But What Do I Know?

I used to think I knew what things were good and what things weren't good. But ... I'm not so sure anymore. The apostles thought it was a great tragedy for them and a victory for evil when the Christ was crucified. What they found out later was that it was a great victory for Christ, not for evil. They were wrong- they totally misunderstood. And, they had been living with Jesus and his teachings for three years.

We only see part of the picture- God sees it all. God is involved in every detail of every one of our days. Nothing can happen that he doesn't permit to happen. In fact, everything that happens, everything, is either caused or permitted by God- there are no other alternatives.

So I'm learning to not be so quick to think that I know what is right and what is wrong.

For example, we enjoy freedom of religion in this land. It's a wonderful blessing and it must be God's will that we not lose the freedom of religion granted to us by the Constitution, right? Or, is it?

Here's what I mean: the true church in China is growing tremendously under communism, where the official philosophy is atheism. Chinese believers have a zeal to spread the Gospel- they risk imprisonment and worse by living out their faith. New believers leave all and set out at great personal risk to spread the Good News of Christ. The church there is growing by leaps and bounds and they are living sacrificially to serve Christ. Compare that to the church in America- some have said that the America church is three thousand miles wide and one inch deep.

We know that only spiritual things will last forever; the things we can see are temporary. Of all the good things that can happen to a person, one and only one will last for eternity- salvation through Jesus Christ.

So, if the ultimate good is the growing and strengthening of the church, and if persecution by a totalitarian government lights a fire in the church that brings great revival and spreads the Gospel far and wide- if many, many more people turn the Lord, perhaps our temporal religious freedom is not necessarily the best thing, in terms of eternity.

How nice it is that we don't have to have all the answers- that we know the one who does.