Personal Storms

One dark afternoon in my childhood, a storm was brewing. It was the kind of storm that moved my Grandmother to bring all her children into the house, shut the doors and windows tight, unplug the t.v., refrigerator, and stove. On this particular evening, as we huddled in the central bedroom of our home, the wind howled mightily and the rain fell suddenly. I could hear the tree limbs near my bedroom scraping against the side of the house with a scratching, clawing sound. My Grandfather, noticing my nervousness, chuckled a little, and said: "Don't worry, SonBoy. This is just one of God's good little storms. I'll show you the meaning in the morning."


I woke up the next morning to the smell of my Grandmother's bacon and headed to the breakfast table. I had forgotten about the storm. Near the end of breakfast, my Grandfather winked at me: "SonBoy, let's go out in the front yard. I want to show you the meaning of that storm last night,"


From the front porch I could see the lawn littered with black, skeleton like limbs that had fallen out of the trees. The yard was full of broken, twisted limbs. "SonBoy", my grandfather said...."See what God has done? At the end of winter the Lord often sends a storm to clean out the trees. With the soaking rain, the limbs get heavy, and with the blowing wind, the dead and dying fall out on the ground. What the Lord is doing in a storm like that, is getting ready for Spring. He's cleaning out the dead stuff from the living tree, so Spring can come."


Across the years I have seen this principle applied in many areas of life. Sometimes a lot of decaying and dead stuff gets accumulated in our lives. Hurt and pain, unforgiveness, disappointment, bitterness, envy, strife can collect and build up in a person, a family, an organization. Soon, a long winter seems to set in. A mood takes over. A storm is coming.


When I was young I used to quiver and hide from such storms. But as I matured, I finally learned the lesson my Grandfather was teaching me. These storms are part of the seasons of life. Part of life and death. Part of maturing and growing up. Our heavenly Father, desiring life for us, not death, has a way of shaking us up. He has a strange way of pruning dead stuff out of life. A storm comes. A squall. A lot of rain. A lot of wind. A lot of shaking. But the alive...live. The dead, is shaken out. And Spring can come.

The Mystery of Suffering

It's Morning, Jesus
And we cry out to you as a nation:
"Heal our land."
We cry out of the tragedy of Virginia Tech,
"Do not forsake us, Lord God of truth and grace."
May the disturbing reality of evil cause each of us to examine
our own hearts:
Is evil lurking or knocking there?
Is unresolved hurt or pain ruining and destroying my inner life?
Have I laid before my heart's door a welcome mat to the devil?
Have evil thoughts and evil imaginations
been allowed free reign in my soul
unchecked by scripture, godly counsel, honest confession?

It's Morning, Jesus
May the disturbing reality of evil
cause each of us to survey his/her own house.
A voice says, "
Cry out."
And I said, "What shall I cry?"
"All men are like grass,
and all their glory is like the flowers of the field.
7 The grass withers and the flowers fall,
because the breath of the LORD blows on them.
Surely the people are grass.
8 The grass withers and the flowers fall,
but the word of our God stands forever."
9 You who bring good tidings to Zion,
go up on a high mountain.
You who bring good tidings to Jerusalem,
lift up your voice with a shout,
lift it up, do not be afraid;
say to the towns of Judah,
"Here is your God!"
10 See, the Sovereign LORD comes with power,
and his arm rules for him.
See, his reward is with him,
and his recompense accompanies him.
11 He tends his flock like a shepherd:
He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young.
12 Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand,
or with the breadth of his hand marked off the heavens?
Who has held the dust of the earth in a basket,
or weighed the mountains on the scales and the hills in a balance?
13 Who has understood the mind [d] of the LORD,
or instructed him as his counselor?
14 Whom did the LORD consult to enlighten him,
and who taught him the right way?
Who was it that taught him knowledge
or showed him the path of understanding?
15 Surely the nations are like a drop in a bucket;
they are regarded as dust on the scales;
he weighs the islands as though they were fine dust.
16 Lebanon is not sufficient for altar fires,
nor its animals enough for burnt offerings.
17 Before him all the nations are as nothing;
they are regarded by him as worthless
and less than nothing.
18 To whom, then, will you compare God?
What image will you compare him to?
19 As for an idol, a craftsman casts it,
and a goldsmith overlays it with gold
and fashions silver chains for it.
20 A man too poor to present such an offering
selects wood that will not rot.
He looks for a skilled craftsman
to set up an idol that will not topple.
21 Do you not know? Have you not heard?
Has it not been told you from the beginning?
Have you not understood since the earth was founded?
22 He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth,
and its people are like grasshoppers.
He stretches out the heavens like a canopy,
and spreads them out like a tent to live in.
23 He brings princes to naught
and reduces the rulers of this world to nothing.
24 No sooner are they planted,
no sooner are they sown, no sooner do they take root in the ground, than he blows on them and they wither,
and a whirlwind sweeps them away like chaff.
25 "To whom will you compare me?
Or who is my equal?" says the Holy One.
26 Lift your eyes and look to the heavens:
Who created all these?
He who brings out the starry host one by one,
and calls them each by name.
Because of his great power and mighty strength,
not one of them is missing.
27 Why do you say, O Jacob,
and complain, O Israel,
"My way is hidden from the LORD;
my cause is disregarded by my God"?
28 Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
The LORD is the everlasting God
, the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
and his understanding no one can fathom.
29 He gives strength to the weary
and increases the power of the weak.
30 Even youths grow tired and weary,
and young men stumble and fall;
31 but those who hope in the LORD
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint.
Isaiah 40

