We could also ask the question: “Why does God let bad people die so old?” It doesn’t seem fair, for instance, that a man still alive at 113 years old attributes his longevity to ‘Cigarettes, whisky, and wild, wild women,’ while Job, who was “blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil” (Job 1:8) was reduced to a pitiful wreck of a man, having lost all his children and his livelihood to a deal Satan made with God. Or that Jesus, who obeyed and trusted God perfectly, was sent to an early death by conniving, power-hungry, religious hypocrites.

Surely good people deserve to live to a ripe old age as proof that God rewards people for living good lives. It’s hardly good advertising on God’s part, then, to let good people suffer from persecution, accidents, all the usual diseases everyone else gets, and premature death, because why would anyone be attracted to Christianity when it clearly doesn’t guarantee immunity from all the things that take humans to an early grave?

So if God isn’t interested in guaranteeing a long life, what is he interested in instead? 

One answer Jesus gave in John 3:21 was this: “But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.” So that’s what life is for. No matter how short or how long a person’s life is, the purpose of it is to make it plain to anyone watching what a human life is like when God is the one shaping and moulding it. 

And what makes that so noticeable is the contrast to those in verse 20 who “will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.” Some people spend their entire lives hiding from God, and don’t want him involved in their lives at all. But others, like David, willingly opened their lives to God: “Investigate my life, O God,” he wrote in Psalm 139:23-24 (The Message), “find out everything about me. Cross-examine and test me, get a clear picture of what I’m about; see for yourself whether I’ve done anything wrong – then guide me on the road to eternal life.”

David knew there was more going on in his life than trying to extend it for as long as possible. His focus, instead, was on what God could create in him while he was alive, to prepare him expertly for the life David would be living after he died. 

And who knows at what age that preparation is complete? Obviously God does, so if he lets a good person die young…

Wouldn’t it be great having nothing to worry about? – your health’s good, no family issues, stacks of money, lots of friends, great neighbourhood, safe city and secure job. 

But where on this planet is life actually like that? There’s always something gumming up the works wherever you go. If you build your house on a hill, for instance, it’s exposed to hurricanes. Build it on lowland instead, and it’s vulnerable to floods. Throw in earthquakes, volcanoes, tornadoes, ice storms and forest fires, plus accidents, pandemics and terrorism, and truth is: life’s an eggshell. It’s fragile.

It’s not an easy truth to accept. Adam and Eve didn’t accept it either, which made it very easy for the serpent to lie to them. “You won’t die,” he said, “you’ll be fine.” A worry-free life was an easy sell. It is today, too. We shell out huge amounts of cash on insurance, warranties, home security, investments, pills and religion to worry-free ourselves. Safety and security are big business. Does any of it actually work, though? Well, no, because in the end we do actually die. Everything isn’t fine. The serpent was lying.

So how on earth could Paul say in Philippians 4:6, “There’s no need to worry about anything,” when there are tons of things to worry about? Because, he replies, we can take all our troubles to God and in return God gives us peace, verse 7. 

But how does that work in real life, pray tell? What about a father who’s lost his entire business in an earthquake, or a mother who’s given birth to a deeply handicapped baby? How can they not be worried about the future? Let’s be practical.

But God’s no stranger to our world and the awful things that happen, because he lived this life himself. He saturated himself in our suffering and death, vividly felt its pain, and he too cried buckets of tears at the hopelessness of it all. But Jesus did one thing differently: he never viewed God negatively when bad things happened. He didn’t blame God for being distant, uninvolved and uncaring. He didn’t ditch God for help from other sources, like Adam and Eve did.

And why didn’t he? Because one day, as the ever-present Jesus, he’d be able to live his attitude to God in us, so we could trust God like he did. Result? We’d discover the same secret Paul discovered: “I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation…I can do everything through him who gives me strength,” verses 12-13. Including not worry? Seems so. But Paul did admit it took a while to learn it.

I wonder how many people would agree with the Bible’s assessment that we’re not really in control of our lives at all. According to Paul in Romans 8, our lives are controlled by either one of two spirits – the spirit of fear or the Spirit of sonship. In verse 15 he writes, “For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship.”

