Danger Or Rescue

A fat, little frog squatted on the asphalt, enjoying the summer night. There was nothing to disrupt his evening hop across the countryside except the occasional lowing of cattle grazing in the field on the other side of those odd, evenly spaced iron rails that dissected the asphalt trail the fat, little frog was traveling. It was such a peaceful evening that he almost forgot to break the stillness with croaking calls to other frogs that might be taking their evening jaunts.

From the distant lengths of the iron rails, a rattling rumble came tumbling into the fat little frog’s quiet evening. He held tightly to his spot on the asphalt as the rumbling intensified, and in a moment a massive, thunderous machine pounded past him, just 10 feet away, in an eternal procession. The vibrations reverberated in the poor creatures lungs, but couldn’t make the fat little frog quake any more than he already was from sheer fright. If he could think, he was probably wondering if he would live long enough to hatch a plan of escape from the monster machine.

Alas, his evening took a worse turn, if that were possible. Another metal machine with glaring, blinding lights in front was approaching on the asphalt, hissing as it ground to a stop. The fat, little frog blinked as a living creature many times his size left the machine and—horror of horrors—walked toward him. It seemed intent on driving him from his little refuge on the asphalt where he still had not concocted an escape plan, so, in desperation, he fled before the oncoming feet of the advancing creature.

As the fat, little frog disappeared into the grass on the side of the asphalt road, I watched the train blast off into the night; the cross arms blinked goodbye as I strolled back to the car. Listening to the croaking in the grass while I drove across the spot recently vacated by a particular fat, little frog as he had fled before my prodding, I could nearly have imagined his beady eyes bulging from the excitement of his recent escape as he regaled his fellow frogs with the tale of his night of terror.

It amused me that the fat, little frog couldn’t tell danger from rescue. For all he knew, I was just as dangerous as the thunderous train and the hissing, glaring car—in fact, I must have been more frightful, since he held his ground in the presence of those monsters. In his mind, he had narrowly escaped death; and he had. His frantic hopping away from those approaching feet took him out of the path of all the cars waiting to pile over the railroad tracks as soon as the train rumbled into the distance once again.

Some days I feel like thundering monsters are flying by, much too close for comfort; in every other direction it seems like other monsters hiss and glare, while, worst of all, mysterious feet advance, intent on driving me off the little plot of ground I still hold as my own. You know you’ve had those days too, when the obstacles just keep mounting to dizzying heights. Do you, like me, try to pull together some solution, only to find yourself running away from yet another terror?

The amusing part is…we can’t tell danger from rescue either. The most horrifying experiences, the most terrifying of obstacles, might be our safety net from something worse—but, in our finite vision, we never even recognize it. God stands near us, directing us out of the way of pain, difficulty, or sorrow, and our hearts pound with fright because His instrumentalities are lost on our perception. Later we squeak out the tale of our narrow escape from utter ruin and breathe a sigh of relief for having survived the day.

And I think He must smile a bit sadly knowing that the peace we lost through our fear was unnecessarily sacrificed. Another day He may let the terrors fly by us again as He tries to give us faith’s vision that can perceive the difference between danger and rescue.

Your Local Garbage Dump

While picking over the remnants of some ancient writings of mine, I found this story and thought it might be of interest...       

          I picked my way gingerly past mounds of fly-infested garbage towards something that could only be called a house in purest flattery. Actually I would call it a dump in the form of a trailer-house. The odor greeting my nose confirmed that my eyes and ears had correctly reported dogs and cats in abundance. Honestly, the aroma was about to knock me over. The “door” of the “house”, which I suspected might formerly have been capable of latching decades before I was born, was pushed open to reveal a happy colony of roaches going about their business in the door frame.

            A stained and wrinkled face greeted me in the doorway. Dirty hair hung around a little old woman’s face as she stared at me behind cloudy glasses. A dog lunged past her and through the screen-less screen door. Betty * and her retinue made quite the welcome party.

            Smiling, I held up a bag of food.

