Out of the Wreck I Rise

 This week has brought some devastating news to the people of Oklahoma. The stories and the pictures that have come out of Moore have been absolutely heartbreaking. The question that keeps coming up over and over again is, “Where is God in all of this?” Some theologians have suggested that it is the failure to answer this question adequately that has led to so much apathy and agnosticism about God and faith in our world today.

            On my Facebook page I shared a post from Unvirtuous Abbey, which is a bit of an irreverent satirical site, but I believe in this, they have it exactly correct. They posed the question, Where’s God in all of this? And answered it simply, Beneath the rubble.

            You all know I don’t believe in coincidences. God guides our steps and orders our path. This week’s devotion addressed this very question, using Romans 8:35, where Paul says, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?” An excellent question, to which Oswald Chambers responds, “God does not keep His child immune from trouble; He promises, “I will be with him in trouble . . .” (Psalm 91:15). It doesn’t matter how real or intense the adversities may be; nothing can ever separate him from his relationship to God. “In all these things we are more than conquerors . . .” (Romans 8:37). Paul was not referring here to imaginary things, but to things that are dangerously real. And he said we are “super-victors” in the midst of them, not because of our own ingenuity, nor because of our courage, but because none of them affects our essential relationship with God in Jesus Christ. I feel sorry for the Christian who doesn’t have something in the circumstances of his life that he wishes were not there.

“Shall tribulation . . . ?” Tribulation is never a grand, highly welcomed event; but whatever it may be— whether exhausting, irritating, or simply causing some weakness— it is not able to “separate us from the love of Christ.” Never allow tribulations or the “cares of this world” to separate you from remembering that God loves you (Matthew 13:22).

“Shall . . . distress . . . ?” Can God’s love continue to hold fast, even when everyone and everything around us seems to be saying that His love is a lie, and that there is no such thing as justice?

“Shall . . . famine . . . ?” Can we not only believe in the love of God but also be “more than conquerors,” even while we are being starved?

Either Jesus Christ is a deceiver, having deceived even Paul, or else some extraordinary thing happens to someone who holds on to the love of God when the odds are totally against him. Logic is silenced in the face of each of these things which come against him. Only one thing can account for it— the love of God in Christ Jesus. “Out of the wreck I rise” every time."

I had other plans for preaching this Sunday, but I believe I will address this timely issue. Come and join us to praise God for our safety, to pray for those lost beneath the rubble, and to hear God’s Word to us in difficult times.