Even in budget week most conversations I have overheard revolved around the death of Osama bin Laden. His death should cause us to ask questions of ourselves, but, as is so often the case, we deflect the issues away from us.

Many issues
I have overheard excellent conversations on the ethics of not taking bin Laden alive. Some say that he did not deserve court justice, others that his opponents had no choice but to take his life since they did not know if he was armed, and others question the order to ‘capture or kill’ is always taken by the military as an order to kill. This is an important question, but it is not the issue about which I am concerned today.

My question concerns why is it that we find it so hard to permit events that occur outside our close environment to affect or challenge us? Let me explain

The Bible and events
God is in control of all events in history, and uses them to instruct people.

Last weekend I preached on Habakkuk, where God uses the even more evil nation of Babylon to judge his own people Judah. At first Habakkuk shakes his fist at God and asks ‘where is the morality in this?’ This is what we do too. Discussions this week have so often been about how bad a man must be in order for it to be just to execute him, but I have yet to hear anyone question whether his acts against others in any way call the west to account? I do not dispute the horrendous nature of what al-Qaeda has done, but I question why we don’t ask if we should learn from this, and if there are things from which we must repent. After all, God may be using events such as this to teach or punish us.

It is not just in the Old Testament we find this. Recall the collapse of the tower of Siloam (Luke 13); Jesus was asked why eighteen died. His answer was not that those who died were more guilty than others, but that this event should call everyone to “repent, or you too will perish”. Or in James 5, where sickness and prayer are discussed; James calls on the sick to consider whether they have sinned, and if so, to repent. James is not saying that every sickness is the result of sin, but sometimes, in the purposes of God, sickness comes as God’s warning to repent, and so we should think this through.

Ministry and events
And so I ask myself ‘why is it that I am so keen to analyse why events occur and not ask what must I do as a consequence?

I think part of the reason is because we are sinful people who enjoy deflecting blame and not taking responsibility.

I have decided that I will ask myself and my Christian brothers and sisters as we discuss events in our world ‘what may God be telling me about myself and my society from these events?’

We need to begin discussing questions such as this because events themselves carry no interpretation. Correct interpretation comes from having the mind of God as He reveals Himself in Scripture, and so discussing the events will keep us honest, and our heads in the Bible too. Things that it helps to be reminded to do.