Dear Friends,

It is 15 years ago this weekend since the horror of the terrorist attacks of 9/11. I looked back at the message I sent out the week after the attack in curiosity about how my thinking may have changed. Here is an updated version of the same message. My thinking hasn’t changed.

As you undoubtedly were, I was sickened in body and soul by the scenes of airliners flown as “terror by day” to kill and destroy lives and freedom. I wondered if I would ever send these messages again since words seemed so feeble and inadequate against such horrifically visible evil.

But it is the hopeful assurance of Scripture that wherever evil is on the increase, God’s grace will flourish to overcome it (Rom 5:20). And grace abounded in those sorrowful days of September. People rallied in unprecedented numbers to give blood. Ironworkers marched en mass to move the twisted steel and shattered concrete of the collapsed towers. Physicians, nurses and firefighters poured into New York City to volunteer where and as needed. New heroes rose to save others at the ravaged Pentagon and made the ultimate sacrifice in the skies over western Pennsylvania. Strangers joined in prayer across the country.

A close friend of mine was in the midst of a long battle against cancer at the time. Her condition required frequent blood transfusions. She sent me this note during the first few days of response–
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Moses told the Children of Israel that he had set before them life and death, and urged them to choose life by living lives of loving deeds in reliance on the providence of a loving God (Deut 30:15-21). One can fly an aircraft into an office building in hatred or fly that aircraft to the Sudan to bring grain and medical supplies to the victims of genocide. God created humans with choice and even after that power of choice was abused he still pursued and pursues his erring children in love “not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance” (2 Pet 3:9).

If those who hate and those who kill can cause us to hate in return and to yield our freedom to fear and vengeance, we have lost and they have won. Because I will not yield my belief in a loving God who created us as the instruments of his love, I have determined to continue to write about grace seeking to reignite the smoldering coals of love in broken and disillusioned hearts.

To that end, I’ll tell you a story about the power of love to change two lives, one of them ravaged by suffering and shame caused by bad religion and neglect. It is a story that stilled me in reverence the first time I heard it.

A boy I’ll call Bill was playing in the garage with his brothers when one of them ignited some gasoline. The gas can exploded behind Bill setting his shirt on fire. His back was badly burned before he ran out of the garage and rolled on the ground to put out the flames.

Bill’s mom was a single mother struggling to make ends meet. She was deeply and strangely religious with a legalism that crossed the line to superstition. She couldn’t afford medical treatment for the burns. She told Bill and his brothers, “If you pray and have enough faith, God will heal Bill.  Incredibly and unfortunately, Bill received no medical care for the third degree burns.

His mom cleaned him up the best she could and painfully pulled off the sloughed-off, charred flesh. The pain was extreme and Bill slipped in and out of consciousness in agony. The burns were massive and oozed. The home remedies that she used to prevent infections added to the pain.

His back started to scab over and the itching was beyond Bill’s capacity to bear. His mom enlisted his brothers to help make a wire cage contraption in the attic to hold him down on his stomach so that he couldn’t reach around and pick at the scabs. For over a year, Bill lay on is stomach in his cage under the light of one bare light bulb.

Bill was 12 when the burn occurred. Burns do not heal easily under the best of medical care. Sores flamed up and oozed as deep, keloid scars formed all over his back in a writhing, fibrous mass of red and white. The scarring knotted Bill’s muscles into a tight, binding grip of painful bondage.

When Bill was 14,  his mother sent Bill to church with his brothers. He met Sally in a church youth group when they were16. She was a smiling, blue-eyed blonde. Bill was handsome of face, but taciturn, often sitting by himself in silence, hunched-up and inexplicably wearing a jacket on the warmest of days.

Sally reached out to Bill and her kindness and attention began to open him up. She was puzzled that he avoided the volleyball and softball games. She observed his aversion to touch. His slow stooped walk puzzled her.

Bill finally shared his secret with Sally and she was horrified. Most horrible to her was the indifference of Bill’s mother to the situation. She had remarried a prominent local businessman and they began to follow a “prophetess” who communicated with her followers by satellite telecast from her desert headquarters. They had plenty of time and money for the prophetess, but none for the surgeries that Bill so badly needed. In denial of his need and her failure to do anything about it, Bill’s mother said, “It’s God’s will for your life.”

The sores and scarring continued to cycle in Bill’s flesh. His life was in danger from the infection and the damage being done to his musculature. The wounds gave off an unpleasant odor, but Sally was moved with compassion rather than repulsed.

The brave teen-age girl pulled out a telephone book and began cold-calling physicians. She called a lot of them until one surgeon agreed to take a look at Bill. He said that he would operate on Bill for free and he enlisted other specialists to assist in the case.

The result of a series of surgeries was remarkable. The sores subsided, the musculature was freed and Bill straightened up to a 6″ 2″ height. He gained strength and physical dexterity to the point that he could work in construction, eventually becoming a contractor himself. For her part, Sally was inspired to become a registered nurse. They married and had two healthy children. Later on, I met them at church as vibrant Christians and learned their story.