            “Hi, Betty,” I said as she took the bag. “I was just bringing you some lunch. Is there anything else you need?”

            This was not my first visit to Betty’s hovel. Ever since the week before, when a customer in my mom’s restaurant where I worked had told me about this poor woman’s living conditions, I had been delivering whatever I could to supplement her diet of bologna and coke.  The sights I had seen (and odors I’d smelled) on these daily deliveries defied any level of poverty I could have imagined in all my 17 years. I was amazed that anyone could live in the sort of filth and squalor I had seen only on TV before this.

            This particular day Betty needed to contact a lady who stopped by to run errands for her sometimes. She hadn’t been by in several days, and I wasn’t surprised to find that Betty didn’t have a phone. Cringing, I handed her my cell phone. One grimy hand pulled her hair aside as my phone was pressed to her equally grimy ear. For a fleeting moment I wondered when she had bathed last, and then recalled that she didn’t have running water.

            Betty handed me back my phone. Gazing off absently, she said, “She didn’t answer.”

            “What did you need her to do? Can I help?” I inquired, mentally scouring my cell phone with disinfectant.

            “I was going to have her bring my dog food into the house. The delivery man was scared of the dog and left it out there,” she said, pointing.

            I looked in dismay at the 40 lb. bag of Beneful near the road on the opposite side of her small “yard.” It had endured the morning’s rain shower—and unlike everything else about this place, it didn’t actually need the bath.

            “Oh, I’ll bring that in for you. It’s not a big deal. Where do you want it?” I volunteered. And carrying it in wasn’t a big deal; the bag wasn’t that heavy. Setting foot in a veritable garbage dump wearing tan jeans was my greater concern.

            After the dog food was relocated (miraculously, without thoroughly staining my jeans), I ran to the local gas station for a few items Betty needed. I had serious suspicions that the money she gave me with which to purchase those items was probably coated with more germs than would be needed for germ warfare on three continents.

            With a final check to see if there was anything else she needed, I waved goodbye to Betty and climbed back in my car. As I pulled out of the driveway, savoring a fresh, clean environment once more, I felt the same incredulous feeling that I always did after a visit to this poor woman’s “house:” How could anyone live, and be satisfied to live, in a place like that?

            From talking to the woman who first told me about Betty, I knew that the poor old woman had lived like this for years. There were people who might have helped her, but she was so accustomed to her way of life that the places that she might have moved she thought were “too good for her.” She was content to live in a run-down dump, leading a filthy, miserable existence with her mangy pets. It wasn’t such a bad place, she seemed to think. After all, this trailer was better than some of the other places she had lived.

            Pulling back into the driveway at my mom’s restaurant, I hurried in the back door and went immediately to wash my hands. I was still mulling over how a person could live in conditions like that, when suddenly I understood. Betty was satisfied with her living standards because to her they were normal. I couldn’t comprehend living that way because I saw those conditions as totally unacceptable—it just wasn’t normal!

            It was right about then that I saw a picture much larger than poor Betty and her filthy little dump. I realized that the whole world was made up people like her, just in a different way. And you and I, more than likely, are living in a worse garbage dump than she is. The problem is that, just like Betty, we don’t know it.

            Our garbage dump is sin in our lives. Before you stop reading because you think I’m referring to non-Christians, wait. I mean you—and me—all of us wonderful Christians who think we’re doing just fine. That is exactly where our problem lies, in the same place as does Betty’s—we believe our life is just fine, normal in fact. Somehow because the world is permeated with this kind of filth, we just don’t notice that it isn’t normal.

            King Solomon knew our biggest problem isn't choosing to do something blatantly horrible and filthy; usually it's just something that seems perfectly normal to our sin-blinded eyes. He say in Proverbs 14:12, “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.”

            Our mind is the “house” we live in all the time, but do we really know just how dirty and full of germs it is? Like Betty’s house, I think we leave the door to our mental house wide open for all kinds of diseasing elements to enter by what we listen to and watch. We just let the cobwebs build by dwelling on thoughts we know are wrong or savoring feelings of envy, anger and prejudice.

