Abba, Where Are You?

With the current events spinning, seemingly out of control, it is not too far of a question to ask, Dad, where are you? We find ourselves in our current lives, being bombarded with media, some from reliable sources we have come to know and trust—sort of, along with media as if we were standing under a waterfall. Pictures, videos, sound bites seemingly with no end, fill our heads with ideas, images, opinions of what we should know, shouldn’t know, should do something about, endlessly pulling at us. Now, with artificial intelligence, images and people speaking words we find out are manufactured. What we are looking at or listening to, isn’t real.

Good times.

Which brings us to the age-old question often asked by non-believers and believers as well—if there is a God, a loving caring God, why does he let things like this happen? Good question.

     One of the first…

One of the first things that seems to go when we are in a stressful environment, is our hold on the fact God is in charge. Well, if He is in charge, why is He allowing this to happen? And Evil smiles because between the relationship we have with God, Evil considers it a victory for standing between the two of us. When we ask the question, we have a tendency to immediately take over peddling the bike ourselves. If God doesn’t have this, I gotta take it myself. We pull back what we have released to Him and decide He apparently has forgotten about us and we need to take over or we will die in a fiery death.

Here’s the thing we have a tendency to forget in the moments of doubt and panic—God being God.

     He is perfect….

He is perfect, which means His Plan is perfect. The most studied and documented book in the history of the world outlined His role in this world. Nothing gets by Him, not yesterday, today, or tomorrow. We have been contaminated by sin when this world started. We could not help but sin, separating ourselves from God. God knew that would happen when He gave us free will to choose to love Him. Yep, we had to choose. We still do. Love is not a compliance rule. It is a choice. So, He knew man wanted to be in charge as part of his nature so, He gave us laws to follow. Do these things, every day, for the rest of your life, and live a sinless life and atone for your sins the way I teach you.

Over the millenniums, we learned we cannot do that—ever. And Abba knew that. So, there was a plan in The Plan. To pay for those sins once and for all with the perfect sacrifice. God Himself. There was only one condition. We had to accept it. All of it. There is a God. He came to earth and lived.  died for our sins. He rose from the dead. That’s it. We believe that and we’ve done it. From then on, instead of not being able to not sin, we now can choose to be holy. Yep. The ‘H’ word. We have been cleaned.

     …what does that do….

‘Okay Mark, what does that do for the world around us? In case you haven’t noticed, it’s a dumpster fire out there.’ https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=psalm%2074&version=ESV

Yep, it is. But we have seen worse. Fear is an incredible weapon Evil uses. But what about this idea, we can’t fix it. We, as individuals, can’t fix what we are watching. But we can believe God can and as part of His Plan, there is a reason this is being allowed to happen. Part of it might be it causes us to re-evaluate our relationships with others. We can choose to love better. Sacrificially like God did.  But it’s still good if we don’t. And most importantly, it brings us back to Him.

I love the thief on the cross story.

     He was one….

You might remember that guy. He was one of two crucified on each side of Jesus. One guy was talking smack then this guy Jesus, the second thief, told him to shut up (my version). Then, he simply asked Jesus to remember him in heaven. That simple act of a grain of faith, got him the ticket in. It recognized the role of God, Jesus, salvation through faith. BOOM!https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+23%3A32-43&version=ESV

So, tomorrow, if you can believe, with a simple grain of faith, that the God of the universe did that for you, you are holy, because with that, God now lives in you. You are the temple of God and God cannot live anywhere that is not clean. You’re it. This means you walk as a holy person. You can choose to believe you are who God says you are. Walk like that. Talk like that. Listen like that. You now have the skill set.

There is A Plan. You are part of it.

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/insideourgooeyminds/about/markwilliams