That’s an enlightening statement, because Paul is saying it’s only after we receive the Spirit of sonship that the spirit of fear loses its control over us. Up to that point, therefore, he’s saying we were totally controlled by fear. Were we really, though? Did fear really dominate our thinking? 

Well, if it isn’t fear of spiders, or fear of the dark wreaking havoc in our heads, it’s fear of what we look like, what people think of us, what’s going to happen to us as we age, or what will happen if the world has another pandemic or financial meltdown. Our lives are filled with phobias, worries and anxiousness about our families, our health, our finances, or becoming helpless in our old age. 

Even Christians can revert back to being fearful, as the Galatians did, thinking their eternal life depended on their own efforts (Galatians 3:1-5). But isn’t that the fear in all religions, that our future forever is determined by our efforts now? But what if we aren’t good enough now? Panic. We might go to hell, forever, say several religions. No wonder religious people can end up feeling like hunted animals. 

So what does the Spirit of sonship do in our heads instead? According to Romans 8:16, “The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. And by him we cry, ‘Abba, Father.’” According to Paul, then, the Spirit cuts through the fog of fear enveloping us, by helping us realize who we are. We’re God’s children, and being his children he’s always close and we’re never without him. 

And the Spirit helps us sense that, just like Lucy sensed the presence of Aslan the lion in Narnia (The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe). She couldn’t see Aslan but she could sense he was there, close by and watching over them. So when scary things happened to them on their journey through Narnia, she knew Aslan was always in control of the outcome and she didn’t panic.  

And when, at last, all four children on their journey through Narnia cottoned on to that, they lost their fear too. Sensing his presence was a great gift. And according to Paul, the Holy Spirit has given us the same gift, so that on our scary journey in this world we too have a constant antidote to fear. 

All it takes is a few deaths in a flu outbreak and panic sets in. Commentators write alarming columns in newspapers about potential pandemic, TV feeds the panic around the clock, and suddenly the line ups for flu injections are huge. But when fear takes hold, it’s just like a virus too; it’s highly contagious, it spreads like wildfire, and there’s nothing anyone can do to stop it.  

And that creates even more fear in those whose job it is to protect our health, because underrating the danger could backfire badly if the flu turns out to be a really bad one, but exaggerating the danger could get them hammered later for creating a lot of unnecessary fuss and disruption, and a “Cry Wolf” situation in the future. So now the authorities are fearful too, of either not creating enough fear to get people to protect themselves, or creating too much fear that then makes people batten down hatches, stay home and stop buying, creating more fear in those responsible for keeping the economy functioning. So now fear is spreading further and wider and faster than the flu virus itself. 

But that’s the world we live in; we are never far away from a crisis or the unstoppable fear pandemic that always follows a crisis, and we live on that knife edge all the time. 

What a horrible way to have to live, but, as Paul explained, there’s a “spirit” in this world that made us “slaves to fear” (Romans 8:15). That’s why we’re so easily frightened; it’s because there are powers beyond our own that MAKE us fearful, and they’re able to create a culture where fear is so ingrained that we cannot escape its grip. And to make things even worse, God has allowed those powers to rule us, subjecting us on purpose to a life of “futility” (Romans 8:20, RSV). A flu outbreak soon illustrates that, because what’s the point of it? Nothing good comes from it. It’s all completely futile.

But God offers an antidote, an injection of his own (so to speak) to protect us against this awful virus of fear and futility we’re enslaved to. It’s an injection of a far more powerful Spirit, the Spirit of “sonship” (verses 14-16), that reaches down deep inside us where the fear virus is and neutralizes it with a withering blast of who we are to God. We are his children, and a flu outbreak doesn’t change that. No crisis in this life changes that. But only the Spirit can make that real. It’s only the Spirit, therefore, that can stop fear when it threatens to get the better of us.

Jesus’ disciples got told off by Jesus on several occasions for their rather pathetic display of trusting him. It was such a disappointment to him, because what was their problem, when it was obvious, surely, that he could meet every need – calm raging storms, feed thousands from pitifully short supplies, heal the most horrible diseases, and send evil packing.

None of those things, however, had made trusting him any easier. His disciples marvelled at his power, but in the middle of a raging storm with Jesus on board their boat, all trust in his power went out the window.  