            We have a lot of mangy pets running around like pride, dishonesty and selfishness, but we don’t see how filthy they make our lives. Instead we spend energy feeding these habits until they are healthier than we are. When I am critical of how Betty spends much of her stipend on food for all the little varmints crawling around her place, instead of putting it into some basic necessities like food, clothing and shelter for herself, I have to look at myself and realize how often I am willing to waste the gift of my energies on things that tend to feed those nasty habits.

            Did you ever notice how easy it is to give a few minutes to hunting down some piece of juicy gossip to pass along? Or maybe you tend to use energy carrying a grudge against someone who has wronged you. Perhaps a quick temper likes to raise its head frequently in your life. There are so many of these favorite little “pets” in our lives, and we like to justify them, thinking we have them so well chained up or fenced in that they won’t affect us, but we keep them around because we’ve become quite attached to these pet habits.

            The diet we like to feed our spiritual life is totally unbalanced, just as I know Betty’s diet was not very nourishing, but so long as we aren’t hungry we don’t notice that we have dined on “fillers” that aren’t going to make us spiritually healthy. As Christians, sometimes we are content to make our spiritual menu consist of whatever we learn at church, perhaps what we have been told in school or been taught by our parents; yet our diet is lacking the essential nutrients we can only get from daily personal study.

            I thought about Betty’s life compared to some other conditions…It could be worse. There are people with only a grass hut or no roof over their heads, and many people wouldn’t even have the money to get the bologna and coke. At least she has friends who will run her errands and help her if she wants it. That sort of reasoning makes her situation look better, and that is exactly what we like to do in our lives spiritually. If we can compare ourselves to someone with a worse “garbage dump,” we can even make our situation looks superior, not just a normal, average dump—Why no, ours is a Christian…dump. Yes, it is still a dump.

            At last I had finished disinfecting my cell phone, my purse, the steering wheel of my car, and, of course, my hands. But I still felt dirty, just in a different way. I realized that we all need much more than disinfectant. We need to realize that we live in a garbage dump, not a house. We need to see that our filthy animals, in the form of habits, are diseasing our lives. We need to discover that spiritual food must be nourishing, not just something to fill us. We need to recognize that flies and garbage are not supposed to be normal in our lives, and that spiritually we can be clean. We need to see that no matter how average we think we are, we might have the wrong idea of what is right.

            Only God can show us the true condition that we are in, and make us truly horrified to imagine that we could be satisfied with such a filthy situation. When we see the true standard of living, the way Jesus was, we realize how terrible our garbage dump really is. And our garbage dump may look like a normal Christian life to us, but does it meet up with the standard?

            So that day I began to see a little bit of Betty in me, and if you look hard you might find her hiding inside of you. She might make you think you’re doing just fine, but don’t be fooled by that mentality. You have a garbage dump too, and disinfectant won’t do any good as long as you think you are living in a normal house. Maybe it’s time we asked Jesus to compare our living standards to His and see how they add up.

*Not her real name

The Stop Evil Button or Solution X

David looked at his class studying the issue of a good God and a bad world and added another point to the theodicy: If there was a "stop evil button" that you could walk up and push, making all the bad in the world cease instantly, would you do it?

I was watching Theodicy, a Scripture mysteries documentary by Anchorpoint Films. Among the interviews, David Asscherick and Clifford Goldstein's comments took me back to seminars of theirs that I had been in and books of theirs I had read that discussed this issue of the problem of evil. The "stop evil button" illustration particularly intrigued me. More than likely, any of us would do it. Yet, ironically, God--the only One who could push the button--hasn't. Why?

As David Hume so succinctly formulated the problem of a good God and a bad world, "Is he willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then is he impotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then is he malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Whence then is evil?" (Hume). The youth class I teach at church discussed this question last week. We talked about the Biblical accounts, especially in Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28, of the perfect angel who chose to rebel and wreak havoc on the universe with his accusations against God and his thirst for power. All of that explained how evil originated, but it still didn't answer the question of why God didn't stop it.

