Everything's going to be okay

So, if you read this blog you know already: I am the eternal optimist. When it rains the flowers and plants grow (and I love food), when someone hurts me (generally!), it's just an opportunity to forgive and reflect upon how much I have been forgiven, when things don't go according to my plans, it's another reminder that God is in control and I am not. Sometimes it takes me awhile to get to these conclusions, but I usually crawl there eventually.

We have just completed another holiday that cause us to look back (they all cause us to look back!) with a somber heart. The more we remember, the greater our appreciation is for today. But the by-product of looking back to consider yesterday's effect upon today is generally pessimism about tomorrow. Our days can become full of talk of how great things used to be and how bad they are becoming. Consider the way that this president's (or the previous one, or the one before that) policies are messing things up. While I concur that decisions have impact and there are right and wrong ways to think and live, I officially reject the idea that our best days are behind us. Maybe as a country they are, maybe they are not.

But as believers, even if pain and trouble lurk in the future, I will never sulk and simmer about the absence of the what I think were the "good ol' days."

In these new days our personal freedoms may diminish, our taxes may skyrocket, our stuff could be taken, churches may go out of "business," and Christians may be imprisoned. So what?

If we believe that our chief calling and value is Christ and His gospel, then poverty and imprisonment will heighten it's glory (fame) and "our" message. The new days may be personally painful (maybe not), but they may better announce the gospel and prune the church. No matter how dark the situations we face feel, ultimately we can never depart from our understanding about who is manning the dimmer switch that decreases our perception of the light.

I write this blog entry in-between funerals and just days prior to a funeral for a close relative who took his own life in misery. If you read the posts below you see lots of pain in my world--and I know you live with the same pain. Hatred, brokenness, divorce, pain, and death? It's all part of the story.

In the title of this entry, I said everything is going to be "okay." Let me define this as I close. Okay= "God is using pain and trouble in this world to accomplish His appointed plans;" and "All history is marching toward God's intended end." I do NOT mean to say that everything for North American Christians will be comfortable. They won't--especially if God intends to do a great movement of marching against the gates of hell using us.

God used David and Solomon and Lydia (rich and influential people), but they did not accomplish God's purposes without lots of trouble. God also used Abel (in death), Joseph (in slavery and broken family conditions and famine), Joshua (through war), Samson (in death), Jonathan (by taking away what was lawfully his), Daniel (in kidnapping), Josiah (his parents died way early), Jeremiah ("weeping" prophet as Israel was "exiled"), Jonah (did he EVER believe???), Hosea (married a prostitute on purpose!), John the Baptist (lost his head), Saul/Paul (God would actually have to SHOW him how much he would have to suffer for His name's sake), Timothy (what was up with his dad??), and many others who were used in the midst of their broken lives and while they had to give up all conception of what their worlds deemed "normal."

I certainly don't pretend to say I know how things are going to turn out--for our comfort or pain. I do know that everything is going to be okay. Blessed be the name of the Lord.