This belongs to my Father... so why would I be afraid?

The past two weeks all of my Bible studies have seemed to be of a piece -- which, I know, should not surprise me at all.  And I'm not surprised, exactly, but it's beautiful, and timely.

In Exodus with BCCC and HopePres, we've discussed/argued/wrestled with the idea of God's sovereignty.  How can you not, looking at the exodus and seeing His might -- and wondering about why He left them in slavery for 400 years?  It's all unfathomable to us when we try to answer the why questions... but it's taught so clearly.  We've talked about Job, too, about looking to Who, not why.

Then at CBS, we've been studying 1 John, where he hammers away (over and over and over...) at the dangerous lie of gnosticism, the insidious creeping of the Platonic notion that the spiritual is pure and the material is tainted, evil.

Last night, with my little group from HopePres, we sat around in Jake's living room, discussing creation, God's sovereignty and goodness, the eschaton, how gnosticism still rears its head in the popular escapist culture of Left Behind.

It's amazing, elegant, how the beginning plays the whole way through to the end.  How what we believe about the creation (Did God really make it?  Was it really good?  Is it still good?) informs how we live now, what we look forward to in the end times.

There were three things that our conversation last night made me think about.

The first is Paul's words to the Athenians, telling them that the unknown God they were worshipping is the Creator and Lord of everything.  That He doesn't need anything from them -- but rather He has ordained all of history, "allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place," creating humans in His image so that "they might feel their way toward Him and find Him."

Those words in turn always remind me of a quote from the movie adaptation of City of Joy.

Maybe the world is meant to break your heart.

And doesn't it, though?  Both with the grievous sorrows that our hearts can't stand up to and the bright joys that we can't bear?

Over all these thoughts, over all of the news stories of ebola and WMDs, of death and devastation, the words of the hymn This is My Father's World echo in my heart.  It is all His, and He is all good, and so I can trust that nothing in creation will be able to tear me out of His hand.  Come what may, I can live with confidence and joy.