Dear Friend,
I wonder how many times in the first six months of this year you found yourself asking, “What is going on?”
The context may have been the state of the nation, the collapse of your team in the playoffs, or a traffic jam on the way to the airport. I remember finding myself trapped in a huge traffic jam in Mexico City and, in a very British way, anticipating the arrival of the constabulary to bring order out of chaos, only to realize that the police themselves were caught up in the chaos.
Are we to imagine that our lives are like a football game without goalposts, touchlines, or even a ball? This very notion sounds absurd, and yet it is not uncommon to find our neighbors and friends living with a worldview that presumes everything that happens is the result of random indifference.
Making sense of a world without God, according to Ecclesiastes, is like chasing the wind. In one of his earliest songs, Paul Simon describes himself lying in his bedroom in the early evening gloom, where “impaled upon my wall my eyes can dimly see the pattern of my life and the puzzle that is me.” That line of poetry may be unfamiliar to the present generation, but the sense of futility they well understand. We live in a time that invites us to believe three big lies: one, that there is no creator God; two, that there is no absolute morality; and three, that there is no ultimate truth. It is not difficult to trace a line from succumbing to these lies to living an increasingly joyless and depressing life.
Here is an opportunity for the Christian teenager, college student, carpenter, or homemaker with an open Bible to engage kindly, creatively, and imaginatively with others by declaring that history is not cyclical but linear. Before there was time, before there was anything, there was God. He is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. The universe was made by Him, is sustained by Him, and is accountable to Him.
The apostle Paul puts it this way:
“By him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together” (Col. 1:16–17).
I write this aware of the fact that both our programs this month (studies in the books of Ruth and Daniel) reinforce the providential care of God in all things, and not least of all in the ordinary things. If you’re concerned because you have children or grandchildren soon heading off to college or out into the workforce, then be heartened by the reminder of God’s care for Daniel and his friends in an environment that challenged the foundations of their faith. Our resources this month will help you dive deeper into both these studies and were selected to remind all of us that we can rest comfortably in God’s loving care and sovereignty.
I hope you will enjoy celebrating the Fourth of July and, in turn, the lazy days of summer. Having stepped away from the pulpit at Parkside, I am enjoying my redeployment at Truth For Life. We really love it when you come for a visit, and we are continually thankful for your prayerful and financial partnership, which makes it possible for us to fulfill our mission.
With my love in the Lord Jesus,
Alistair
