Substance for Difficult Days

Life is hard. These are difficult days in which we live. Violent crime murders, kidnappings, and other treacheries shock us. Natural disasters tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes and more continue to hit. Wars and rumors of wars multiply. Unrest abounds. Political unrest people can’t agree on how to run things, in a post-9/11 world people live in a constant state of uneasiness; relational unrest people can’t get along, adults can’t get past lifelong issues, kids can’t share their toys; it happens in homes, across cities, states, nations and continents. Economic unrest 2 years ago we slid into one of the worst financial crises our country has seen. Scores of people out of work. Spiritual unrest clash of worldviews, a war of ideas about the origin of the world and who oversees it. We live in a pluralistic, relativistic, God-spurning time; man's autonomy celebrated and sin lifted up as ideal. You have to ask WHY all the heartache and confusion? We spend our time on frivolous things, propping ourselves up with whatever we can find to escape the inevitable questions of life.

This is not the time to entertain ourselves and make us feel good about ourselves. Days are coming that will be more difficult. We are living on the Sinking Titanic, business as usual will not do. We need an answer outside of us; we need a Christ-centered, God-saturated, as Jonathan Edwards put it, a God-entranced view of all things. We will need to cling to God’s sovereignty in order to survive these days and the ones to come.

John Piper says focusing on the sovereignty of God in times like these can seem like comforting a bruised heart with a tire iron. We need comfort. But we also need substance, strength that comes from a solid grasp of God's ultimate control of all things. A reason to stand firm and withstand in the midst of horrible circumstances. We must hold unwaveringly to the truth that God is good. He is righteous, just, perfect, holy and loving and is opposed to sin and evil. And God controls everything, including evil.