Friday, April 29, 2011

God is Good

As Christians (humans), we tend to be happy when we experience good things or when bad things pass us by.  For example, there was a tornado that just went by my brother and sister-in-law’s neighborhood and it missed their house. The tornado also missed their truck but destroyed everything that was across the street. They were extremely thankful and I do believe that this is a good thing.

This video and a couple others were posted on their Facebook page. Again, nothing wrong with that.



It is good to be positive, but it is not ok to avoid the reality that terrible things just happened to our neighbors.  Our thankfulness should not blind us to the reality that even though God is good, not everything in life is good.  Just because it was good for us does not mean it was good (or even ok).

The part that always makes me think is when you see or hear comments like “God is good! I am so glad y’all are ok,” and “thanking God you are both ok.” Again I agree with these statements.  I am thankful that my family members are safe and that their house wasn’t destroyed. But the reality is that people just a couple blocks away did loose their houses and there are people that are not ok.

Why are Christians often really only concerned with their friends and family? I didn’t comment on the video (posted on FB) because all I could think about is what is being done for those families who did loose their house.  How do we show/tell those people that God is good.

I guess there needs to be a balance between thanking God for out blessings and privileges and realizing that others are not always blessed and don’t always have the same privileges, while keeping in mind that we did not earn these blessings. 

One way that I think we can address this problem is by helping those who are not as fortunate as we are and understanding that negative situations and blessings are not any indication of how good of people we are.  The people whose house had a tree fall on it did not deserve that or earn it in any way.  We need to remember that we are not better than others.  We also need to avoid the mentality that "gee, I am glad I am not in their situation."

Any other thoughts out there?  How can we avoid thinking that we deserved to be blessed?  How can we be thankful and humble at the same time? 

I am also curious to know how this relates to the Problem of Evil (not the Problem of Pain as posed by C.S. Lewis)...I think this might become a future post!!!

1 comment:

  1. This is so true that we tend to forget about how some people were not so fortunate as others in these situations. We quickly point to the lucky ones and say how God has work a miracle, which in many cases may be true. I think if we follow Christs example here an perform service to those lost their house or whatever, it shows we are concerned. Not to mention I think it is a great opportunity to allow God to work within people to realize that having help and willing neighbors is also a blessing, and a good thing. Even in disaster, even with terrible things happening, good work can be done and blessings realized.

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