There’s a lot of scary stuff going on in our world today. After each new terror, people always wonder how something terrible could happen to us, and discuss the latest bill that should be passed that will supposedly keep us safer.
I offer one reason why I think these things are happening: we are nation that is turning away from God, and as we know from Exodus 20:5, our God is a jealous God who wants nothing less than our full attention. In the wake of all the terrible things that are happening, we look for someone else to blame and something else to save us. God uses terrible circumstances in our lives to bring us back to Him. He sometimes uses dreadful atrocities to get our attention, so our attention will turn back to Him. I know this, because I’ve seen it happen in my own life.
Last year I was happiest I have ever been. But I was not following God the way I should have been. I was relying on people for my happiness, and not on the strength and grace of God. However, God did not let me continue in this pattern of living. He got my attention, and brought me to my knees. He took away a lot of important people in my life to show me that HE could be the only center. My last year of college was the hardest one of my life, on a spiritual and social level. It was, and still is, a painful process, but I wouldn’t trade the experience I had because it shaped me into the person I am today, and ultimately brought me closer to God.
In a sermon I heard recently, the pastor focused on 2 Corinthians 1, which talks about God of all comfort. One verse that particularly stood out to me was verse 9: “Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead.” God is the only One who can save me. Not a relationship, not my friends, not my family, but God and God alone. If everything I loved in my life was taken away from me, I should be content to live the rest of my days with only the grace of God, because it is enough.
In the same light, God is the only one who can save this country. Not the next president, not revitalized gun control, and not ourselves. God is going to continue to bring us to our knees until we as a country, as a world, look to Him as our only hope.
“All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations shall worship before you. For kingship belongs to the Lord, and HE rules over the nations.” Psalms 22:27-28 ESV
I Think I'm Going Bananas 