Someone (G. K. Chesterton) wrote that nursery tales “say that apples were golden only to refresh the forgotten moment when we found that they were red. They make rivers run with wine only to make us remember, for one wild moment, that they run with water.”
Apples are beautifully red. Rivers flow with swirling water. And life is wonderful…even in difficult times.
Thousands of years ago, a poet (King David) wrote to his God, “What is man that You take thought of him, And the son of man that You care for him? Yet You have made him a little lower than God, And You crown him with glory and majesty!” (Psalm 8:4-5)
There is more to life. You just have to look for it.
God is here and God helps.
Someone (Michael Behe) writing about the economic inflation of the 1970s said that, “Government looked to economists for advice on policy questions, and they eagerly gave it. But in reality no one actually knew how to solve the rapid inflation of the time…. Intricate mathematical models were built that included what were thought to be the most important economic factors, but to little avail.” (Darwin Devolves [2019], 20-21)
Sounds like what is happening this year with COVID. And this is not to disregard all the experts. But it does illustrate that man has limits.
2000 years ago, when Nero ruled and the Roman empire was in chaos, the apostle Paul found some people whom he rejoiced to see their “stability” of faith.
(Colossians 2:5)
Who wants some stability??? I know I do. And it is possible!
God is here and God helps.
The author Ernest Hemingway* was once challenged to write a complete story in just six words, and he wrote this —listen carefully: “Baby shoes for sale. Never worn.”
It’s a story of tragedy. And it resonates so powerfully because every life is full of tragedy—tragedy without and within, and tragedy enough to crush the soul.
Another man (King David) once wrote, “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.” (Psalm 23:4-6)
Picture it: Calmly having dinner when the enemies are poised to attack.
It’s not that the poet did not have any bad days; rather, he knew there was help available to handle bad days, and even turn them into good days.
God is here and God helps.
(*That it was Hemingway is disputed.)
Charles Darwin wrote (Letter to Asa Gray, May 22, 1860), “I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidae [a kind of parasitic wasp] with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars, or that a cat should play with mice.” These are gruesome!
Darwin continues —and pay careful attention: "Not believing this, I see no necessity in the belief that the eye was especially designed.”
Note that Darwin’s argument against design is NOT from science; rather, it is from his belief. This. Is. Profound.
Long before Darwin, an inspired wiseman (King Solomon) wrote, “The hearing ear and the seeing eye, The Lord has made both of them.” (Proverbs 20:12)
Do you have questions?
God is here and God helps.
You’ve heard of the ancient Battle of Thermopylae — when (and these are conservative estimates) 100,000 Persians came up against only 7,000 Greeks. One Greek soldier (Dienekes), when told that there were so many Persians that the multitude of their arrows would hide the sun, he said that this was good news: Because if the sun was hidden, then they would fight in the shade.
What perspective! What courage!
In another place and time, a man who suffered unjustly and was wrongly imprisoned wrote about surviving, and even excelling, despite the circumstances — this is what he wrote: “I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.”
(Philippians 4:13)
There is no doubt that life is tough. But we “can"!
God is here and God helps.
A man sees a sign through a shop window that says, “Shirts pressed here.” He goes in and begins taking off his shirt. The shop’s owner reacts, “Stop! I don’t press shirts. I make signs.”*
It’s a funny illustration of something being simple but not clear.
And though it may not always be clear, life is pretty simple. For example, consider this instruction to “make it your ambition to lead a quiet life and attend to your own business and work with your hands.” (1 Thessalonians 4:11)
How clear. And how simple.
Here is another instruction from the same book: “treat people the same way you want them to treat you.” (Matthew 7:12)
Clear. Simple. And at the same time, so profound: Life-changing. Even society-changing (if everyone joined in).
God is here and God helps.
*Adapted from Søren Kierkegaard, "Either/Or" [1843].
Studies show that even the smallest amount of lead in someone’s blood causes their IQ to fall, and long term exposure even at low levels is connected to poorer day-to-day experiences.
How sad! And this is why our government limits or bans lead altogether — it’s a no-brainer, and we know it.
So consider this: Sometimes, what is true about the body is also true about the mind and soul: “We are what we eat.” And a lot of what is out there actually pollutes our minds and has a negative impact our day-to-day experiences.
A smart man (the apostle Paul) once wrote, “All things are lawful, but not all things are profitable. All things are lawful, but not all things build up.” (1 Corinthians 10:23)
Be careful. Make good decisions. Live a better life — both now and in the future.
God is here and God helps.
Someone (Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker) said, “However many ways there are of being alive, it is certain that there are vastly more ways of being dead, or rather not alive.” He is right. But you are alive! Isn’t this amazing!
A Greek poet (Aratus) wrote, “We are his children.” What a comforting thought.
An apostle (Paul) said, “He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us.” (Acts 17:26-27)
You are alive. So make the most of this gift of life!
God is here and God helps.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was a Russian philosopher, historian, author, and political prisoner. In one story (A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich) he writes about a Soviet prisoner who is praying with his eyes closed when a fellow prisoner starts mocking him saying, “Prayers won’t help you get out of here any faster.” Opening his eyes, the man replies, “I do not pray to get out of prison, but to do the will of God.”
The story is fiction, but it was written by a man who understood both the course of life and the character and challenge of man: The question is not whether we will face difficulty, but what will we do while we’re going through it?
3,000 years ago another man (King David) who was having a really bad day said, “My heart is steadfast. O God, my heart is steadfast.” (Psalm 57:7)
God is here and God helps.
Francis Crick was one of the first great DNA scientists. And according to Wikipedia, “The Nobel prize winner…proposed that life may have been purposely spread by an advanced extraterrestrial civilization” (1).
Richard Dawkins, another evolutionist, also speculated that “a civilization…designed the form of life that they seeded onto this planet” (2).
Other scientists have said similar things. And our purpose is not to critique the form of the creator that they suggest, but to call attention to the fact that they admit it is possible... there even seems to have been a creator.
Someone (Moses; see Genesis 1) wrote about the beginning of time and life that God said, “Let there be....” And there is!
The point is that having questions about faith and questions about science— they’re both reasonable.
God is here and God helps.
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