THE BLAME GAME
DAY 51: Recently on my radio show I was privileged to have a conversation with Gracia Burnham. You may remember her story from the news. Back in 2001, Missionaries Garcia and Martin Burnham were taken hostage in the Philippines by a militant Muslim group called the Abu Sayyaf. That began their nightmare journey of over a year of brutality, starvation, sickness, terror and indignity.
Like anyone, I expected to hear a missionary like Gracia talk about how they fully trusted God in the midst of trouble, how they shared Christ with their captors and their faith grew. After all, they were missionaries, right? They had to be spiritual superhero's. Instead, what I heard was a very real account of a woman who was afraid for her life and angry. Gracia shared how she spent the first few months of her captivity figuring out everyone who was to blame for her circumstance - the government, the guerrillas, the vacation hotel they were kidnapped from, the military.... Eventually, she said, she got around to blaming God.
After all, she recounted, if God really cared He could have done something about the mess they were in. So, for a while, she concluded that God did not care; they had cried out to Him and He did not rescue them immediately. Her anger was also turned toward her captors... one in particular was the group's religious man who took delight in making their horrific circumstances even worse. In a fit, Gracia told Martin, "One day that man is going to burn in hell and I hope I'm there to see it!"
Her wise husband Martin, gently talked about what an awful sight it would be to see someone fall into the hands of God's judgment. He counseled that perhaps they might pray that this "holy man" would truly become a holy man and trust Christ and be spared such a fate.
God gave Gracia plenty of time to consider that, and all her other questions, like: Did God really care? Was it right to want vengeance? Would she have what it took to survive her circumstances? She had time to consider questions with which she never dreamed she would wrestle.
How coincidental that having just had this conversation with Gracia, I see all these same questions played out as I read the scriptures for today. Jesus disciples were stuck in a situation that overwhelmed them and like Gracia, they wondered if God cared. They were in the middle of a lake in the middle of a storm that was sinking their boat and Jesus was letting it happen.
Mark 4:38 Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?”
Like Gracia and the disciples, often many times our first instinct when we are in a situation that overwhelms us is to ask, "God don't you care? If you cared, you would do something NOW!"
The next episode in our reading was when Jesus freed a demon-possessed man and sent the entire legion of demons who had plagued him into a herd of 2000 pigs which promptly ran off a cliff. Instead of looking to what God was doing, they masses could only see the disaster - 2000 pigs gone. They completely missed the miracle and divine work and instead blamed Jesus for what they had lost. BLAME... Gracia would say that sounds familiar to her story. Our suffering can blind us to what God is doing and instead preoccupy us looking for someone to blame. Oh what we miss when we are busy looking the wrong places.
But today's reading also included a Psalm that echoed Gracia and Martin experience. Psalm 37 explains where Martin found the words to soften Gracia's heart by poiting her in the right direction.
30 The mouths of the righteous utter wisdom,
and their tongues speak what is just.
31 The law of their God is in their hearts;
their feet do not slip from His path....
34 Don't be impatient for the Lord to act!
Travel steadily along his path. He will honor you,
giving you the land. You will see the wicked destroyed.
Martin loved God's Word and because it ruled in his heart, he uttered wisdom when it was needed.
And in God's time, God did act both to intervene for both the disciples and Gracia! After more than a year, Gracia was rescued by the military in a firefight that tragically took Martin's life. Yet, God did honor him, giving him the promised land of eternity where he had placed his best hope.
In time, the wicked men who held them captive were themselves captured and imprisoned. But the real miracle happened long before their rescue and the justice her captors received The real miracle, Gracia tells, is that while this helpless couple was still witnessing atrocities, starving in the jungle and uncertain of the future, Gracia forgave and began praying for her captors.
She said, "When I stopped seeing myself as the good guy and them as the bad guy, and instead realized we all were needy guys desperate without Christ, I could forgive them and pray for them instead.
Today, three of her former captors have accepted Christ while in prison and have become brothers to Gracia who rejoices in their salvation. God was doing something bigger than they could see at the time. He cared for them, and for their captors.
Her story and these scripture have challenged me to examine how I view my circumstances, my "enemies", and God's love for me no matter the jungle or the storm. Looking for someone to blame is nothing but a distraction to seeing God's hand in the midst of the trial. Like Martin, I want to be wise enough to counsel myself and others when wisdom is needed most... so I will keep on trusting that as I keep His words in my heart, I will not slip from His path in good times or bad.
The timing couldn't be better for this lesson. Our personal place of business was robbed twice this week resulting in the loss of thousands of dollars of merchandise. Does God care? Yes, He cares about us and He cares about our "enemies" who are really His enemies. God cares so much He allowed His enemies to rob His children to ensure that at least someone on this planet would begin to pray for them to experience the only forgiveness that really matters. Perhaps one day they will be our brothers instead of our enemies because of what God has allowed.