I am moved every time that I think of teenage Sally picking up the phone book to find a physician, refusing to accept things as they were. Her love literally healed Bill and set him free. They both chose love in terrible circumstances. They both found grace amidst the toxic wastelands of bad religion. Choices like theirs are the greatest miracles of human existence.

Why do bad things happen to good people is a question that frankly doesn’t interest me much. The harsh reality of sin and selfish choices, the abuse of God’s gift of free will, the glad willingness of Christ to endure the cross and die for us, and  hope in his second coming, intellectually satisfy me on that score.

What plagues me is why aren’t more good things done for hurting people? What distresses me is why, given the choice, don’t more of us choose the path of love instead of the self-immolation of hatred or the abdication of indifference?

We sit around alternatively blaming God or apologizing for him because pain happens. This is something that Jesus did not do. He never tried to justify God for all the pain in the world. People came to Jesus and complained that Pilate had murdered Galileans at worship. Jesus did not respond with a defense of God or explain his reasons for allowing suffering in the world. He actually brought up another tragedy when 18 persons were killed by the collapsing tower of Siloam. He said, “These victims weren’t worse sinners than anyone else. But unless you turn yourself around your going to perish like they did” (Luke 13:1-5).

Jesus’ point was to die with God is everything, but to die without God is the end of us. Our God is the Lord of all grace, our Creator, Redeemer, and King who came to earth to bring life and give it abundantly. God sent his Son to save us through him, not to condemn the world in a fireball of hatred (John 3:17).

Jesus never spent time in theological musing about the meaning of life. He presented himself as the source of eternal life, take it or leave it. His teaching was that the life he gave was meant to be lived, not scrutinized.

Jesus constantly urged action-“Follow me”, “Pick up your bed and walk”, “Pray like this”, “Show mercy to the one who needs it”, “Visit the prisoners”, “Feed the hungry”, “Clothe the naked”, “Heal the sick”, “Bring the little ones to me.” We are called by Christ to do what we can to relieve suffering, not speculate on its metaphysics.

Paul, wearied by constant arguments between proponents of the gospel of grace and their tenacious legalist critics told the Galatians, Christ gives eternal life to those who will receive it. Our receipt of the gift settles our destiny and frees us to love rather than obligating us to earn love.

Paul continued”The only thing that counts is faith working through love…Bear one another’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ…So let us not grow weary in doing what is right, for we will reap at harvest-time, if we do not give up. So then, whenever we have an opportunity, let us work for the good of all, and especially for those of the family of faith” (Gal. 5:6, 6:3, 9-10).

We are given the power to love by our Creator. We sin when we fail to use that power when the opportunity presents itself (James 4:17). Frederick Buechner writes:

It is said that “Work is love made visible.” I like that epigram because it calls me to submit the works of my hands, the words of my mouth, and the thoughts that motivate them, to God, much like the little boy brought his sack lunch of bread and fish to Jesus for blessing and distribution for the feeding of others.

Mary at the wedding reception at Cana, told the servants “Do what ever he tells you to do?” The result was large jars carried and filled to be transformed for the life of the party.

What power is there in a brown bag of bread and fish, thirty gallon jars filled with water or the yellow pages of a phone book in the hands of a teen-age girl motivated by compassion? What power is there in my lap-top computer sitting this moment on a messy desk? What power is there in the work that you will do this day that makes it different from every day before that? Why don’t more good things happen to hurting people?

The answer lies within our heart empowered by the grace of God. Most of the bad things that happen to people I know result directly or indirectly from human negligence or malice. People who know God as a God of love know that it is not his plan or heart that it should be this way.

He calls all of us to repentance saying, “You don’t have to live this way anymore because I love you.” Knowing that we are loved forever by the One who made us and redeemed us, we can stand safe and secure and reach out in love to those he brings by us. The power of love will never be known unless we open up our hearts and exercise it. Good things should happen to hurting people and it’s in our power to make them happen. “If you love me, Jesus says, “feed my sheep” (John 21:15-17).

“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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Please note that the content and viewpoints of Mr. Hansen are his own and are not necessarily those of the C.S. Lewis Foundation. We have not edited his writing in any substantial way and have permission from him to post his content.

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Kent Hansen is a Christian attorney, author and speaker. He practices corporate law and is the managing attorney of the firm of Clayson, Mann, Yaeger & Hansen in Corona, California. Kent also serves as the general counsel of Loma Linda University and Medical Center in Loma Linda, California.

Finding God’s grace revealed in the ordinary experiences of life, spiritual renewal in Christ and prayer are Kent’s passions. He has written two books, Grace at 30,000 Feet and Other Unexpected Places published by Review & Herald in 2002 and Cleansing Fire, Healing Streams: Experiencing God’s Love Through Prayer, published by Pacific Press in spring 2007. Many of his stories and essays about God’s encompassing love have been published in magazines and journals. Kent is often found on the hiking trails of the southern California mountains, following major league baseball, playing the piano or writing his weekly email devotional, “A Word of Grace for Your Monday” that is read by men and women from Alaska to Zimbabwe.