To Choose God or Not

The father of one of my daughter’s friends died on the West Coast Road. What a tragedy. The son, the only child, had to speak to the press. He had so many questions in his heart about his beloved father’s cruel death when a taxi driver lost control over his vehicle.

In between the questions and few words, he grabbed at the pieces of faith that remained. With complete honesty he said in the article:

“This is all part of the Lord’s plan and we have no bad feelings about what has happened. We trust 100% in the Lord and His plan for our family.”

His way of making sense of the senseless.

In response to the article, someone posted the following on his Facebook wall:

The Lord’s plans.

How did it happen that a Christian Calvinist National f*n education could make people believe that things like this are part of “the Lord’s plan”? Count me out. I want nothing to do with a Lord like that or His plans. If you can believe that a God of love makes a plan like this for a family, you can keep that Lord. I don’t want to be part of plans like those.

Sleep well. Just watch out for the Lord’s plans. Yes, son, the gods have strange plans. Eish. We’ll have to make a better plan.

Forgive us our sins, and protect us against the Lord’s plans. Amen.

I was so ashamed that people could be so cruel. No comprehension of other ways of processing your pain. Not allowing others to go through the grieving process in their own way.

When the author of Hebrews speaks about the new agreement that God has concluded, I don’t really understand the following verse:

11They won’t go to school to learn about me, or buy a book called God in Five Easy Lessons. They’ll all get to know me firsthand, the little and the big, the small and the great.

When I look around me at other people’s walls, it is clear not everybody knows God personally. Is there no new dispensation yet?

No, it certainly has not come completely. So many still do not choose to know God. Even though they have seen, heard and experienced, they still do not choose God’s love. They don’t want to stand under His umbrella and laugh behind their hands at others who try and make sense of the senseless.

Once again, I realise that we will have to witness more, show more what God and Jesus have achieved in our lives, so that others also want to follow God, so that others choose more for God than against Him.

Yes, even though we don’t always understand God and His “plans”, He remains our hope and I want to know Him with everything in me.

Scripture

Hebrews 8:6-13

Reflection

How do you choose?

How do you live?

Do you help others to choose?

Prayer

Lord, today I want to confess the sins of others to You, especially those who choose so blatantly against You. Please help me to shine a little for them so that they can see and choose right. Amen.