It must have been slightly embarrassing, then, when a non-Jewish, Greek lady trusted him. She was born in the area of south Lebanon today, which back then was Phoenicia and very much Gentile country. Jesus had travelled up there for a private meeting, hoping to keep it private, but even that far north, in Tyre and Sidon country, people got wind of his arrival (Mark 7:24).

And among them was this Greek lady, whose little daughter was being severely stressed by an evil spirit. Somehow her mother knew of Jesus and his exploits, and she’d hurried down to beg him to heal her daughter, even referring to Jesus as “Lord” and “Son of David,” an amazing understanding and acceptance that Jesus was the promised healing Messiah predicted in Scripture (Matthew 15:22).

But even when she followed him around begging for his help, Jesus totally ignored her. Exasperated, the disciples urged him to get rid of her (verse 23). To which he replied in verse 24, that he’d only been sent to the “lost sheep of Israel,” not Gentiles. And “lost” fitted in here, because most of Israel hadn’t accepted him as the Messiah, whereas this Greek lady had. So a bit of a dig here, that Israel had difficulty trusting him, but this Gentile lady did not.

And she wasn’t giving up either. This time she threw herself at Jesus’ feet, crying out, “Lord, help me.” To which he replied, “Hey, let the children eat first, not throw their food to the dogs.” “Dog” here meant a household pet, so it wasn’t meant as an insult, but as a reminder to her that he’d been sent as the Deliverer of Israel, not Gentiles.  

“Ah, but,“ she says, “the dogs get to eat the children’s crumbs, don’t they?” In other words, I know what you’re really all about; you’re not limited to just healing salvation for Israel, you were sent to be the healing Saviour of us all.    

Jesus was ecstatic: “You wonderful woman,” verse 28, “great is your faith.” In other words, when we understand what Jesus was sent for, as this Greek lady did, trust comes easy, right?

What if the disciples had said that when their boat was being tossed around in the storm? “Hey, Jesus is with us, so what’s the problem?” And he was asleep too, not the least bit phased by the wind howling and the waves crashing against the sides of the boat, and water sloshing around at their feet. 

But they didn’t say that. Instead, they were terrified that the boat would capsize and they’d all drown, including Jesus. So they shook him awake, accused him of not being concerned, to which Jesus replies, “Why are you so scared? Do you still have no faith?” (Mark 4:40).

You mean, if they did have faith they wouldn’t have been afraid at all, and maybe even enjoyed being thrown around, knowing whatever the weather chucked at them they’d be fine? And as far as Jesus was concerned, yes, that’s exactly what they could be experiencing because he was with them. But they hadn’t reached that point yet, because in his words they still didn’t have faith.

And it sounded like a disappointment to him, because what else did he need to do to get them to trust him? In Capernaum, for instance, back in Mark 1:23-26, he’d told an evil spirit to shut up and leave the man it had possessed, which the spirit did with a horrible shriek. Then in verses 30-31, he totally healed Simon’s mother-in-law, bedridden with a nasty fever. Then in verse 32, people with all kinds of physical and demonic sicknesses were lined up at his door, and he healed “many” of them (verse 34). Then in verses 40-42 he healed a man with the dreaded leprosy. I mean what else did the disciples need as proof of Jesus’ power?

And so many people came to Jesus for healing that the four friends of a paralytic had to rip the tiles off the roof and lower the man down to Jesus, who, again, totally healed him (Mark 2:11-12), also witnessed by his disciples. They saw him heal a man’s shrivelled hand too in chapter 3, so by the time they got to chapter 4 and their boat was near to capsizing, they had all kinds of evidence that the man snoozing in the stern had amazing power over things both physical and demonic. So enjoy the ride, because he was with them. Another crashing wave, whee, bring on another. 

So in answer to the question in the last blog, as to why God doesn’t do something about the scary weather we’re having nowadays, could he ask of us too, “What are you so frightened about? You know what I can do, so why don’t you trust me?”

Yeah but, he’s not with us like he was with them, is he? Well, yes he is, because in his own words he said to anyone who loves and obeys him, “I will love him and make myself real to him,” John 14:21, because, verse 23, both he and his Father “will come to him and make our home with him.” So he’s with us all right, and even closer than he was with his disciples too. 