Many people I have spoken with have used this as an impenetrable obstacle to any argument that God is good, fair, and just. There seems no intellectually honest avoidance of the question of what possible good reason could exist for why God has allowed horrific things to occur on this planet. Is there any way of justifying it?

Whether it is entirely new or valid theologically, the question and answer I put to the youth class was similar to the "stop evil button" illustration: Think of all the horrors and atrocities on Earth that you abhor, and imagine that there was one penalty that could be paid to end it all--forever. Nothing bad could ever resurface on the radar screen of human existence if you gave the "okay" to this one solution. But there is only the one solution. The solution, whatever it is, likely won't be pleasant in the performance, however it will be permanent. We'll call it Solution X.

Now try to calculate the cost of Solution X. You don't know what it is, so make it as terrible as you can possibly imagine it to be. Can you think of anything that would be too costly an exchange for the permanent eradication of evil? Philosophically I think the question is fairly easy to answer; selfishly, perhaps not. I'm not under the illusion that all, or even most, would honestly be willing to say "yes" to whatever Solution X might be because there are those who would not take a personal sacrifice for the ultimate good. However, many have done so and most, I hope, can appreciate that, logically, there could not be anything worse than eternal evil. Anything less to pay for a permanent solution would probably be better.

So the punchline is...that God did hit the "stop evil button." When He looked at the rebellion the devil had started and knew that destroying him would only eliminate the instigator, but not his rebellion and the issue of evil, the omnipotent and omniscient Creator already understood Solution X. The price was high--it meant letting evil mature so it could be destroyed completely. It meant allowing every horrific thing to happen in the great controversy that would forever convince the universe that the devil was wrong. It meant permitting a part of Himself, His own son, to leave heaven to live, suffer, and die on Earth to redeem humanity from sin. It meant allowing evil its day of power so that it could be eternally terminated. It was Solution X, the only remedy that wouldn't just treat the symptoms but would heal the underlying problem.

God said Solution X was worth it. He hit the "stop evil button," but sometimes, because Solution X requires more time than any individual lifetime, it's hard to appreciate the delayed effect. Someday we will, though, and I'm reminded of this when I read what John wrote in Revelation 21:4 of the end of sin and suffering: "And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away."

Note: This is the first part of a two-part post on the topic of theodicy.


Hume, David. Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. Project Gutenberg. Web. 22 Jan. 2011. .

Happiness is...

There it was again...decidedly one of the most superficial billboards I'd ever read in my life. A popular fast food chain had the audacity to proclaim "Happiness is...$1-any-size soft drinks" in big, bold letters next to an image of a large Styrofoam cup undoubtedly full of all the empty calories you could want for a dollar.

I was immediately struck with the idiocy of the notion: Happiness is a $1 soft drink? Who do they think they're kidding? If that were true then the whole Revolutionary War probably actually started over soft drinks not tea, since we were simply trying to guarantee "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." $1-any-size soft drinks--was that too much to ask of the British?

Well, the pursuit must be over; anyone in the United States can afford a $1 soft drink--any size, no less! By the logic of this fast food chain, literally the entire United States should be devoid of suicides, heartbreaks, and sadness. All you have to do is run down to the store for a $1-any-size soft drink and--presto!--the world is rosy once more.

Newsflash: We are not all happy. Not even if we've guzzled ten"$1-any-size soft drinks" in a week (or maybe especially not then). In fact, I would hazard a guess that the vast majority have significant amounts of unhappiness that not even a gallon of soft drinks for ten cents could negate. Though some may attempt to drown their sorrows in any number of things, from food and drink to clothes, cars and houses, many will testify that none of it produces any more lasting happiness than a $1-any-size soft drink.

That doesn't mean happiness can't be found--it just means it isn't in material things. To put it in the words of a song by Ira F. Stanphill,

“Happiness is to know the Savior,
Living a life within His favor,
Having a change in my behavior,
Happiness is the Lord.”

King David would have agreed: "Happy are the people whose God is the LORD!" (Psalm 144:15) I guess that children's song back in primary class had more depth than at least one multi-billion dollar advertising department.

