Our Twisted Planet--by Linden Malki

Hurricanes, fires, shootings,  bitter accusations; much of the news has been bad. The physical world

hits us from one side, and we hit each other from the other.  We try to grow wheat, and find the fields infested with weeds. Those of us who are followers of Jesus can't help wondering why, and those who are not are screaming that God is dead, missing, or a delusion.

Christians are not immune to suffering and even martydom.  In my own family, my uncle was held prisoner in China for almost 5 years, my great-grandfather and his family were forced to leave Sweden, and my father-in-law's father and brother were massacred by Kurds in Turkey--all because they were known to be Christian leaders.  The results of these people's lives were the reaching of many  people with the Gospel; in all three cases some of their descendants also became preachers and missionaries, who led even more people to Jesus. Of the twelve disciples of Jesus, one fell away and suicided, one was sent to a prison colony on an isolated island, and the other ten were martyred. And yet they set the stage for the Gospel to reach much of the world and survive for two thousand years.

In the current spate of pain and evil, we see brave people risk their lives rescuing the those in the paths of the hurricanes; fighting the brush fires and looking for those endangered, helping the victims survive their losses. I have not seen reports of arson behind any of the current wave of fires, but we here know arson's results personally, both in our city and in the destruction of our own worship center--and our experience may be the catalyst for an expansion of ministry in our community that we never would have believed. I recall thinking that our hanging in here and surviving would be a witness, but never guessed how it would play out.

The most depressing evils are those that people do to each other. Millions of words have been written speculating what mental, social and emotional twists cause people to become horribly destructive. I have been reading a number of commentaries on these twisted people, but noticed that in all these words, there are three that only appeared once each: "God", "church", "prayer."  These are not only missing from the explanations of what's wrong with the people in our country and the world, but missing from too many of our communities as well. But these are the way out of evil in our society. People can't get along on their own--it takes the love of God to give us the strength to love one another.