each other. “Oh yeah,” one responds, “Jesus spared you while he killed hundreds of Haitians and destroyed everyone else’s lives. If that is your god, you can have him.”
So which is it? Is it God or luck of the draw when good and evil descend with no respect of persons? If we believe it is arbitrary luck, fine; we drop it right there. But if it is God, then we have a big problem coming to terms that one God could deal out both without distinction between the two. Most Christians deal with it by ascribing “good” things to God while saying He “allows” evil. That is a way of letting Him off the hook. No, you can’t have it both ways. If one is true, so must be the other. If it is true that it was God who showed “mercy” on one group, then it must be equally true that it was God who showed “wrath” on the other. Since it is a fact that God is good (1 Tim 4:4) and that God is love (1 John 4:8), then in either case, whether you call it wrath or whether you call it mercy, God must be displaying love in some form because He cannot operate from anything other than who He is.
The reason even believers have difficulty with this seeming contradistinction is the notion that things are divided into two groups: good and evil. Good is when we get what we want. God is blessing us. Evil is the opposite, when we don’t get what we want. How many times have you heard someone say how blessed they were when they got the job they wanted or they got that monetary windfall. Others jealously wonder why they have not been so blessed. The leaven of the so-called prosperity gospel has created a sense of entitlement equating God’s blessing with material wealth and status. They want the best of two worlds and Jesus said you can’t have both (Matt 6:24). They have left their first love (READ Have You Lost Your First Love? ) in pursuit of worldly blessings.
But, God doesn’t see it that way. Jesus said in Matthew and Luke that if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light (READ The Single Eye )
Matt 6: 22 The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.(KJV)
Jesus is saying there is only one power in the universe, not two. That means there is nothing done under heaven that doesn’t have God’s signature on it and, if so, then all He does all of it for your good even if it doesn’t “feel” so good. God says He makes peace and He creates evil (Isa 45:7), both for a single purpose–Love. Anything that comes between us and God will be taken away.
Disasters like this reveal either our divided outlook or our ability to see with the Single Eye. If you find yourself cursing God, then all you lost was a house built on sand that was destined to be washed away (Matt 7:26-27). This may sound callous and sanctimonious, but even loss of life reveals the same thing. If you loved your life more on this earth than God, then you traded eternal life for a handful of beans.
John 12: 25 Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.
The truth is we are so concerned with the first death, which is inevitable, that we give little thought to the second death (Rev 20:14) which has the power to separate us from God forever. Paul says that whether in life or death, Christ will be honored in his body (Phil 1:20) and he also said something that is totally contrary to this love affair we have with the world:
1 Phil 21 For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.
Sounds like he knew something many of us are missing.
Regarding material prosperity, loss of or lack thereof, Paul also said it was also of no matter. Whether a have or a have-not, we are to be content as Paul learned:
Phil 4: 11 Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. 12 I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need.
These truths cut to the chase of who we are in Christ. John divides believers into children, young men, and fathers (1 John 2:12-14). Knowing that God uses all things for our good (Rom 8:28) whatever we call it, good or evil, separates the mature from the immature in Christ. Knowing who you are in Christ is a sign of fatherhood in the gospel. True Life is knowing we have already died in Christ and it is no longer we who live, but Christ in us. Then we understand what it means “to live IS Christ” and all is Good.
Gal 2: 20 I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.
Read The Lost Coin by Samuel Hayes Sherwood. A young man’s journey takes him on a path revealing Total Truth about the mystery which is Christ in us.
