A Profound Insight

Once again I know this isn’t my usual type of posting, but this topic has really been on my heart lately and I wanted to share it with you.

A while back Billy Graham's daughter, Anne Graham, was interviewed on The Early Show. Jane Clayson asked her "...If God is good, how could God let this happen?" This question was in reference to the attacks on the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. Anne gave quite an insightful response. She said:

"I say God is also angry when he sees something like this. I would say also for several years now Americans in a sense have shaken their fist at God and said, God, we want you out of our schools, our government, our business, we want you out of our marketplace. And God, who is a gentleman, has just quietly backed out of our national and political life, our public life. Removing his hand of blessing and protection. We need to turn to God first of all and say, God, we're sorry we have treated you this way and we invite you now to come into our national life. We put our trust in you. We have our trust in God on our coins, we need to practice it."

I think Anne provides a good insight as to why we as a nation have arrived where we are at. We seem to have come to a place where we don't want God involved in anything we do except in times of crisis. During those times we tend to either turn back toward God, or curse Him for allowing the tragedy to happen. It seems like a double standard to me.

I remember a few weeks after the Columbine High School shootings of 1999 there was a letter written to the editor of the local paper. I was so struck by its simple truth that I cut it out and kept it. This is what it said:

Dear God,
Why didn’t you protect the little children at Columbine High School?
Sincerely,
Concerned Student

God’s Reply:
Dear Concerned Student,
I’m sorry but I am no longer allowed in schools.
Sincerely,
God

For some reason, people seem to think that because God didn’t intervene than he either doesn’t exist, he wasn’t able to intervene, or he doesn’t love us enough to intervene. All three of these statements have responses that are worthy of their own post, and perhaps someday I will address them individually when time allows (or someone requests it). However, they are false conclusions nonetheless. God loves you so much that he sent his child to die for you. It’s easy to tell your friend or your spouse that you’d die for them, but how about sacrificing your child for the benefit of someone you never even met? What about sacrificing your child for someone that hated you? Could you do that? My guess is that although we’d like to nobly answer that we would, in reality we never could. But God did. He not only talked the talk, he walked the walk by being nailed to a cross. Just because we don’t understand why he choose to act a certain way, doesn’t mean he doesn’t exist or wasn’t able to act. To come to that conclusion asserts that we have access to the same decision making criteria that God did. We knew all the factors and how each intricate part would play out. In other words, coming to that conclusion asserts that we are equal with God. The events of 9/11 and Columbine were horrible and hate filled. However, the ultimate act of love was previously demonstrated 2000 years ago. Everything else is just an undeserved blessing from God.