A friend once told me about a conversation at a pastors' luncheon. It was an ecumenical gathering with pastors or all stripes at the table. At some point there was a discussion about what day each of them took off. Normally such conversations are a discussion on the merits of Monday versus Friday, but one pastor insisted that pastors had no business taking any days off. "After all," he said, "Satan never takes a day off."My fried commented that God did, and that more or less ended that conversation. But the exchange reminded me of how some religious folk seem to be forever worried that the world is going to hell in a handbasket. Some seem convinced that if the faithful are not extremely vigilant, all could be lost. But this strikes me as terribly unbiblical, ceding the future to human hands rather than to a sovereign God.
Now I am making no claims that the world doesn't have lots of troubles or that evil isn't real. It would require a real talent for denial to do so. Not that this is anything new. Today's psalm begins, "Help, O LORD, for there is no longer anyone who is godly; the faithful have disappeared from humankind." The psalmist clearly despairs about the state of the world. Yet the psalmist still knows that the future belongs to God. "Because the poor are despoiled, because the needy groan, I will now rise up," says the LORD... The promises of the LORD are promises that are pure."
As Christians, I believe that we are called to work for peace and justice, to care for the poor and needy, and to struggle against all that is evil and despoils God's world. But in the end, the outcome is not simply left to us. God is at work in surprising ways to bring victory out of what seem defeat. If the cross says anything, surely it is that what may look like evil's greatest triumphs end up bringing about God's will.
Oh God, give us faith to trust that the future is securely in your hands.
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