CONCERT OF PRAYER

Pray Week 848

“Really?”

Acts 28:1-6 (NIV)  …Paul gathered a pile of brushwood and, as he put it on the fire, a viper, driven out by the heat, fastened itself on his hand.  When the islanders saw the snake hanging from his hand, they said to each other, “This man must be a murderer; for though he escaped from the sea, Justice has not allowed him to live.”  But Paul shook the snake off into the fire and suffered no ill effects…

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Have you ever had a ‘really?‘ moment?  A really moment is when circumstances take unpleasant and unexpected twists and turns leaving you with an incredulous expression on your face and all you can say or think is “really?”

In our reference Scripture, Paul had just survived a shipwreck only to be bitten by a viper when he gathered wood for a fire.  I can imagine Paul shaking off the viper and muttering to himself, “really?”.  The Bible documents the really moments of Job, David, and Joseph to mention a few.  These were all men of great faith who were bombarded with the unpleasant stuff of life.

The natives of Malta thought that Paul was a bad person because of the viper bite.  When bad things happen to bad people we say that they got what they deserved.  When bad things happen to what we perceive to be good people we wonder if they weren’t such good people after all.  Our judgments of who is good or bad coupled with our expectation that only good will come our way because we are Christians is not scripturally sound reasoning.

Jesus taught that no one is good except God.  The truth of God’s Word is that there is only one righteous standard and that is Jesus Christ.  All of our ‘goodness’ apart from Jesus is like filthy rags in God’s sight.  Yet God will call us saints if our righteousness comes through faith in Jesus.  Bad happens to the Christian and non-Christian alike. We live in a fallen, sinful world.  This is not Heaven, nor can we make it so.  Intellectually we understand that, yet many people question the love of God when tragic events happen to them or others.  When we view ourselves as good people we have a tendency to believe that we are entitled to only good.  We then begin to wrongly relate to God as an eternal blessing machine giving rise to expressing ‘really?’ as a pseudo prayer when stuff happens that we do not like.

God is our sovereign Lord.  He is the creator of all things.  The planets spin in orbit because He wills it.  Our very next breath or heartbeat happens because He allows it.  Trials will befall the believer and unbeliever alike.  Joni Eareckson Tada had a diving accident in 1967 which left her a quadriplegic in a wheelchair.  She had a choice to make when a bad thing happened to her and Mrs. Tada now has a worldwide ministry whose mission is to communicate the Gospel and to evangelize and disciple people affected by disabilities.  We too have similar choices.  We can choose to deal with difficult challenges alone or in the power and strength that comes from trusting in God and in His Love for us.  The choice is ours and God can work all the stuff that happens for our good and for His glory.

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. – Romans 8:28