July 12: A Proper Outlook on Life

I had a Facebook exchange with a friend of mine who is paralyzed from the waist down. That didn't happen too awful long ago.

He told me about a guy who went through what we both went through. He was in a car accident on the way to chemotherapy!!!

Wow.

I thought about it because I, of course, am thinking about writing some books. I still want to write Thrilled to Death as a book (don't steal my title; God will judge you).

This has nothing to do with this
post, but it's cute! My daughter Leilani.
Yeah, she's double-jointed.

Anyway, I was thinking about writing about dealing with "tragedy," and I pictured someone asking, "That's fine for you to say, who merely had to deal with leukemia and chemotherapy, but what about some really terrible tragedies like some horrific child abuse stories I've heard or child sex trafficking?"

I know a kid who was burned over most of his body. What he went through and is going through cannot be compared to my light affliction.

Does my advice apply to them?

I don't know. I don't think good advice should be set aside because of the cases where I have no room to talk or any business saying anything. I'll give that young boy with burns the floor any day of the week, and I will let God Almighty give his own explanations for why there's occasionally horrific suffering in the world.

But if you've merely been laid off or are feeling bad about your life, then I do have advice: There's a better way to live.

Sure, it involves losing your current life and actually following Christ (rather than merely saying nice things about him), but isn't the complaint that most sad, disappointed, and angry people have ... isn't their complaint that their life has gone wrong, anyway?

I recommend giving you life to Jesus even if nothing's gone wrong. He's the maker of all things, including your life. How can it possibly not be right to trust him?

Richard Dawkins, Used with permission

If you're an atheist who doesn't believe Jesus is the maker of all things, I'm not talking to you. There will be other posts, I'm sure, in which you're the audience, but I don't expect an atheist to believe anything I just said.

Though God expects atheists to heed that feeling inside that causes you to want to bow down and worship when you see the majesty of creation. Richard Dawkins, a current leading atheist bulldog, said he and everyone else feels that.

That's because there's a real "heaven" from which such feelings come.