Hell-Raisers?
Friday, June 30, 2023
Solitude,
Morning Fishing,
Until the Hell-Raising SkiDoos
Blow It To Bits
Jeremiah 20:11
But the Lord is with me like a dread warrior; therefore my persecutors will stumble, and they will not prevail. They will be greatly shamed, for they will not succeed. Their eternal dishonour will never be forgotten.
Luke 17:5
The apostles said to the Lord, ‘Increase our faith!’
Words of Grace For Today
As a departing word a couple I’d just met wished me health and well-being. I thanked them wholeheartedly. They were kind people. There’s not enough of that kind of folk.
I know too many people who would rather be wished wealth and hell-being, and more and more of it, since they orient their lives towards all the wealth they can get, legally or illegally or blatantly criminally. They want the wealth so that they can continue to raise as much hell as possible, taking all the pleasure from every day that they can steal, usually from others, but also from their own health and well-being.
Being anywhere near those kind of people is dangerous. Even if they do not target you, you are going to fall victim for their greedy progress through life, leaving a ‘scorched earth’ behind them, all too often with lots of people getting burned. These kind of people are persecutors of so many people, many more unintended victims of the wide swatch of destruction they leave in their wake.
We can understand then when Jeremiah celebrates that God will put those who persecute him to shame, letting them stumble and fall into dishonour. Life would be so much better, we could easily think, if God would take all those hell-being-ers and give them a quick exit of shame out of this world.
Yet God doesn’t do this for us. Instead God calls us to forgive these destroyers of life. God wants to be able to rejoice at their repentance. Even when we cannot imagine they even see their sins yet alone consider repenting, God continues to give them breath and hopes. When God hopes, surprising things happen.
But for us to tolerate these hell-being-ers and suffer their destruction that seems to know no bounds?! How can we do this.
Once again we cry with the disciples: “LORD, INCREASE OUR FAITH!”