The Reality of Evil

Although man is deeply complex, that doesn't preclude the reality that certain absolute statements can be made about him. The biblical Christian worldview understands that man's heart is "desperately wicked" (Genesis 6:5, Jeremiah 17:9). Without the direct constraint of civil law and order or the indirect constraint of cultural pressures (or a few other more complicated reasons), man left to himself with no constraints or negative consequences, will act out those sinful desires. When a culture no longer believes this simple truth claim about man and accepts the notion that his heart is basically good, outbreaks of evil bring forth a rush to find something else to blame, for it certainly couldn't have its genesis in the individual heart of man. So it happened with Monday's tragic slaughter of Virginia Tech professors and students. I listened to a number of broadcasts and read a number of articles and almost all of them are in the mode of finding blame outside of the one who pulled the trigger. This is the natural tendency when one believes that the murderer acted, not because of an inherently sinful nature let loose, but because something external to him brought sufficient cause to tip the goodness of the individual into doing something wrong. We are hearing an earful of this sort of thing. Not that we would deny the impact of secondary causes, but those secondary causes should be viewed in light of how they fail to restrain or bring about internal restraint of those natural tendencies. There is another belief system at work as well and that springs from the Hegelian and Marxist perspective. This notion holds that all progress results from a crisis. In its classical form, Hegel used the conflict of the "thesis" and the "antithesis" as the necessary catalyst for giving rise to the higher and more desired "synthesis" -- a new truth. In its modern, socialistic form, this perspective views any crisis or conflict as not just a necessity for progressive change, but it provides the "opportunity" for progressive change. That is why every tragedy or crisis in our culture today breeds an immediate feeding frenzy for those who seek to capitalize on it. Sometimes, when a natural one is lacking, a false "crisis" will be crafted to achieve the same results. We have some of those in process as we speak. So, we should not be surprised to see the Virginia Tech tragedy used to gain ground in various political and personal agendas. Monday night I heard it used as evidence in the debate regarding illegal aliens. Yesterday, it was lack of gun control and a myriad of other things. Believe me, the blame game will continue until it has pointed the finger at everything and everyone in whom someone wants radical change. It is very easy for our culture, once it buys a contrary view of man and life, to use a horrible and tragic situation like what occurred this week as just the evidence needed to prove one's point, whatever that point may be. Single acts are rarely sufficient to prove a truth claim and never sufficient to prove a trend. Christians should not use them in that manner either. However, from a biblical worldview perspective, single acts do provide continued evidence of that which is already established as absolute truth. Although all of the tragic details have not yet been uncovered, let us not lose sight of the simple reality of it all. Evil lurks in the heart of man and it will erupt when it is allowed to act unconstrained. When it does, that eruption can be breathtaking in its cruelty and leave, in its wake, not only physical destruction, but emotional devastation.


---Focus on the Family

Yes to Prayer Blog

Thank you for praying with me through the internet.
Below are two graphs from Google Analytics showing the outreach of this blog.
In a few short weeks of our launch, over one years worth of prayer meetings has been held, if you count the hours of prayer observed here. People are signing on line to pray in the morning, afternoon and night. They pray at home, at work, from hotels, and from China.net.
They are from all over the world, with a set of hits and regulars from China.
The blog will not be updated until next Tuesday and the morning prayers can't be sent out until next Tuesday as I will be off-line and out of town. Keep praying together, and share this site with others on your email lists.

Under the Mercy,

Pastor Greg