The Glow

Tonight as I drove home, I saw an extraordinarily bright orange-yellow glow right on the eastern horizon, over the town of Bastrop, Texas, which suffered from such severe wildfires this summer. It was, of course, an unusually large, bright moonrise through a veil of clouds that magnified and dispersed the haunting light.

Yet for several miles down the road, over and down hills, hidden by trees and the ever teasing cloud it was very hard to tell for sure whether the glow brought beauty or disaster.

Overwhelmed?

It is so easy to get overwhelmed with all of the problems in the world. Our politics, conflicts abroad, drugs, school violence and lockdowns, poverty, starvation, the sex and slave trades, religious conflicts (armed, verbal, legislative, etc.), and the list keeps going.

Jesus didn’t heal every sick person in Israel, much less the world, nor did He right every injustice around Him, but He confidently said that He had done everything He came to do.

For us, we aren’t God, so we can’t hope to solve every problem. However, I think the solution is to see what issues impassion you and prayerfully pursue those, and not feel guilty for not pursuing others. It is easy to be guilted by others’ passion, but resist. Many if not most of these problems are desperately real, and so be grateful and encourage others in pursuing their passions, and share yours with them. Just don’t be insulted or think less of them if they don’t jump on board with you. It goes both ways.

We will each have peace and encouragement, and more will be done as we mutually encourage each other while remaining focused on the tasks we’ve been given.

SDG

If My People, Part 2: Now What?

“if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”

II Chronicles 7:14

Yesterday, I explained the primary reason why it is problematic for Christians to claim the above verse, namely that it is a promise explicitly given to the nation of Israel after the dedication of Solomon’s temple, and the context of the verse strongly implies a physical nation with real estate, something that the Church simply does not have (with the possible exception of Vatican City).

But, as Christians (literally, ‘those like Christ’), don’t we have more reason to claim that we are called by His Name than Israel (literally ‘strives with God’)? Yes, but we are not a nation, nor a “kingdom of this world.” Furthermore, as Christians, we are literally under a new covenant with God, and the Chronicles verse is made to those under the old. As St. Paul indicates (in Galatians, I think), why would we seek promises from the old covenant when the new is so much better?

Where does that leave us? Do we have any recourse when faced with natural disasters, war, political crises and the like?