In Paul’s words too, in Philippians 4:5-6, “The Lord is near” so “don’t be anxious about anything.” In other words, “So long as he’s with us, we’re fine.” 

“Well, maybe he jolly well should be worried about climate change, because look what it’s doing to his beloved humans and the lovely, good creation he made for us. Doesn’t he care that we are perishing?” 

Oh dear, that’s a bit blunt, but that last part was actually said to Jesus, and to his face too, when his terrified disciples had shaken him awake in  the middle of a ferocious storm, with waves crashing over the gunnels of their boat and filling it up with copious amounts of Galilee lake water. 

Jesus, meanwhile, had been snoozing on a cushion at the back of the boat. But now that he was awake, having been shaken from his sleep by his terrified disciples, what had he got to say now, eh? Because the wind was still howling, the boat was being rocked to near tipping point, and the lake water was up to their kneecaps. How much more of a bashing could they take before they were all tossed into the raging waves? The disciples yelled at Jesus in a most accusatory fashion, then, “Don’t you care if we drown?’ (Mark 4:38).  

So, was Jesus worried too? Did he cling to the mast – if, that is, there was  any clinging room left not yet taken by the disciples? Or did he cry out, “Grab the oars, men, and head her into the wind, it’s the only way we’ll survive this”? Or did he look a bit flummoxed himself, that he’d got them into this situation in the first place, having set sail so late in the day (verse 35)? 

Actually, what he did do was stand up, with no mention of hanging onto the mast, or the gunnels, or to a disciple. And once he was up he yelled out, “Shut up, be quiet, be still.” And it soon became obvious who or what he was yelling at because the wind immediately stopped howling, and the waves became a gentle whimper. And then he turned to his disciples – a sight to see, I imagine, with their eyeballs as big as saucers and their jaws bouncing off the boat deck – and in the silence, all but for the gentle lapping of water at their feet, he asked them, “How come you chaps are so frightened? Haven’t you figured out who I am yet?”

Well, no they hadn’t, because with knees still knocking they were huddled together whispering to each other, “Who is this guy, that even the wind and waves obey him?” 

And, what’s more, he hadn’t been worried one bit by the wind and waves either. A storm coming at them out of the blue – or in our terms today, climate change hitting the headlines and scaring the liver out of us – wasn’t, and isn’t, a worry to God. He could stop whatever’s terrifying us in a flash shorter than a flash of lightning. He’s God. He made the planet. He made the weather systems. And now we know from Jesus that he can stop damaging weather systems in their tracks if we’re frightened.

So why doesn’t he do it today, then, as well?

It was so sad listening to two girls, one around twelve years old and the other a 24 year old Cambridge university graduate, both frantic with fear about their future and what’s going to happen because of climate change. So was a young boy when he arrived home from school, because they’d been taught that day we’ll all be under water in 15 years because of rising sea levels. 

So what could we say from Scripture to ease their fear? Or do we as Christians believe the end is near as well? Well, why not, when verses like 1 Peter 4:7 (“the end is at hand”) and Romans 13:11 (“now is our salvation nearer”) have stirred Christians through the ages to wondering “Is God about to wrap things up soon?” – and especially in times of war when evil cares nothing for the planet or people. 

“A good war might be just what we need, though,” a young man told me, “it would knock the population down and give us breathing space for a while.” I can’t blame him for thinking that way because he’s got a lot of life to live yet, and it doesn’t look good for him the way things are. That being the case, wouldn’t it be better, then, if God did wrap things up soon, got this agony over with, cleaned out the lunatics and started again with Christ in charge? God could certainly do that, so what’s he waiting for?

But “bear in mind,” Peter writes, “that our Lord’s patience means salvation,” 2 Peter 3:15. God’s focus is on saving people, not getting rid of them. “He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance,” verse 9. For how long will he wait, though? Because in the mess we’re in we can’t last much longer, surely. 

But, Peter replies, “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness,” verse 9. God’s definition of slow has nothing to do with time. It has everything to do with “keeping his promise.” And what is that promise? It’s to make a “home of righteousness” for us, verse 13. He’s building a world for us that won’t have the problems our world has. 

How? By transforming us. By making human beings “spotless, blameless and at peace with him,” verse 14. Think what the Earth would be like if everyone was like that. Well, that’s exactly what God is patiently putting together for us, so we’ll have a home that will last us forever.