Day 51 of 365
Leviticus 9:7-24
Leviticus 10
Mark 4:26-41
Mark 5:1-20
Psalm 37:30-40
Proverbs 10:6-7
Like anyone, I expected to hear a missionary like Gracia talk about how they fully trusted God in the midst of trouble, how they shared Christ with their captors and their faith grew. After all, they were missionaries, right? They had to be spiritual superhero's. Instead, what I heard was a very real account of a woman who was afraid for her life and angry. Gracia shared how she spent the first few months of her captivity figuring out everyone who was to blame for her circumstance - the government, the guerrillas, the vacation hotel they were kidnapped from, the military.... Eventually, she said, she got around to blaming God.
After all, she recounted, if God really cared He could have done something about the mess they were in. So, for a while, she concluded that God did not care; they had cried out to Him and He did not rescue them immediately. Her anger was also turned toward her captors... one in particular was the group's religious man who took delight in making their horrific circumstances even worse. In a fit, Gracia told Martin, "One day that man is going to burn in hell and I hope I'm there to see it!"Her wise husband Martin, gently talked about what an awful sight it would be to see someone fall into the hands of God's judgment. He counseled that perhaps they might pray that this "holy man" would truly become a holy man and trust Christ and be spared such a fate.
God gave Gracia plenty of time to consider that, and all her other questions, like: Did God really care? Was it right to want vengeance? Would she have what it took to survive her circumstances? She had time to consider questions with which she never dreamed she would wrestle.
How coincidental that having just had this conversation with Gracia, I see all these same questions played out as I read the scriptures for today. Jesus disciples were stuck in a situation that overwhelmed them and like Gracia, they wondered if God cared. They were in the middle of a lake in the middle of a storm that was sinking their boat and Jesus was letting it happen.
Mark 4:38 Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?”
Like Gracia and the disciples, often many times our first instinct when we are in a situation that overwhelms us is to ask, "God don't you care? If you cared, you would do something NOW!"
The next episode in our reading was when Jesus freed a demon-possessed man and sent the entire legion of demons who had plagued him into a herd of 2000 pigs which promptly ran off a cliff. Instead of looking to what God was doing, they masses could only see the disaster - 2000 pigs gone. They completely missed the miracle and divine work and instead blamed Jesus for what they had lost. BLAME... Gracia would say that sounds familiar to her story. Our suffering can blind us to what God is doing and instead preoccupy us looking for someone to blame. Oh what we miss when we are busy looking the wrong places.
But today's reading also included a Psalm that echoed Gracia and Martin experience. Psalm 37 explains where Martin found the words to soften Gracia's heart by poiting her in the right direction.
30 The mouths of the righteous utter wisdom,
and their tongues speak what is just.
31 The law of their God is in their hearts;
their feet do not slip from His path....
34 Don't be impatient for the Lord to act!
Travel steadily along his path. He will honor you,
giving you the land. You will see the wicked destroyed.
Martin loved God's Word and because it ruled in his heart, he uttered wisdom when it was needed.
And in God's time, God did act both to intervene for both the disciples and Gracia! After more than a year, Gracia was rescued by the military in a firefight that tragically took Martin's life. Yet, God did honor him, giving him the promised land of eternity where he had placed his best hope.
In time, the wicked men who held them captive were themselves captured and imprisoned. But the real miracle happened long before their rescue and the justice her captors received The real miracle, Gracia tells, is that while this helpless couple was still witnessing atrocities, starving in the jungle and uncertain of the future, Gracia forgave and began praying for her captors.
She said, "When I stopped seeing myself as the good guy and them as the bad guy, and instead realized we all were needy guys desperate without Christ, I could forgive them and pray for them instead.
Today, three of her former captors have accepted Christ while in prison and have become brothers to Gracia who rejoices in their salvation. God was doing something bigger than they could see at the time. He cared for them, and for their captors.
Her story and these scripture have challenged me to examine how I view my circumstances, my "enemies", and God's love for me no matter the jungle or the storm. Looking for someone to blame is nothing but a distraction to seeing God's hand in the midst of the trial. Like Martin, I want to be wise enough to counsel myself and others when wisdom is needed most... so I will keep on trusting that as I keep His words in my heart, I will not slip from His path in good times or bad.
The timing couldn't be better for this lesson. Our personal place of business was robbed twice this week resulting in the loss of thousands of dollars of merchandise. Does God care? Yes, He cares about us and He cares about our "enemies" who are really His enemies. God cares so much He allowed His enemies to rob His children to ensure that at least someone on this planet would begin to pray for them to experience the only forgiveness that really matters. Perhaps one day they will be our brothers instead of our enemies because of what God has allowed.
Day 51 of 365
Leviticus 9:7-24
Leviticus 10
Mark 4:26-41
Mark 5:1-20
Psalm 37:30-40
Proverbs 10:6-7
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