Christian Living

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Larry Lilly's Letter Wednesday March 16, 2011

In spite of the fact of having spent a lifetime attempting to memorize Bible verses and crammed the old mushy brain as full as possible, I still find a lot of blank moments when confronted with the lack of words for the apparent impossible moments that life throws our way. Thus I find that I continue the search and today (03-14-2011) a statement leaped off the page which I speared and am using for your enrichment.

"Christians do not believe that we have an answer to the tragedies of life, rather that what we have is a God who, in Jesus Christ, enters tragedy, stands with us and makes a way through. The cross of Christ, the greatest of the world's tragedies, is a sign. Not an answer or a reason for the hurt that happens in life - it is something even better. The cross is a sign that God is with us, particularly in the dark times. The cross says, wherever there is tragedy, injustice, pain, there is God."

-William H. Willimon, Quad Quotes, Duke Magazine, July-August 1999, 56.

The reason I like this is because it helps to again come to grips with the fact that I am NOT God and therefore do not have to have all the answers. What I do have is the Lord who has promised over and again that He is with me.

Mr. Willimon sees the cross as a "great tragedy." This phrase may say more about the man's overall belief than I care to know, but I sure like the rest of the statement. That Jesus Christ is with us in our tragedies is true and what a comforting truth it is when we are walking through life's often dark night.

Do you ever wonder about those unfortunate Christians who live under the delusion that if I am a dark time due to my own even willful stupidity that Christ will turn His back on me? He will teach me the lessons of the dark, but in His way will be with me, as David says in the most famous of all Psalms, even through "the valley of the shadow of death."

Count Nicolaus von Zinzendorf wrote:

"Though oft we faint and falter on the way, though storms and darkness oft obscure the day; yet when the clouds are gone, we know He leads us on."

Jesus Himself said in Mt 28:20:

Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.

If He is with us; why the hesitation to 'charge' into His known will?

Larry Lilly Copyright © 2011 Use with credit

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