How this man kept his faith alive after a tragedy

Admittedly, as I start a new blog there are some built in features. One of them was the title to this blog, "How this man kept his faith alive after a tragedy". Perhaps, the title should be personal, "How this woman kept her faith alive after a tragedy" but then I would have to consider the tragedy and talk about 'it'. So, in this first blog, I'm not admitting to a tragedy but allowing myself to reflect on that title for a minute.

Many people keep their faith alive after tragedy through reassessing who they knew God to be before a tragedy and then reflecting on who God has become to them after the tragedy. We go through so many things and often discover we don't believe that God is the same as who we thought He was a year ago, five years ago, or 10 years ago when we were so very strong in our faith. Yet, Hebrews 13:8 says, "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever." and Numbers 23:19 says, "God is not human that He should lie, not a human being that He should change His mind. Does He speak and then not act? Does He promise and not fulfill?"

This summer, I am exploring some text in the book of John. I will be writing a series of sermons on Jesus' I am statements. The first is found in John 6. I've learned that preparing sermons quickly takes a lot of time and in exploring blogging, I've thought maybe throughout the summer, it would be neat to post occasional thoughts about things I am learning from these sermons as well as maybe interesting things about the text or other relevant stuff. These blogs will not be extremely prepared and planned but perhaps some of the reflections will be strengthening to readers as I reflect on neat assignments and writings from those things I complete.

One thing I will mention in correlation of a recent writing on John 6:25-35 is that the reclaiming of faith after tragedy is a really serious thing. However, one thing that we note from the passage is that the people's idea of Jesus was misplaced. They wanted Jesus to be king but 2000 years ago it was not part of God's plan for Jesus to fulfill that role of political kingship. In this dialogue, Jesus sets some things straight about Himself and then identifies Himself as the Bread of Life at the end of this portion of the dialogue. In tragedy and even in the absence of tragedy, when we are claiming or reclaiming our faith in Jesus, we want to be able to identify those areas of our life where we had imposed on Jesus what we wanted him to be for us or what we wanted Him to do for us. We wanted him to be healer but he did not heal the way we expected. We wanted him to change a situation or circumstance but it never resolved itself. So, my encouragement is to continue to listen to the Word of God, believe the promises of God, spend time in prayer, and let Jesus speak to you about Himself. Jesus is the Bread of Life. He is the giver of life and the sustainer of all living things. His authority comes from God the Father and we know and believe that as James 1:17 says, "Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows." How has God blessed you and what good gift has God given you today? What tragedy has God allowed to happen in your life which He wants to walk with you through? What idea have you held onto about God that God wants to correct?

More to come...

#keepingthefaith #dealingwithtragedy #faith #John6