Tyrants, Terrorists, and Tragedies (Part 6 of 7)

This is a multi-part series that is looking to the Bible in Luke 13:1-9 for help in answering the difficult questions facing Christians when confronted with evil and tragedy in our world.

Go to Part 5

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I just can’t get over the truth that we considered in Part 5 that, in sin, we turn away from God who is infinitely glorious and wonderful. We truly prefer sin over God! If there is injustice and inexplicable tragedy in this world, dishonoring God in this way fits the description.

In May of this year, my wife and I were able to get away for 3 days to Phuket, Thailand in order to celebrate our 10^th wedding anniversary. Our girls stayed in Bangkok and we took our baby son, Micah, with us. One of the things we enjoyed most was renting a car for a day and driving around the island of Phuket, looking in wonder at all the different breathtaking views and scenery that can be found on the island. We ended our day at Cape Phromthep, at the southwest corner of the island. When we got there we, along with about two hundred other people, were confronted with a breathtaking panoramic view of the sun setting over the ocean.

My picture doesn’t even come close to the beauty our eyes saw! I’m an avid photographer, so I was busy setting up my tripod and finding the best composition for the perfect photograph I knew I was going to take. After taking several shots, I looked up and noticed the huge crowd of people around me. They were staring in wonder and taking many pictures as well. The only difference was that they weren’t taking pictures of the gorgeous sunset…they were taking pictures of my son!

I was dumbfounded. I know that he's a very cute kid and he was a uniquely cute kid in Phuket with his bright white skin and clear blue eyes, but we were standing right there with one of the most majestic and beautiful scenes imaginable right in front of us!

That’s how we are with God sometimes…He is offering to show us Himself, glorious, magnificent, beautiful!...and we choose, instead, to look at a little white boy!

It’s like we are hopeless, dying of thirst in the desert. God comes and opens up a roaring spring of clear, fresh, perfect water for us to drink and be saved and satisfied. What do we do? We turn our backs on the water, dig a hole in the sand, stick our head in it and suck at the sand! What’s worse is that we convince ourselves that we’re happy to live this way!

Let us pray that God will give us the wisdom to see the folly of our misguided and sin-deceived sense of what is truly good and bad; beautiful and ugly; tragic and cheerful. We need God’s help in order to see things as they really are!

Lord, please help me to see the true blessings and tragedies that take place in my own heart and home everyday. Please don’t allow me to be deceived by sin, Satan, or the world. Help me to value You above all else. Amen.

Go to Part 7