Notice that the psalmist doesn't say life will always be rosy. He doesn't say we will never have trials and difficulties. He simply says that we can have happiness as long as we have God--because happiness is the Lord.

He fleshes out this philosophy a bit more in Psalm 16:8, 9: "I have set the LORD always before me; because He is at my right hand I shall not be moved. Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoices; my flesh also will rest in hope."

I'm glad that even when I don't feel happy, knowing the Lord gives me hope to know that happiness is mine, and it doesn't even cost a dollar.

"Don't catch me..."

The four little girls were thrilled when I suggested we take a quick trip to the park before doing our Bible study, and even more excited by a game of "catch me." It consisted of them climbing as high as possible on the the climbing tower and taking turns jumping off into my arms (yes, my limbs and back complained about it loudly the next day).

After one child got bold enough to accomplish the stupendous feat of leaping the short distance to the ground alone, Carrie* decided she would try it too. As I stood with arms outstretched, she waved me away, saying, "I'm going to do it by myself." I smiled and moved to the side; she fidgeted with obvious trepidation, preparing to jump.

Looking at the ground, then back at me as I moved closer to allay her fears; her blue eyes large with concern, she appealed, "Don't catch me...but don't let me fall."

How can children be so unintentionally profound? For the rest of the evening that sentence kept churning in my mind. While her statement seemed humorously paradoxical, it made me think along more serious lines.

It seems to sum up those independent prayers we pray, when we come to God with plans of our own design, asking more for His approval than His direction. We boldly declare, "I'm going to do it by myself," but a little voice somewhere cautions that maybe we really do need Him, and so we compromise a bit, bravado yields slightly to timidity, and we add, "Don't catch me...but don't let me fall."

Perhaps, as I did with Carrie, He smiles at us and thinks, "Exactly how did you have in mind for me to that?" And that is when He says to us, Without Me, you can do nothing. If you don't let Me catch you, you will, inevitably, fall.

We studied the Easter story and talked about the meaning of Jesus' death and resurrection. The youngest girl clambered into my lap and, not understanding the discussion, looked up at me and simply stated "God loves you." I smiled at her and replied, "He loves you too."

How can children be so unintentionally profound?

*Not their real names.

My Favorite Spelling Bee

The Bible study for six little neighborhood girls had finished, and two of them asked if I would help them with their homework that evening over at "my church." Giving it long and careful consideration, weighing the pros and cons of getting the neighborhood children accustomed to being at my church, it took me about 2.725 seconds to agree to the proposition.

While Dahlia* was down the hall on a bathroom break, Meghan* strictly forbade me from coming into the Sabbath school room where she was experimenting with the chalkboard. Complying, I stood out in the hall and waited on both girls.

"How do you spell your name?" came a query from somewhere near the chalkboard.

"M-I-C-H-E-L-L-E...that's two 'L's," I explained.

Silence.

"How do you spell God?" the voice questioned me again.

I started to move toward the door.

Meghan caught me: "No, you can't look!"

Stifling my curiosity, I dictated slowly for the 1st grader, "G-O-D".

Silence.

"Okay, you can look now!" called the grinning voice near the chalkboard.

Stepping nearer to the doorway, I read the carefully etched message in bright chalk..."I love Michelle and God." Just five words, only one sentence, but they etched themselves in my brain more permanently than on the chalkboard.

When it seems like my work is hollow, my efforts shriveling with my heart in the biting Illinois wind, I pull out a mental picture, drawn on a chalkboard in childish innocence, and I fancy a small voice asking, "How do you spell God?"

Some days I feed the lambs...and then, some days, they feed me.

*Not their real names.

Falling Sparrows and Missing Kittens

My heart throbbed with abject terror and anxiety. The worry stood out on my brow in knit furrows, and tears threatened to come. Knowing the only One who could bring a solution for my predicament, I knelt down, attempted to regain my composure, and began to send an urgent plea for help.