And he’s not being slow about it, either. According to Peter, God’s smack on target because he keeps his promises. That perfect home we all hope for one day is in the works.…

Flu killed around 50 million people between March 1918 and June 1920. Half the world’s population was infected, including people in the Arctic. The Spanish flu, as it was called, has been described as “the greatest medical holocaust in history,” and it’s been popping up in mild and lethal form ever since. In its lethal form it causes a massive overreaction in the immune system, among healthy people especially, and that’s what makes it so deadly. 

To add to our worries, there’s a strong hint in Romans 8:20-21 that God made lethal viruses on purpose. “For the creation was made subject to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in the hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay.”

First of all, God made us “subject to frustration” – and how true that has proved to be, because we cannot stop ourselves dying. How frustrating. But God also put us in “bondage to decay,” where we cannot stop ourselves falling apart before we die either. No matter how hard we try we cannot reverse the ageing process, or eradicate all the diseases that kill us. We can’t even stop flu. It remains a constant threat, and if it doesn’t burst into pandemic proportions this year, it’s a ticking time bomb for the future. 

But why would God do such a thing to us? 

Paul answers that in verse 21 – it’s “in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.” What we long for and hope for – a world free of death and disease – will happen one day. But before it happens there’s a lesson to be learnt – that we are children of God, not God. 

It’s an important lesson, because our destiny, Paul writes, is to live as God’s children in his loving care and freedom forever, but how will that ever happen if we think and act as if WE are God and masters of our destiny?

So God creates a world where it becomes obvious we are NOT masters of our destiny. He creates a flu virus that can kill us, and no matter what we throw at it we cannot kill it off. It simply mutates and pops up in some other form, to get the point across to our thick, resisting heads that we’re not God. God is God, and he proves it by making us subject to death and disease – whether we like it or not, BUT always “in the hope that” we STOP thinking we’re God and we’re happy being his children instead.

The world seems to be dividing up into two camps – those with power and wealth who want to control our every thought, word, act, and movement, and those who wish to be free to choose for themselves what they think, say and do, and where they go, without being pressured by outside forces against their will. 

So what does Scripture favour – freedom or control? Well, it presents a case for both of them, and even in the same verse, like Romans 8:9, where Paul writes, “You are no longer ruled by your desires, but by God’s Spirit who lives in you.” On the one hand, then, freedom from the controlling force of our desires, but on the other hand becoming subject to the power of God’s Spirit. Likewise Romans 6:22 – on the one hand “freed from sin,” but on the other “enslaved to God.” 

So there’s both freedom and control – or “enslavement,” as Paul calls it.  But these verses also sound like we’re always under the control, or rule, or influence, of one power or another – by either sin or the Spirit. Our choices are very much decided, therefore, by which power is at work in us the most. 

Paul gave an example from his own life too, in Romans 7, that on the one hand the driving force in his mind was being “a slave to God’s law,” but there was this other “law at work” in him that made him “a slave to the law of sin.” Either way, his life was determined by which power was controlling him at the time.   

So, actually everything in our lives is a type of slavery. Slavery, first of all, to being “ruled by the selfish desires of our bodies and minds,” Ephesians 2:3, but then later on, when “our minds are set on what the Spirit desires,” Romans 8:5.

So where’s freedom come in? If our lives are dictated by either our selfish desires or the Spirit’s desires, when can we ever choose for ourselves what to think, say, and do? 

But we do choose. It’s totally within our free will and choice as to which power we wish to be driven by. It’s actually the first time in our lives we’ve had a choice at all, because when our natural desires controlled us we had no choice. But now we can set our minds on what the Spirit desires as well. We can, as Paul writes in Galatians 6:8, “sow to please our sinful nature,” or “sow to please the Spirit.” Our choice. And what motivates our choice? The outcome of it. And experience, as well as Scripture, tells us what that is. 

So how does this apply to those who wish to control us with their freedom destroying dictates, agendas, and ideologies? We have a choice. We can let the thoughts, words and actions of our own nature dictate (and best of luck with that), or dive into Scripture for the Spirit’s thoughts, the outcome of which is certain, because it “always works for good,” Romans 8:28.