9:04

I was at a memorial service earlier today, and as I reflect back on everything that was said, I am reminded of a post that I wrote about a year and a half ago, entitled “God Is There.” If you would like to read that post, it can be found in the August 2014 Archives and was posted on August 23. Basically, I used the Oklahoma City Bombing Memorial to illustrate that God is present during the difficult times of our lives. God was at the Murrah Federal Building at 9:01 and at 9:03, but many people forget that he was also there at 9:02. My point in that post was that in our “9:02 moments” we need to look back to Christ’s sacrifice on the cross and look forward to our future reward of eternal life with God and remember that God is always with us. I saw this put into practice by the family at the memorial service today. They were saddened by the loss of their loved one and yet the joy and hope that only comes from God through Christ was evident on their faces and in their actions.

However, my purpose for this post is not to focus on 9:01, 9:02, or 9:03, but rather, I’m going to talk about 9:04 until Christ’s return. What do we do next? There are, of course, several things that must be done but I will only mention a few of the most prominent. First, is simply clean up. Any difficult situation leaves behind things to deal with physically, spiritually, or emotionally, and until these are appropriately addressed, it is almost impossible to move on. When the cleanup is completed, however, there is room for something new—it will never be what it once was, but that doesn’t mean that something beautiful and good can’t stand in its place. After the cleanup from the Oklahoma City bombing, a beautiful memorial was built that still stands today. It doesn’t serve the function the building once did, but something good came out of the evil that was done that day. Finally, we need to use all of this to point others to Christ and the hope and future he provides as we ourselves continue our journey to be with him.

“Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” Romans 12:21