REPLY AWL

In the Second Quarter issue of the Encounter With God daily devotional, there is an article about the generation gap, with particular emphasis on how the problem exists in churches. One thing about the generation gap with respect to the world is that the older generation now consists of the boomers. They are just as lost as the younger generation. It's no longer the wise older person; it's the 60-something who still wants to party like they're young and grew up in an "if it feels good, do it" culture.

It's the same thing on TV shows. The parents party and sleep around and the teenage kids are the semi-responsible ones.

In the Fall Sight By Sound newsletter, there is an interview with Eric Adams, a narrator and producer for CBM's Talking Book Library. Adams talks about working as a firefighter. He tells how one night he was at a fire. People were hanging off balconies and cursing and swearing at the firemen. When Adams got back to the hall, he asked God why they did that. Adams says God told him not to judge them because he didn't know what their lives were like and we are all God's children.

First, the reason the victims were swearing at the firemen was because the victims are sinners. You can tell a lot about a person by how they act when they're either surprised or faced with a bad situation, such as the death of a loved one or a fire. For many people, the sin nature really shows itself at times like that. Rather than having a Godly attitude and being grateful the firemen showed up probably fairly quickly, the people were angry and swearing at them because the firemen weren't getting to them quickly enough.

Second, don't judge someone because you don't know the situation is one poison that has crept into society's thinking these days. Admittedly, I can't judge this situation too specifically because I wasn't there, but I do know a few things about human nature. Additionally, the Bible tells us to judge righteously.

Third, we are not all God's children. See John 8 44 "you are of your father the devil" or the verse in Malachi quoted by Paul "Jacob have I loved but Esau have I hated." Also, Paul says in Galatians that if we aare Christ's, then we are fellow heirs according to the promise. If we are all God's children, why isn't everyone a fellow heir with Jesus?

In the same newsletter, there is an interview with CBM's executive director about the drought in the Horn of Africa. The interviewer asks the executive director the reasons for the drought. The executive director doesn't say that maybe God caused it as judgment.

I think this is partly the reason, though granted we can't know all the reasons why God causes something to happen.

Let me tell you something about the foreign aid and charitable donations that get sent to Africa. In one of his books, Paul White, the jungle doctor, talks about how Western governments would send over grain. The farmers would grow and harvest the grain, then turn it into beer. Thus, they would have no seed grain for next year's crop and would need help again the following year.

In the Down Memory Lane section of the same issue, there is a chapter from a book read by Hilda Clark. I always thought it was kind of bucky that an English lady read books set in the anti-bellim South or the old west.

In the Kevin's Picks section, the featured book is "Todd Beamer, Let's Roll." Personally I think this book is a bunch of horseshoot. There is no way that Flight 93 thing could have occurred. For one thing, you couldn't use a cell phone at that altitude in 2001. For another, the whole thing sounds like the plot of a movie. Sure, it's natural enough that Beamer would want to call his wife, however...

"Hmmm, these hijackers are about to take over the plane and we've got to fight them off. Let me take my stance and fire off a handy catch phrase before we do this, nice and loud so my wife can hear, like I'm a hero right off the silver screen." Utterly implausible.