A Helping Hand . . .

One afternoon this week I saw a sad post on FaceBook, placed there by a friend . . . a nice lady we have gone to Church with for many years. Her post lamented that part of her house was flooded by a plumbing problem with her toilet. Knowing the dear lady had a back injury, I sent her a private message asking her to call me. She did and we agreed that the next afternoon I would bring some guys and equipment to try to solve her problem. So at the appointed time my guys and I met her and went to work with water extraction equipment to aid in drying the area and repairing the broken toilet. The lady was most appreciative and later commented on it on FB. Several folks replied and offered some sweet comments. I simply replied to their comments: “Love you one another even as I love you” . . . .is our marching orders. Later that evening I saw reports on the evening news of some of the evil that is being done by Muslims around the world.

The contrast in beliefs and behavior between what Christians and Muslims are each taught got me to thinking about people and how many live in a total state of ignorance and confusion. My Sunday school lesson this week comes from I Samuel 12. At that moment in history, the people of Israel had rebelled and demanded a king . . . clearly rejecting God’s plan for them and demonstrating their foolish desire to control their own future (understand they did not have a clue what would happen twelve hours later, but they wanted to be in control of their future!) God gives the people what they want and in the 12th chapter, the Prophet Samuel gathers the people and reminds them of God’s amazing power. In his message to them, he reminds them that it is the harvest season and consequently the driest time of the year. In spite of those constraints of physical laws, Samuel calls on the Lord and asks for a visible demonstration of His great power. Immediately a violent electrical storm appears, accompanied by rain and thunder. The power of the storm and the timing of it frightens the rebellious people and they cry out to Samuel asking that he intervened with God for them . . . interesting that they trusted Samuel’s relationship with the Lord, yet had no confidence in their own. In verse 22, Samuel informs the frightened, rebellious people that God will not abandon His people and offered two reasons (and virtues of God) they would do well to remember. Those reasons being:

1. Because of His great name; and
2. Because He has determined to make you His own people.

I contemplated what Samuel declared to the frightened sinners who suddenly feared falling to the hands of judgment of their powerful and angry God. Samuel did not tell them that everything was okay . . . which, of course, was what they wanted to hear. It occurred to me that God is equally committed to making His name great amongst the nations of the world in this generation. In fact, in Matthew 28, Jesus calls on His followers to go in His full authority to all nations making disciples. Later, Jesus’ friend and Disciple, John, saw and wrote about his vision of Heaven in which he saw a redeemed people of every tribe, language, people, and nation (Rev 5: 9 – 10).

It Seems to me . . . a crucial element required in that objective is for us to reflect God’s love, grace, and mercy into a hurting world. It also seems to me . . . that an important part of doing that is for us to let go of judgments . . . and simply see others as Jesus sees them. We are called to be extensions of His love, grace, and mercy (by allowing Him to live and work through us) . . . and it is essential that we each adopt that mindset. If we are prudent, we can look at the Muslims and see the tragedy of their confused ideology that convinces them that they are to serve as extensions of God’s justice, wrath, and vengeance. As Christians we are to know that God does not want or need to put us to work dispensing His judgement. His call to us, both individually and collectively, is to reflect His love, grace, and mercy into a hurting and confused culture.

Personally, I am glad that God does not want me dispensing His judgment and Justice. Heck, I struggle with being a landlord and the rights and wrongs of lease enforcement. I see a lease violation and as I struggle to deal with the non-compliant resident, I am thankful that I had influences in my life that kept me from being where that person is currently struggling. It occurs to me that, in the greater scheme of things, I would do well to serve as a teacher, as opposed to being the enforcer.

After 65 years of living and learning, I have come to three absolute beliefs! Those beliefs are as follows;

1. There is absolutely . . . without any doubt . . . a Creator . . . The Lord God;

2. One day He will make all things right and He will dispense justice, grace, and mercy, and He will administer them all perfectly; and

3. I am not Him . . . and He certainly does not need the help of the likes of me in areas of judgment, justice, and punishments.

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