The Evangelical Universalist Forum

I’m a Christian and my house just burned down

I just read this and found it interesting and helpful.

From
biblesociety.org.au/news/im- … ust-burned

I’ve copied it to here to save you looking it up.

This is an interesting subject, Craig.

I live in Australia, and these fires are intense. Tragedy, though, comes in many shapes and patterns. Christians need to deal with death and sickness everyday; it is simply a part of this life. Sometimes we think of God as our guardian angel, and nothing bad could possibly happen to us while God is looking over us. This is not an accurate picture of the relationship we are called to. I don’t know of any of the great prophets or biblical legends who were given a peaceful life without any struggles. They all had extreme struggles. That is the life we have been called to. It is easy to worship God when everything is going good; but this is a feigned devotion. We truly only know of our devotion once we are fully tested. The tests in life bring out our flaws that we need to attend to. God promises to try us with fire.

Steve

Hi Steve,

I too live in Australia - in Sydney.

I find it encouraging to hear of this man’s trust in God during this tragedy. It is one thing to talk about trusting God, and another to live it out in the midst of trial.

It is true as you say

Many lose their faith over the problem of suffering and yet for others it tests and tries and purifies their faith.
I am thankful that for the writer, it seems that the latter has occurred. I pray that God will use these fires to purify the faith of many others as well.

Thanks for posting the article, Craig! I’m thinking of posting it to the Cadre Journal, too.

(You accidentally posted a couple of ‘page artifacts’ which inadvertently made the author look like he hadn’t edited his article and was duplicating himself, so I tweaked those “sidebar quotes” out and similarly removed reference to the photo since that didn’t serve any purpose without the picture. :slight_smile: )

Thanks very much Jason for fixing up my copying efforts. I had just assumed it would copy as I had read it. I will know to check next time.

I’m glad you found the article helpful and can pass it on to encourage others. :smiley:

Hi Craig,

You are very close to the fires; whereas I am in Far North Queensland. Australians have been exhibiting an admirable community attitude in this decade of natural disasters. My family were in Melbourne a few years ago and had to relocate twice during the fires.

The bikie wars are now escalating; in my town the police are marching into club-houses and making plenty of arrests. I wonder if there will be any retaliation by the bikie groups, especially as they are associated with the American bikies and organized crime. Time will tell.

Steve

I too am an Aussie living in Queensland. As has been stated, bush fires are a factor of life on our island continent, just like they are in western USA where gum trees were imorted from Australia to fire the railways engines over 100 years ago. Risk is attached to living amoung these beautiful trees many of which need fire to germinate thier seeds. Having said all that there are risks just from living anywhere and doing anything. I love Joel’s reflections and thoughts in the face of his loss even though insurance will eventually (we hope) make good some of it. Just walking humbly with our God through such things and learning what this means and telling our stories is just fab! Chris