Mercy In Disguise
Posted by Pastor Charles R. Moore
Like the rest of you, I have been deeply impacted by the crisis in Haiti. I have been moved to tears by some of the video footage that I have observed, graphically depicting the proof that our Caribbean neighbors have lost almost everything in the earthquake that devastated Port-au-Prince.
Injuries so numerous that severed limbs do not merit immediate medical attention. Deaths so widespread that bloated bodies are piled up in heaps waiting to be burned. How can they care for the dead while they can’t yet care for the living?
Having relocated to Southern California within the last year, my wife and I are especially aware of the potentially shaky conditions beneath our own feet.
As a Christian pastor and a minister of the gospel, I am often called upon to give my “take” on the events of the day. “Where is God in all of this?” “How should we as believers respond to senseless tragedies like the one in Haiti?”
First of all, I must say that I have obliterated the term “senseless tragedy” from my dictionary of everyday speech. Why? Because I am convinced that even the idea of a “senseless tragedy” is antithetical to a real belief in a sovereign God. Events in our world may indeed make no sense to us, but they make perfect sense to our perfect Father. Nothing catches Him by surprise, or awakens Him from His slumber.
“Senselessness” flies in the face of Romans 8:28, doesn’t it? Every Christian claims to believe that Romans 8:28 is true, but I just heard a prominent voice in evangelical radio assure his audience that “God had nothing to do with the earthquake in Haiti.”
Secondly, I am persuaded that these disastrous events are God’s mercy in disguise. They remind all of us that our life on this earth is brief and fragile at best, and that we are all one roused fault line away from standing before the God who made us and who demands an account for our very lives.
Would we even think about such things if every day were Disneyland?
As hard as it is for us to swallow, we all have sinned – and deserve to die – because we have missed the mark of God’s moral perfection (Romans 3:23). Every one of us. To live for one more day, or to be reminded of our need for a Savior by a terrible 7.0 earthquake, is nothing but God’s continuing mercy toward the likes of you and me.
When I was a little boy, my mother taught me to pray: “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep; if I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.”
I had only a vague idea of what I was saying at the time, but the theology of that simple bedtime prayer was rich! The only place of safety in the universe is in God Himself. Biblical salvation is to be saved from God, by God.
Let’s help the Haitians with money and food and clothing and medical care. Let’s ease human suffering whenever and wherever we can by serving people in the name of Christ. And let’s not miss the greatest lesson of the day: We are all in danger, and must find safety now in the arms of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is still the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
Now I lay me down to sleep …
Pastor Charles
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