Dear Friends,

It was a horrible day. Word had arrived of a plane crash that destroyed nearly two generations of a family, young children and their parents, closely associated with our university community. There were the usual questions — what do we tell the reporters that are calling and who should tell them?

The sun was shining and the breeze was light and warm which didn’t help. It was a day when smiles caused pain, and words were useless.

A friend of mine, a physician who was especially close to the family, asked me with tears, “How do you believe in God at a time like this?”

I thought for a moment. Questions like this don’t have answers. They require a choice to believe.

“It is very difficult to believe in a loving, saving God, I think, unless you take the long view. Our time on this earth is short and painful due to sin. Without the life of God and its creative power we only know pain and loss here. We are never beyond its shadow. But God gives us eternal life and what we see and suffer here is not all there is. He loves us and wants us to be with him forever.

“Jesus came and lived and died as one of us because God does not exempt himself from our suffering. He offers us life beyond our here and now. I believe this and my hope is in him, nothing and no one else.”

“The long view, eh?” she responded.

“There is no other way that makes sense to me,” I said. “Paul wrote to the Corinthians, ‘If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied’ (1 Cor 15:19). Because if this life and this world is all we are going to have, we are going to be miserable. In times like this that seem so hopeless, that’s what I choose to believe and its how I live in spite of what I can’t see or feel.”

“That’s what I try to do too,” she said.

Years have passed, but I have been thinking about that conversation of late. People I love are facing challenges beyond any human capacity to resolve them. Hearts are broken. Health is threatened.

Uncertainty, suspicion and fear swirl through society and I am encountering it in my legal and government relations work. Political and doctrinal division and strife grow in places and among people supposedly united in faith. Colleagues in the cause of religious liberty squander their witness and credibility in partisan allegiances and tirades.

Emotions reign, while reason fails. Reliable information is almost impossible to find in media of any kind. Ideologies rather than facts dictate public health, safety, and morals, the essentials of social welfare that government is supposed to protect.

While preparing for a Thanksgiving worship, I read the story of Martin Rinkart (1586-1649). Rinkart was a Lutheran pastor in Eilenburg, Saxony for thirty-one years.  His pastorate was co-extensive with the Thirty Years War which surged through Eilenburg along with famine and plague. Rinkart was known for sharing whatever his family had to eat and even went into debt to feed the people of the town at a time when 30 or 40 starving men and women were known to fight to the death in the street over the carcass of a cat or a crow.

There were four pastors in Eilenburg, but one left for more pleasant and secure environs and would not return. Two of the pastors died. This left Rinkart to deal with the funerals and he preached 4,280 of them.

In 1636, as the Great Pestilence, was nearing its peak, Rinkart wrote a prayer for his children. It is a remarkable document of faith in a time of extreme suffering and loss.
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Now thank we all our God
With heart and hand and voices,
Who wondrous things hath done,
In whom His world rejoices;
Who, from our mother’s arms,
Hath blest us on our way
With countless gifts of love,
And still is ours today.
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It is a foundational spiritual principle that thinking about blessings experienced in the past is helpful in dealing with stressful present circumstances. But Rinkart shares deeper truths. There is a God to whom this world belongs. He has always been with us and our lives are his gifts of love.

The next verse recognizes that we can’t make it without him. The blessings of joyful hearts and peace that are the fruit of God’s presence. He keeps us and guides us when we are confused and troubled. It is his gift to free us from whatever bad things beset us here and that would deny us eternal life. This is the God in whom I believe and with whom I continue to deepen my relationship.
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O may this bounteous God
Thro’ all our life be near us,
With ever joyful hearts
And blessed peace to cheer us;
And keep us in His grace,
And guide us when perplexed,
And free us from all ills
In this world and the next.
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A lot of damage is done in the name of Christ by those who teach faith exempts one from pain, suffering and want. God is with us in pain and hardship calming our spirits and bringing peace to our hearts, but we do experience such things in this world. Knowing he loves us and gives us a future and a hope is the key to facing the dark and terrible moments.

A relative few ever experience this kind of joyful heart and blessed peace in troubled times because they refuse to yield control and say, “Jesus, take over everything including my thoughts and feelings.”  As long as we insist on control, we will keenly feel the things that resist that control. This lesson isn’t learned in one take. It results from a daily choice to trust God and obey his instructions until it becomes one’s very nature.

Even in the devastation of war, plague, and famine, Rinkart trusted God and believed that he alone is worthy of our praise, thanks and worship. This is the faith that makes God a living reality for men and women and compels them to serve in love when others fight or run away.
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All praise and thanks to God
The Father now be given.
The Son, and Him who reigns
With them in highest heaven,
The one eternal God,
Whom earth and heav’n adore;
For thus it was, is now,
And shall be evermore.
Amen.
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Rinkart takes the long view — “For thus it was, is now and shall be evermore.” God is eternal, grace lasts, his mercy endures for ever, his love doesn’t quit. David summarizes these truths in Psalm 138:7-8.
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Though I walk in the midst of trouble,
you preserve me against the wrath of my enemies;
you stretch out your hand,
and your right hand delivers me.
The Lord will fulfill his purpose for me;
your steadfast love, O Lord, endures forever,
Do not forsake the work of your hands.
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I remember reading this verse when I was struggling through grief in the summer before my junior year at La Sierra University. Tragedy had derailed my life plan. The thought that I was still God’s work in progress was encouraging to me.

I wish I could tell you that I gave everything to the Lord then and have trusted him ever since. Young and strong-willed, I tried to think and push my way through trouble for the next 17 years until I couldn’t clear the obstacles no matter how much I tried. I began to learn that God was not merely my phone-a-friend when I needed ideas or encouragement. He is either my life or he is nothing. That’s when the long view became reality for me. Are you there yet?

“O taste and see that the Lord is good. Happy are those who take refuge in him” (Ps 34:8).

Under the mercy of Christ,

Kent

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