By Anthony Hart.
I recently heard this "song" I guess you could call it about September 11, 2001. After 9/11, I couldn't help but wonder how God could let something like this happen. This recording was being played on 105.3 on the days following 9/11, but I kind of just disregarded it. After all, I was already feeling somewhat doubtful, so I just changed the station and listened to the news. After discussing this topic with Steve 5 1/2 years later, I came across this song on the internet, and it really made me wonder how God works.
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Here's a link to listen to and read it:
http://www.focusonals.com/911lyrics.htm
7 Comments:
Interesting lyrix. In responce to Tony's comment, I don't think that god said "I am going to comand a bunch of terrorists to kill people." It sais in the bible that people have free will and God can't do much to stop them directly, he won't do anything like mind controll. I'm sure he looked down on that moment and thought "why are my children doing this?" or something like that but he has sworn not to interfear. If you've seen "Bruce Almighty" there is an interesting example of this. He trys to force his girlfriend to like hime with his power but he can't. In the same way I don't think God could have forced those terrorists to love him and stop what they were doing, no matter how much he really might have wanted to.
Thanks Anthony for your continued honesty in wrestling with the question of where's God when evil and suffering happens. I went ahead and made this a post and transferred Michael P.'s comments over to it so other people will notice it and hopefully jump into the conversations. Michael, I also appreciate your thoughtful response.
How can we believe that there is a loving all-powerful God when evil and suffering exist? This is a question that a lot of people wrestle with, and one that has lead many people to not believe/trust in and follow God. First off, there are no easy answers to this question. I for one also wonder why God let 9/11 happen, or any other terrible things (the recent tsunami, the genocide in Darfur, Joe Green from Shorecrest getting hit by a car last summer, to name a few). Yet, at the end of the day, I still trust God and deeply believe that His fundamental characteristic is love and. There are a number of reasons for this, and perhaps they are worthy of a "why I trust God" post to really get at them. But back to the specific question. A couple thoughts...
1.) As Michael mentioned, God does give us free choice as humans. If we are going to authentically love Him, then we have to be able to choose to, of our own free will. Otherwise, we are just robots, and that is not love. Real love always comes with a risk: the person you love has the ability to hurt you (think about anyone that you care a lot about, and how it would hurt way more if they did something awful to you versus someone you didn't know). In other words, if God created us with the capacity to love and do good, He also created us with the capacity to do the opposite, hate and do evil.
2.)God originally created a world that was in perfect harmony. The earth, humans, animals... We all got along. Again, he wanted us humans to freely love Him, so we were given a choice. And we chose not to. The result was that the whole created order is now out of whack. (For example, we live on a planet that could kill us with storms, famine, earthquakes, etc.) This is not what God intended for us, and someday, He will restore things back to the way they are suppose to be. But until things, we live in a messed up world.
3.) I do believe God can and does intervene in mad-made (sin) and nature-made tragedy at times. But obviously, not always. I have no idea why this is and have certainly questioned what He was thinking before. At the same time, the Bible (James 1:2-5) talks about how God is interested in growing us and trials/sufferings become a primary way that can happen. This reminds me that God can make something good come out of something really bad.
4.)But, we have to be really careful not to assume this for other people. Maybe God was trying to teach us something? Or maybe He let it happen for a reason we just won't understand. We've got to be careful to not offer people simple answers that can sometimes degrade or devalue their loss, grief and pain. Which brings me to the "9-11 Silent Night" song... I can see why this song would bring some people a little comfort. It ties it up for them in a nice neat package. It makes a very messy, hard to explain situation, explainable. This is exactly what makes me uncomfortable with this song. I'm also uncomfortable with the way that it is using a tragedy to try to get people saved. (Lyrics:) "September 11, 2001 was not the end of the journey for you. But someday your journey will end. And I will be there for you as well. Seek me now while I may be found. Then, at any moment, you know you are 'ready to go.'" I think the non-Christian response to this is that it cheapens the tragedy and turns it into a marketing ploy. Secondly, it is reducing salvation to heaven versus hell. Salvation is not about having the assurance that you are 'ready to go'. Salvation is more then about going to heaven. It's about knowing God now in this life, and then being with God forever in heaven.
To wrap up, a couple of great resources on this topic are:
1.)The Case for Faith Student Edition, by Lee Strobel (There is a whole chapter on this exact topic, it even uses 9-11 as the primary example of suffering and evil, I would be more then happy to photocopy this section for you [which is legal by the way]).
2.)A Grace Disguised, by Howard Sittser (He lost his family in a car wreck, and drawing from his own experience of loss, he talks about trusting God in the midst of tragedy...)
3.) Where's God When it Hurts?, by Phillip Yancey (The title says it all...) If you are wrestling with a specific tragedy in your own life, I especially recommend the last 2 books.
Thanks for reading,
Steve
I'm not quite sure where to comment on Anythony's postage, but I had a somewhat hard time with this topic too after 9/11. After a lot of reading of trials and stuff like that from the bible I figured that God doesn't want people to suffer. But he sometimes lets those types of things happen b/c he uses them to bring people closer to him whether they are christians or of others relgions or non-religious people.
I have a question.
How can anyone see blowing up two major towers as a good thing? Isn't it like common sense that it would hurt people and cause major suffering? And if they were trying show something what was it b/c all I saw were the insides of the building, smoke, fire, death and pain.
Lil Red (I think Erica), that's a question that I've asked before too? How could people ever get to a place where they thought that killing innocent people was a good thing? And even be willing to give up their own lives to do it?
I recently saw a movie called "Paradise Now", about two Palestinian friends who are going to become suicide bombers in Israel. The movie deals with the motivations of terrorists and asks the same questions we are. It's very well done and really makes you think. I recommend watching it with your parents so that you can discuss it. It's rated PG-13 for a bit of language (very little at the beginning) and subject matter (there is no violence, though the movie is about violence.) It's a foreign film and has subtitles.
I was checking out the input blog and i thought about how God really COULD let something like 9/11 happen and I started to lose faith in prayer. I thought, "Could God really hear me? Does prayer really work?" I prayed after the accident that everyone in it would fully recover, yet that didn't happen. Then I saw the Invisible Children movie and it showed me in its own way that prayer really does work 'cause those (however many) boys were sent to help the children in Uganda.
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