Christa’s Musings

So Habakkuk was some minor profit who complained to God because God sicked the Babylonians on the Israelites because they were being idiots. Anyway, the dude talking said thats its okay to complain to God if you do it with sincerity and with faith and humility- Habakkuk was questioning and petitioning God on behalf of his friends. God doesn’t get mad when people question him, he invites it- However, God hates arrogance, so if you tell God he sucks then expect some lightning. Yep. I knew most of that already.
Anyway, then Brian, a fellow student, spoke. He had a really moving story- He brought up Elijah, who was this crazy profit and God sent him out into the middle of nowhere to hide, and Ravens fed him. RAVENS. That would make an awesome painting right there, a profit of God hiding out by a brook with Ravens all around him. Imagine that, just for a second. Then the brook dried up so God sent Elijah off to meet a woman who would feed him and when he found her, she only had enough food for one more meal for her and her son, so Elijah told her if she fed him, she wouldn’t run out of food. So she did what he asked (That takes a lot of faith- if a bum told me If I fed him, and I was about to starve, that I wouldn’t run out of food, I’d probably run away screaming). True story, she didn’t run out so all was well until her son kicked the bucket anyway, so she got mad at Elijah and he was like alright, you need to calm down. So he went into the room with the dead kid and prayed that God would restore his life, and sho’nuff, it happened. I KNOW RIGHT?! Then the lady was like WHAT and everyone thought about how awesome God was. I’ll bet they had a party.

Anyway, Brian said that he has a friend, a girl, who was dying of cancer. She had a party at her house, and she was unconscious for most of it, but it was mostly just tons of people coming in to visit, and Brian was thinking about Elijah’s faith and prayer- and he wanted to cry out to God and ask that she be healed, but he was too scared that nothing would happen. And so instead, he went into her room and spoke to her, saying that she had the choice to stay or go to Heaven, and that he would love her to stay but if she wanted to go, then to do so- and he said she started moaning in her unconsciousness. Anyway, he ended up leaving and she died a few hours later, and while he was in his room that night he had a vision of ceiling lights in the hallway of a hospital, and then he saw his friend in Paradise- she was beautiful again, had her hair grown back, wasn’t sick and she was smiling- and she asked him if he understood why she’d left. And he said he did, and he said “Thank you for being a good sister.” And she replied, “I was a good sister because we have a good Father.”

The point being, God is good and because of this, we too can be good servants to God and to one another- God is present in ALL of creation, and community is part of God’s creation.. and we can find God in other people. God use us to speak through- not just pastors, not just priests and the hierarchy- but all of us. We are the temple, not the churches we build out of stone. The kingdom of God is in us, and similarly, we are part of God because he has restored us.

On an ending note, this was a very dramatic entry to write because I was listening to some really intense piano music.