There are days that I feel young, and days that whose. One thing forever makes me feel old. That’s when, in a room full of friends, I mention something that I intuitively feel is “iconic” for our generation, only to discover that no one in the room has a clue what I’m talking about.
Recently, a friend, a tall, handsome firefighter, had grown a kind of Vandyke or goatee. I chuckled and joked, “I bet you’ve always aspired to be Maynard G. Krebs!”
Nobody laughed. My friend looked at me seriously and said, “Who?”
I felt old. I looked around the room and, with my aged voice trembling and pleading, “Don’t you any Do you know who Maynard G. Krebs is?” They looked at me in astonishment, like sheep without a shepherd. I said, “You know, Bob Denver, “Gilligan’s Island”?”
“Ohhhh!!!” they all said and laughed. To me, I suppose. Decrepit old man. Now, those are the times when I feel old – like, How could a generation arise that did not know Maynard G. Krebs? (The :G.” stood for “Walter”; he was named after his aunt…)
But it seems that certain “big screen heroes” will never be forgotten: Charlie Chaplin, the Three Stooges. Laurel and Hardy shot the first movie, “The Lucky Dog,” in 1921 nearly a century ago, but you can still watch their short films somewhere on cable almost every day.
Which means a lot of people remember Laurel’s favorite line, as she bangs her round bowler hat back into shape and dusts it off from the most recent tragedy: “He’s a thin mess you got us into East time, Ollie!”
That famous one-liner came back to my thoughts this week as I read an unidentified person’s complaint that said, “What kind of mad god would create such a demonic mess in the world as we have today?” The comment came in response to the tragedies in Sudan (whole villages burned, men killed, and their wives and children taken and sold into slavery throughout the Middle Eastern world); Thailand’s tourist “entertainment centers” starring child prostitutes as young as four and five; “Christians” massacring “Christians” in African nations by one tribe herding villagers from another tribe into their church building and strafing through its walls as the building burns to the ground. These examples are all real, all current. I like it, today. Neither in the last century nor in the Middle Ages. Now.
Some years ago, my brother explained the basis of his atheism. It was really simple. “Lebanon,” he said. During the civil insurrection at the time, the troops on one side of that war in Lebanon were known as “the Christian Party.” My brother said, “If that’s what Christians do, then there is no God.”
Not bad reasoning, in its own way. Ignorant, perhaps. But, on its surface, a valid argument.
The only real The problem is that it’s hard to blame God for the mess the world is in, since the humans are the ones who made the mess.
I still do, every day.
Think about it. Here’s an example: I have neighbors to the north and south of me. If my neighbor north lights a bonfire that burns down my house takes his gun and shoots my dog then hits the side of my car just in case am i going to my neighbor in the southern of me to take revenge? Do not. I go to the neighbor who is really responsible.
Back to God. In fact — return to eden. So God makes people. He makes Adam, then Eve, and says, “You are my children. I have created you in my own imageand “wide arm gesture towards the whole huge world, “I have made you this wonderful world and I am giving it to you. Take care of him.”
God He gave this world to Adam and Eve. They did it thin for a moment. So, they decided that they know better than God how to do things, they took things into their own hands by disobeying God (they ate the Forbidden Fruit).
But that is not all — They took the authority they had over this world and handed it over to Satan. And from that day until now, rules of the dark.
Hello? It is not the “neighbor to the south” who is creating all this evil, but the another neighbor. It is No god Who is in charge and causing horrors to the north, south, east and west of us. It is human beings, aided and abetted by their own sinful nature and the presence of malevolent evil in the air around us.
Don’t blame God.
After all — He is the only one who can help you out of this mess.
That’s how it is. In novels 8, God makes us a promise. One day, He will finally usher in a New Day in which the curse of sin and rebellion will be lifted from humanity and all of creation itself. Goal Even betterHe promises to take whatever trouble you fall into todayY make it good.
He says, “Everything will work for you are goodif you love me Y let me fulfill my purpose in you.”
From the flat tire to the mean neighbor to the collapse of my business to the death of a dear friend: will all things work for my good?
That I have to do? Single He loves God Y be called according to his purpose.
Let’s see, do I qualify? Well, “Love God”. “I love God”? Really, do. I “love God” because, a few years ago, I found out how much he loves me and I have never been the same since! But I certainly know that a batch of people do not “love God” nearly as much as they “love themselves” or even “love money” or “love people’s compliments”.
But how is it true that I Really “love God” – what about this “ let me fulfill my purpose in you” deal? What could it mean to be “called according to God’s purpose”?
In fact, the next verse in Novels 8 tells us exactly what God’s “purpose” is in your life and mine.
It says, “He predestined us to be made after the likeness of his Son, Jesus.”
Hmmm. So, God promises that He personally take care of it every bad thing that happens to me in it Middle of a bad, bad world — they will be turned into something good.
while I love To the more than houses and land, friends and family and even more than i love myself — and I allow to gradually make me more and more like his own son, Jesus.
Do you realize that if I accept that trade, I’m going to have to “lose my own life”? I can not maintain control over my life and live for my purposes and at the same time, I totally surrender my life into His hands for His purpose.
It seems like a very, very difficult choice. Let’s see, I can love myself and live in hella victim in a world full of horror and misery — or can I completely surrender my life into the Hands of the One who made me, trust Him, love Him and that overcomes with the Good all the problems and whirlwinds of this life.
Surely good and mercy will follow me all the days of my life…
Yes — difficult decision.
© 2008 by Emil B. Swift