John 3:17

For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.

Who’s wrong?  Who’s at fault?  If there’s such a huge problem, then there must be somebody we can blame!  I’m upset! Heads must roll!

Is that what you are hearing in your breakroom today?  I heard somebody grumble that “they’re all corrupt. There’s no way I can trust any of them to fix a problem they caused.”  The thought is understandable.  But is it Christ-like?

Some problems are so complicated that even legitimate experts are unable to wrap their mortal brains around  the causes.  And some problems have painful symptoms which need to be addressed quickly, even before the underlying cause is discerned.

Years ago I was involved in a national movement for social justice.  Where many social ministries focus on symptoms, this movement was trying to address underlying problems.  Occasionally these two opposites on the spectrum of ministry get into an argument about what “kind” of ministry is more important.  Do you put bandaids on problems, or do you concentrate on surgery to repair the underlying problem?

The best response to this question I ever heard was this: “Not only do we pull drowning babies out of the stream, but we go upstream to find out who is throwing them in.”

The current financial crisis is a situation where both tasks are going to be important. There is a symptom which needs to be addressed, and our national leaders are attempting to apply a huge bandaid.  Others are looking upstream and blaming those leaders for throwing the babies in, while, the babies are foundering in the stream.  Both perspectives are important.

God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world.  When Jesus dealt with the woman caught in adultery, He pulled her out of the stream in which she was drowning.  And then He told her to go away from the steam’s bank (“Go and sin no more”).

Let’s be careful anytime we are in the middle of a crisis, whether it’s a family member stuck in a hole he or she jumped into, or a financial market stuck in a hole likewise created by their sin.  Let’s be careful to look for the babies that are drowning in the stream, but also look for the reason they are in the water to begin with.

I’ll pray for you, and would you please pray for me?  Pray that we will honor God in our life ministries by rescuing the drowning babies AND by fixing the problem that is putting them in the water in the first place.  God needs us to minister both upstream AND downstream.  Let’s be in both places, in Jesus’ Name.

Thanks for the time you took to read this!

Stevene

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bailout comic

Tags: bailout, bailout comic, spiritual bailout

This entry was posted on Monday, September 29th, 2008 at 4:32 pm and is filed under comic. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.