Winter 2018/2019 OCCM/FAITH FAMILY winter2018INDESIGN | Page 22

HOPE has a Name continued by Greg Laurie So if you have lost a loved one, go ahead and cry. You don’t need to rush through the process. Go ahead and mourn, but cry out to God, who cares about you. And don’t trade what you do know for what you don’t know. Here is what I do know: I know that God loves me. Here is what I do know: I know that God can work “all things . . . together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose” (Romans 8:28 nkjv). I know that I will see my son again. I know that one day all of my questions will be answered. So I will not trade what I do know for what I don’t know. Instead, I will simply say, “God, help me.” He is in control of my life. The word “oops” is not in his vocabulary. We live in a fallen world that has pain and tragedy. Things don’t always make sense. Jesus even said, “In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world” (John 16:33 nkjv). Sometimes we can understand, to a degree, when bad things happen to bad people. A bad person does a bad thing, and there are repercussions. We think, You see? What goes around comes around. But what about when a bad thing happens to a good person? I will give you the answer: I don’t know. I don’t really feel like I have all the answers, because I am a fellow struggler, a fellow mourner. I don’t have what people need, but I know who does. Hope has a name, and it is Jesus Christ. Nick Vujicic, author of Life Without Limits, was born without limbs. He asked the understandable question: “If God loved me, why did he allow me to be born without arms or legs?” Nick wondered what purpose his life could possibly have and even contemplated suicide. He prayed that God would cause his limbs to grow, but that miracle was not granted. Instead, God showed Nick that he was the miracle. Nick has spoken at some of our Harvest Crusades and has traveled around the world, bringing hope and encouragement to millions of people. You may be wondering where there is hope in all of the pain we face in life. For some there is a hope that things will just get better: that relationship will be mended, that illness may be healed, that job offer will come through. But there are others who have permanent disabilities or have lost a loved one, and there is no hope—at least here on earth. But this is where we must change our thinking and remember that life is not all about our time on earth. The Bible says our lives are like “a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away” (James 4:14 nkjv). Of this we can be certain: death will come. It is inevitable. However, the Bible does teach that we will live forever. Every person has a soul and will live for eternity. This doesn’t mean that heaven is the default destination of everyone who dies. We determine where we will live forever. The Bible says, “It is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment” (Hebrews 9:27 nkjv). We don’t determine the day of our birth, nor do we determine the day of our death. We really have nothing to say about that. But we have a lot to say about that dash in the middle. We have a lot to say about how we live our lives and what we do with them.  23 OCChristianMag.com #OCChristianwinter2018