Guidelines For Living Devotional

Dear Dr. Sala, can you explain why God let my dog get hit by a car and die?" There are some questions that even theologians struggle to answer. So should a parent tell a youngster than his dog is now with Jesus in heaven?   Or should he or she tell him that when animals die, that's it? Or what should a parent say to assuage the loss of a child's pet? Many adults do not really understand the bond that exists between a child and his pet. When I was a youngster I had a dog that was my constant companion, and when my dog finally died, I was a young man in college, but I wept when I got news that Coalie was no longer with us.

Nothing can be more devastating in life that for a woman to carry an infant for almost nine months and then lose that child, or to have an infant snatched from her arms in death. That's when the question, "Why?" is poured out in scalding tears and agony.

One of the oldest questions that has ever been voiced is the question, "Why? God! Why do you allow suffering?" You find that question voiced by a man whose name was Job and you read about him in the book that bears his name.

If ever there was a tough little lady who didn't know what she could not do, it was Gladys Aylward. And, "Who is she?" you might ask. In the event that you have seen the movie (still available on the internet) The Inn of the Sixth Happiness featuring the Swedish actress, Ingrid Bergman, you would, at least, know her story. But actress Ingrid Bergman with her blond hair, rather imposing stature, and accent falls far short of depicting both Gladys's looks as well as her character. 

If you could ask God any question, what would it be?" Today I'm going to address some of the "Why?" questions of the human heart.

Toward the end of the first century, the last New Testament book as we know it today was written by the Apostle John as he was living in exile on the island of Patmos.  But that didn't mean that the 27 books were ready to go to the printer.  Not exactly.  First, there was no printer at that time, and secondly, it took another two hundred years for the New Testament church to decide what was the New Testament.  You think that it's tough for folks to agree on things today?  It was even worse then!  An interesting fact is that no church council ever met and rendered an authoritative decree saying, "These books are in, and those are not!"  Universal acceptance of these 27 books was a gradual thing as the Holy Spirit began to bear witness in the lives of godly men and women (mostly men, however, because the women weren't invited to church councils) that certain books bore biblical authority.

Ignorance can be a wonderful thing. It saves you from having to think. Therefore, you avoid the consequences of facing what you don't know, right?  Dead wrong!  That lump that you thought was nothing was cancer, but you didn't really want to know and it didn't go away.  When you could avoid the issue no longer, you faced serious consequences—all of which could have been avoided had you faced the issue head-on.

There are two kinds of people who are ignorant—those who have never had an opportunity to learn, and those who are willfully ignorant because they refuse to get the facts. There are millions of people in the world trapped by poverty and economic stagnation, who are ignorant because they have no choice, but the latter category includes some who have Ph.D.s and advanced degrees by the handful.  Those who refuse the truth purposefully, are not only ignorant, they are to be pitied.

When the other person does it, you call it "lying," but when you tell the cop, "I know I wasn't speeding," you're just bending the truth a bit—good business, you know.  When you falsified your resume when you applied for a job, inflating your salary for previous jobs and expanding your educational background (who is going to call the school and check on the years you were there?), you cloaked it in a term which has become widely used—misinformation.  Besides, stretching the truth serves your purpose and you get away with it, so what? 

Check the dictionary and you will find this listing: "mis*in*for*ma*tion \, n. Untrue or incorrect information" (Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, 1996, 1998 MICRA Inc.). Formerly the practice was known as lying.  But today the term misinformation is politically correct and less offensive than the cutting term which has been used for centuries.  There are some who contend that there is no more lying today than ever before; however, it is just more sophisticated, more acceptable, and less offensive. I disagree.