I Can't Explain Him

It’s springtime in the south, and in a normal year our hot topic might very well be tornadoes.  It seems as though every spring horrific tornadoes pop up when a cold front comes rushing south to push down the “warmer than normal” temperatures.  Inevitably we will see stories on the national and local news outlets about destruction, death, and general mayhem left in the wake of killer storms.

Tornadoes have odd patterns. Sometimes the video images we see after the storm will have one house utterly destroyed and a house next door seemingly untouched. How does that happen? A few weeks ago, my wife and I spent a few days on Florida’s “forgotten coast” where Hurricane Michael hit as a level four storm in October 2018. We could still see tons of damage. But what was obvious was that in a variety of places many houses, businesses were destroyed, while some survived nearly intact. How does that happen?

I suppose a good conversion with a well-educated meteorologist could explain all kinds of principles from the world of weather, maybe physics as well, that would help answer that question. It is also possible that the smartest of the meteorologists might also say, “we don’t know everything about how these storms work.”

While walking around the town of Port St. Joe on the forgotten coast, I noticed that the beautiful, traditional looking First Baptist Church was still unusable. The steeple was on the ground at the front entrance and the roof of the sanctuary was on the floor. But a little further down the street, less than a mile, the Methodist Church in Port St. Joe, right on St. Joseph’s Bay, seemed to have suffered much less damage and was being used regularly. 

That isn’t unlike what you often hear on the news after a tornado rumbles through a southern or mid-western neighborhood like a freight train wreaking destruction all over the place. But you almost always see destruction abutting no damage. In these cases, you often hear people declaring “God saved my house, my possessions, my life . . .” But what about the people next door? Did God not care about them? In the remarkable question the disciples ask Jesus in John 9, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” (ESV)

Or in the case of First Baptist and First Methodist in Port St. Joe – “did the Baptists sin worse since their church building’s damage was more catastrophic?”

Or in the aftermath of Alabama tornadoes, “Did my next-door neighbor sin worse because her house was destroyed and her children killed and mine weren’t?”

The way it comes out far too often is “I’m so glad God blessed me and my family,” while the next-door neighbor can only wonder about a God who randomly blesses one family and ignores the other, right next door.

I’m not doubting God’s sovereignty over the world. I’m not doubting the power of prayer. I’m not doubting my own need to pray – I pray daily and often for lots of things, including the safety and blessing of God on my wife and children.  I’m not even doubting that God has blessed and protected us in important ways over the years. Specifically, right now I’m praying that God will help us avoid Covid-19. But I’m confident that the pastor’s wife who died yesterday of what seems to be Covid-19 was praying similarly to me.

The real question isn’t “can or does God bless us?” Rather the real question is “how do I talk about the blessing of God without sounding like the disciples who assumed ‘someone sinned’ in the case of the man born blind?”. Or to put that another way, “Can I talk about God’s blessing without sounding as though people who don’t experience this blessing must be sinners with more tragic records than I have with God?”

To put this whole issue in current perspective, assuming I am not afflicted with the corona-virus, don’t become ill with Covid-19, and live to tell the story – how can I tell the story in a way that doesn’t make people who have loved ones who can’t tell that story, even more frustrated with God?

The problem is, as is true so often in theological thinking, we allow our western, Enlightenment’s focus on individualism to become the focus. When that happens, my prayers become more selfish, my testimony becomes more ego-centric, and God becomes something like personal property. When my prayers aren’t answered as I instructed God, I’m frustrated. When they are answered as I instructed, “look how spiritual I am.”

I know this current cultural crisis won’t go on forever. (At least I think I know that!) What I hope is that those of us who trust in God’s providential care won’t talk about that care in ways that turn off others to Him. But the more self-centered our comments will be, the more likely that will be the outcome.

As a follower of Jesus, I am not so much called “to explain” God as I am “to trust” God. If I can explain Him, of what need would I have of Him? (See Romans 11:33-36)

That trust has convinced me (2 Timothy 1:12) that a day is coming when He will, once and for all, make all things right. In my head, Genesis 2 will be come our eternal story. In the meantime, life is going to be impacted with the Genesis 3-11 story. But I can’t forget that the resurrection of Jesus put some serious limits on the power of sin and death – the “strong man” as been tied up. (Mark 3:27) So despite some “momentary and light afflictions,” I anticipate an “eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.” (2 Corinthians 4:17)

Today I want to celebrate the good stuff and lament the not-so-good stuff. I want to celebrate and lament in ways that point others to God, not away from God.

 

The challenge is, how can we manage to do that?

I’m confident I don’t know the full answer to that question. But my prayer about my own witness is that like the well-educated meteorologist who likely would say “we don’t know everything about how tornadoes work,” I will have the courage to say, “I don’t know everything about how God works.”

God save us from those who won’t say that!