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Real Answers™
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Copyright: ©2009 Linda Downing
630 words

GETTING OUR ATTENTION

By: Linda Downing

The news media whirled these past weeks. We are shocked, saddened, stupefied, but not yet satiated by ongoing events. Perhaps God is trying to get our attention. 

In the movie, “New In Town,” the straightforward Christian asks the out-to-prove-herself CEO: “Have you found Jesus?” Her reply: “I didn’t know he was lost.”

“Where is God?” Many question during bad times; few seek during good. First-century apostle Paul said God talks. “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse” (Romans 1:20 NIV).

Scientists question Pope Benedict XVI’s recent declaration from Rome. Carbon dating on sarcophagus bone fragments at the Basilica of St. Paul’s labels them first or second century. The Pope believes God is talking and they are Paul’s remains.  

We do not expect to hear. How much more in-our-faces could God be than to appear at the Scripps National Spelling Bee, covered on primetime television May 28? Kavya Shivashankar won by spelling “Laodicean.” Later, CNN’s Anderson Cooper admitted ignorance of this word. The Bible savvy recognize the church in Revelation 3, distinguished as “lukewarm.” The prophetic say God is shouting. 

Let’s pick three more examples of God-speech. People in Iran willing to fight for freedom caught us off guard. That those most subjugated, most identified as weak and worthless, those women of Iran, would stand on the front lines impressed the world. With one bullet and a two-minute death, with the onlookers chanting, “Do not be afraid,” beautiful, young Neda became the Iranian face through whom God spoke. He did not ask us here to define or argue our definitions of salvation, whether Moslem, Christian, or any other, but just to listen to His cry for justice.                    

Into the mix steps South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, whose disappearance from his duties, then reappearance and adultery confession, leaves writers of soap operas and reality shows scrambling for better plot lines. The Tampa Tribune (6/29/09) by-lined a Los Angeles Times column with this sentence: “Some say infidelity stems from the same hunger that drives people into politics.”                                                                    

Psychobabble aside, God warned of shake-up: “At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, ‘Once More I will shake not only the earth, but also the heavens’” (Hebrews 12:26 NIV).        

The death of Michael Jackson, raising him from “King of Pop” to godlike status, is stirring the planet. From one hour to the next, in places of war and peace, in homes of starvation and plenty, in political, secular, and religious forums, in homosexual and straight settings, in serious newscasts and gossip shows, the collective world waits to hear the next report: what does the autopsy reveal of his death; how are his children and family doing; are they his children; will he lay in state somewhere open to the public; what about his will. And, like the previous sentence, the talk and speculation go on and on. Televisions in abortion clinics and pro-life headquarters blare with Jackson’s moon walking, baby dangling, and pajama-clad courtroom appearances. 

And in the midst of this drama, Jackson mirrors the soul-searching emptiness of mankind. No adulation of him can erase the pain that was plainly etched on his face. From “The Man in the Mirror” to “We Are The World,” we see ourselves. God cries. 

There’s a whole lot of shaking going on. J. Lee Grady, editor of Charisma magazine, wrote in the June 2009 issue: “Change is hitting America between the eyes. Everything that can be shaken is being shaken…” Is God getting our attention?

Linda Downing, a contributor to the Amy Internet Syndicate, writes “Side-By-Side: Seeking Simple Truth,” a weekly column for Highlands Today of The Tampa Tribune.   "Real Answers™" furnished courtesy of The Amy Foundation Internet Syndicate. To contact the author or The Amy Foundation, write or E-mail to: P. O. Box 16091, Lansing, MI 48901-6091; amyfoundtn@aol.com

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