Lover or Prostitute?

Tragedy and more tragedy – within one week two children (one five weeks old and the other one year old) have died in separate car accidents – one here in Uganda and the other in front of our home church, Grace Community in Marion. This comes on the heels of the senseless beating our two church leaders here in Uganda received at the hands of military police.  Please continue praying for Andrew and Daniel.  Daniel is suffering from strong abdominal pain and is going to have it checked out.  Additionally a friend emailed prayer requests to our family from Grace Community and there are a number of things going on there – people hurting.

A friend in the States also shared with me the WLOS FB page about the missionary couple here in Uganda.  At that site I just read a post from a lady who had read the story about the accident and death of the missionary child.  She writes, “It’s events like these that make me question God.  Makes absolutely NO sense.”

For the Christian these events call us to faith, to love, to prayer and into a fellowship with Christ’s sufferings (Phil 3:10).  The truth of that passage makes things all too often no easier, and honestly this post is not the encouraging sweetness a suffering person needs to read or hear.  In fact, I honestly hope anyone suffering stops now and doesn’t read it.  This post is meant to be medicine, usually bitter, for fellow hardened addicts who have difficulty understanding a benevolent, loving God in the wake of such tragedies.

Recently I have run across suffering again and again and again.  Uganda is more accepting of suffering and death.  America generally has more difficulty with suffering and death.  I think part of the difficulty we have as Americans is due to how we view God.  It shocks us when tragedy happens.   Ugandans on the other hand see it as a way of life.

A college (and Facebook) friend of mine, Robert Gnage posted this link to an article that has me thinking about how I as an American view God and how I think God should view me.  I’m ashamed to say, it’s all too often as a prostitute instead of an unconditional lover.

I admire those who are unconditional in their love to God and others, whose faith is so strong, who love so deeply and who minister so compassionately.  The article asks a very good question.  Here’s the article link (it took me a few days to be able to access it because the bandwidth at the site had been exceeded).  It seems to be working now:

http://viralchrist.com/spiritual-growth/love/1559-qlover-or-prostitute-the-question-that-changed-my-life

In His joy,
Mark