What Next?

To the dismay of several, yet not to the surprise of most, "judgment day" did not occur this past Saturday.  I am not sure how Camping and his followers will adjust.  While I would like to say I could care less, as a follower of Jesus I am compelled to care (and therefore repent of a "care less" attitude).  Based on past predictions, which have ALL failed, it seems some will leave the group and others will become more entrenched in the belief based on an explanation of some sort.

Partially leaving the "Judgment Day" prediction of 5/21/11 behind for now, I turn our attention to the tornadoes of Saturday (Reading, KS) and Sunday (Joplin, MO) evenings.  What are Christians to do in response to those events?  Among other things we should offer help.  God's love is shown in times like these through His people.  Indeed, our interaction with others directly reveals how much we love God (cf. Mt22:34-40).

The reason I said 'partially leaving...' above is because I want to keep this discussion informed by eschatology, which ought to influence all Christian discussion.  Among other things, in Luke 13:1-5 Jesus tells us we should not be concerned about finding a "one-to-one" correlation between disaster and some sort of cause/sin.  Rather, Jesus tells us is we need to live a repentant life.  Living in light of eschatology ought to compel one to lead a repentant life.  So why don't we live in light of what the Bible teaches concerning "eschatology"?

Confusion is one answer.  I hope to post a bit about confusion in the near future.

Yet it also seems to me the very fact of living a repentant life is another struggle we have with living in light of biblical teaching on eschatology.  By and large people do not want to repent.  By and large people enjoy doing what they think is best.  By and large people enjoy the (supposed) comforts life in this world offers.  Yet what happens when those comforts are wiped out?

Alas, we are back to the tornadoes of Reading and Joplin (not to mention the recent flooding of the Mississippi and other tornadoes...or the earthquake/tsunami in Japan...or ______).  This is not to minimize the loss of lives and material things suffered recently, or at any other point in history, due to anything (such as a "natural disaster").  What it is intended to do is help us to realize an obvious reality; THINGS ARE NOT RIGHT IN THIS WORLD!!!

Somewhere around 22,000 children die of poverty related issues around the world every day.  The majority of those deaths are on different continents, which makes "out of sight and out of mind" very prevalent for us in the West.  However, when tragedy strikes closer to home it is harder to ignore the reality of this world being a mess.  At this point we have options.  CS Lewis said "pain is God's megaphone".  I am not saying God causes these horrible things to happen (views on this vary).  Yet I am saying we can either choose to listen to the pains of the world or ignore them (I do not know if there is another option).

Back to the Camping crew...as misguided as they were at least they acted on their beliefs.  I, for one, need to repent of not being shaped more by what I believe - which is shaped by what I know about eschatology.