. . . 

 

Writing about J.R.R. Tolkien . . . Jones reminds us of what he calls "the weirdness of God’s world."

 

. . . 

Because God is Almighty, no outcome is entirely predictable...

This means that apparent outcomes in situations are not locked-in destinies. We cannot be sure that a child born into poverty is destined to be impoverished. We cannot be sure that a medical diagnosis of severe deformity means that an unborn child is incurable or that the diagnosis itself is infallible—or—above all, that a child born in adverse conditions cannot, by the mercy and grace of God, overcome every obstacle in this visible world. We cannot be sure that an unborn child declared to have limited life expectancy will die.

 

...And no outcome is an accident

All human beings are created by God. Even those conceptions that occur seemingly by accident or violence are reside under God’s care, and have arrived in his providence, not ours.

 

We live in both a visible and invisible reality

And because this world is the only kingdom visible to our eyes, we cannot know anything about that child’s life in the eternal kingdom. As we learn from the fantastic accounts of the Bible, what we see in the end is not what we get.

 

This God who is the Almighty maker of heaven and earth is our Father, our "Abba," our dear caring "Daddy." Because God is in intimate relationship with all those created in his own image, we Christians especially have hope that every child, no matter what his or her circumstances, yet has the possibility of redemption and adoption into the family of God.

 

In that kingdom, now invisible to our eyes, each little child may take his or her place at the head of the King’s table and be called most beloved of the Father. The Bible gives us hope and reason to believe that table will be filled with those who in our universe are diseased and crippled, suffering and dying.

 

When the Bible tells us to "be perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect," it means that we too, because of our hope, and because we are participants in that unseen kingdom even now, welcome unborn babies, even those with seemingly poor prospects for the future. And we welcome the mothers who also seem to have poor prospects for the future. We do it with the faith that God can intervene and we can make a difference in the outcome of their lives.

 

Our confidence comes from our confession that we believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth.

http://www.ppl.org/PPLNews_Fall2002_V.html

Post Edited (rj1) : 12/10/2005 3:17:12 PM (GMT-6)

Because God is Almighty, no outcome is entirely predictable...

 

...And no outcome is an accident

 

We live in both a visible and invisible reality...

 

Our confidence comes from our confession that we believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth.

Blessed are the timid hearts that evil hate
that quail in its shadow, and yet shut the gate;
that seek no parley, and in guarded room,
though small and bate, upon a clumsy loom
weave tissues gilded by the far-off day
hoped and believed in under Shadow's sway.

Blessed are the men of Noah's race that build
their little arks, though frail and poorly filled,
and steer through winds country towards a wraith,
a rumour of a harbour guessed by faith.

Blessed are the legend-makers with their rhyme
of things not found within recorded time.
It is not they that have forgot the Night,
or bid us flee to organized delight,
in lotus-isles of economic bliss
forswearing souls to gain a Circe-kiss
(and counterfeit at that, machine -produced,
bogus seduction of the twice-seduced).
Such isles they saw afar, and ones more fair,
and those that hear them yet may yet beware.
They have seen Death and ultimate defeat,
and yet they would not in despair retreat,
but oft to victory have tuned the lyre
and kindled hearts with legendary fire,
illuminating Now and dark Hath-been
with light of suns as yet by no man seen.

 

 

I will not walk with your progressive apes,
erect and sapient. Before them gapes
the dark abyss to which their progress tends
if by God's mercy progress ever ends,
and does not ceaselessly revolve the same
unfruitful course with changing of a name.
I will not treat your dusty path and flat,
denoting this and that by this and that,
your world immutable wherein no part
the little maker has with maker's art.
I bow not yet before the Iron Crown,
nor cast my own small golden sceptre down.