Jul 28 2008
Finding and Not Finding God
I know that for those who are lost, the things of God are foolishness. Still, some can look at the rubbish-heap of their lives or at the broken world we’ve created and see that God is alive and offers a way out. In the last week, I’ve seen two very different views of man and God. One was in Brian “Head” Welch’s book Save Me from Myself: How I Found God, Quit Korn, Kicked Drugs, and Lived to Tell My Story. Welch was a guitarist with the band Korn who gave up the sex and drugs (but not the rock and roll) to follow the Lord.
In some ways, Save Me is typical. It’s Welch’s picture of the Holy Spirit reaching into the painful muck of one person’s life to give hope of a new, changed life. It’s what God does, through the Holy Spirit. As believers, isn’t that our story as well? Not all of us reached Welch’s level of despair, but his story gives me confidence that no one is beyond hope. Welch accepted the help and the promise of a new life offered by his Creator and and is new creation. His story is pretty graphic at times, but it’s a resounding story of hope and redemption.
On the other hand are those who steadfastly refuse to acknowledge the presence of God, despite all evidence. The folks at God Is Imaginary post a graphic and humbling CNN story of a Bosnian woman named Jasmina who was raped and tortured daily for more than a year under Radavan Karadzic. The woman’s response to the horror of her situation?
“I will never be OK,” she said, adding that she believes God kept her alive for a reason.
She recognizes the hand of God in her survival. Yet the blog hosts look at the situation and see that “she still believes her all loving, all powerful, all knowing, all merciful god allowed this to happen to her for a reason.” They shake their fists at God and blame Him for the sins of man.
Look, we live in a world that seemingly gets darker by the day. Depravity is all around us because that world is fallen. To my mind, the miraculous event is God deigning to reach into this corruption to bring healing and comfort. It happened to Brain Welch and to a Bosnian woman. If they can see His hand, why can’t we?
