That's How He Is

He will judge everyone according to what they have done. He will give eternal life to those who keep on doing good, seeking after the glory and honor and immortality that God offers. But he will pour out his anger and wrath on those who live for themselves, who refuse to obey the truth and instead live lives of wickedness.  Romans 2:6-8

As a teenager, I struggled with the concept of someone getting their just due.  Whenever someone did someone else wrong, I would lash out seeking justice for the wrongdoing.  Of course many times, it would be me who was at the wrong end of the stick, and my frustration level would be incredibly high.  “Oh why, oh God, have you decided to look favorably upon them of all things???”  My thinking was that I was a good person, and why someone who ‘clearly’ was not as good as me gets the glory while I was left to feel emptiness and pain. Being born again, my walk of faith would help me see that I was not as good as I should be.  My sins were at times as great as and greater than others, and I was not worthy of such blessings.  It was that change in perspective that caused me to focus less on what others did to earn their keep and more on what I should be doing to live a life worthy of the sacrifice of Christ.  I’m still working on it, and the more I find myself doing God’s bidding, the better I feel about how God has affected my life.

Our walk of faith requires focus on our own growth and not of the actions of others.  With some of the events that happened over the past week, it might cause many of us to struggle.  Why would someone do such an evil thing, and where was God in all of it?  Why did God put so many people in harm’s way?  Many of us may have those questions in our minds, and others struggle with these questions particularly from nonbelievers.  Our response is not to fully explain these things to them.  Instead, ours is to reflect on what God might be trying to tell us, and we must then respond with love on others as God would.  We are to remember that we live in a fallen world where sometimes, evil wins.  Nonetheless, we are responsible to respond with a Godly heart.  Thus we might say, “No, I do not know why some man decided to kill those innocent people, but I do know without question God loves us.  He would want us to love on those who were affected by the tragedy, and be a little kinder and a little more caring and humble to one another.”

We know God has all things under His control, and we will only know the full story when we see Him in Heaven.  In the meantime, we cannot focus on those things that we have no control over.  We must embrace that which we do control and more importantly how we respond to it.  One of my favorite verses in the Bible is from Job that says, “ . . . the Lord gave, and the Lord have taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” (Job 1:21 KJV)  So if you are struggling to accept what someone else has done or received, stop focusing on what happened.  Use it as a tool to magnify the glory of God and focus not on your disappointment.  How can we see tragedy through God’s eyes?  How can we show love, grace, and comfort to those who may not even deserve as much?  My prayer is that we focus less on the ‘why it is’ and more on the ‘How He is.’  Amen.