I was five years old and my cat was missing. This may not seem like such a serious matter to you, but five-year-olds and runaway cats are very important to our heavenly Father; or at least so I thought, and hence I was kneeling in our backyard, hands grasping the chain-link fence, pouring out my troubles to the Creator of small girls and wayward kittens.

If you grew up in a Christian home, you probably remember doing similar things as a child-praying for some small, insignificant detail that was very important at the time. We’re taught that God hears our every prayer, and we take it very seriously. Through childhood years the Lord hears frequent petitions for everything from “Don’t let Mom get mad about that broken vase,” to “Please help my kitten find her way home.”

But somehow, growing up often alters our view of prayer. We still know that God hears our every prayer; however our outlook on the world has changed. As children, our world consists of Mom, Dad, siblings, more distant family, and a few friends. We usually know little of distant continents and diverse populations, let alone the colossal size of the universe.

The older we get, the more we learn and the broader our horizons become, we begin to realize the enormity of life—and of God. For God to be able to create and control such a massive operation, He becomes more of a distant Mastermind, rather than our loving Friend and Brother. Of course, He is really both, but growing up seems to change our emphasis. It suddenly seems very childish to pray for such insignificant and simple needs.

Maybe for you, adulthood hasn’t changed your discernment of prayer. Perhaps you escaped the customary effect growing up has on our perception of communication with God. If so, congratulations are in order. But more likely, you’ve found it hard to have that childlike simplicity that will pray for silly things like kittens. Do you still believe that God can do anything, but a questioning mind continues to whisper “Doesn’t God help those who help themselves?”

For instance, when was the last time you thought it too trivial to ask your heavenly Father for help with finding a parking spot near the door in the pouring rain or to help you remove that ketchup stain from your best shirt? Have you thought that with all the war and suffering in our world, He is too busy to keep guard over the purse you left in the parking lot!

I was driving back from Michigan, the car full of sleeping skiers worn out from a very active weekend. My brain replaying scene after scene from the weekend, I was blissfully inconscient of my surroundings as the Trailblazer whizzed across the bleak and deserted scenes of the Illinois winter until suddenly the realization that I had not checked the fuel level in caused me to look at the gas gauge. My worst fears took a record leap to become reality in the nanosecond that my eyes took in the needle…lodged perilously below the ‘E.’

If only I’d checked the gauge sooner, if only there were an exit nearby, if only it wasn’t winter, if only…But wishing would do no good, so I turned to prayer. For the next ten minutes I prayed and drove, until at last we reached an exit where, as I stopped to get gas, I fervently thanked God that we had not arrived there on foot.
Was I being childlike again? I hope so. It reminded me that God wants me to talk to Him about everything that concerns me, no matter how big or small the issue may appear to me or anyone else.

If our God is powerful enough to create all the wonders around us, and loving enough to send His Son to die for us, then it follows that He would be powerful and loving enough to listen to, and answer, our smallest, most insignificant prayer. In spite of all our mistaken ideas about God being too preoccupied to notice every little need of ours, Jesus said, “Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? And one of them shall not fall to the ground without your Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear ye not therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows.” (Matthew 10:29-31)

God doesn’t hear and answer our least prayers exclusively because He loves us, but also because as we observe His faithfulness in our everyday problems, we’ll begin to trust Him for more significant and important choices. When we see His providence in what we might term “minor” things, it becomes easier to rely on God for the major dilemmas we may face. How can we expect that future crises will bring us to Christ in complete confidence and faith, if we’ve never experienced His intervention on account of our petitions for past difficulties?

Mrs. E. G. White says, “We have nothing to fear for the future, except we forget how God has led us in the past.” This is how our “insignificant” prayers become very important! Because of them, we will have a past of answered prayers, no matter how small they were, that increased our foundation of faith in God.

“Meow,” sounded a guilty voice behind me. Tears forgotten, I happily cuddled the furry prodigal; and a five-year-olds faith was confirmed once more.

“I’ve been worried about you!” I exclaimed. “Now where have you been?”

Probably out plotting the fall of some poor sparrows!