The Answer to the Questions

As I prepare this letter, my thoughts are on my visit to the United States of America. It’s just one year since the tragic events of September 11th with all its death and destruction, all its hurts and deprivation. Still the question is asked, ’What was it all about and what did it achieve?‘ Perhaps these questions are too complex for us to understand and probably we don’t have enough information to answer them. However, what we have seen is the bringing together of the American peoples into a bond and union of people who now understand more fully the follies of wasting lives without reason.

Consequently, as its government considers war in yet another land, its people are saying, ‘Why? What will it achieve? Will it be another Vietnam, with nothing but losers all round? Surely life is more precious than this?’

Psalm 19 says, “The fear of the Lord is pure ... The ordinances are sure, they are more precious than gold”

1 Peter 2:4, “As you come to Jesus, the living Stone, rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him, you also are being built into a spiritual house”

The word of God confirms that His written word is precious and so too are we in God’s sight. Life becomes precious when we read the Word and follow its precepts and its Saviour and Lord. I believe the world was truly shocked on September 11th 2001 and is beginning to see that only God in Christ has the real answers to the world’s sin, horrors and tragedies. Yet we who know salvation and the reality of a Saviour have not shouted it to those in need, who are desperate for answers and reasons to these events.

So let me urge you to be ready to share simply how Jesus helps you face the difficulties of life and the unexplained tragedies of the world. Be ready to say how you put your trust in God, believing that in Him is life and death, and that because of your trust in Him you are not in despair. As Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4:8, “we are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed but not in despair; persecuted but not abandoned; struck down but not destroyed ... Because we know the one who raised Jesus from the dead will also raise us”

May trust and peace in Christ be yours always.