From: Sondra Brasile (sbrasile@hotmail.com)
Date: Wed Jul 09 2003 - 01:09:19 EDT
I'm sorry, I don't know who Josh is, I'm sorry for Holly's loss and
apparently yours, too.
I can see many sides to this issue, there's the point that all of us are
going to die, the mortality rate is still 100% worldwide. If a person is a
Christian and believes in the hereafter they should be able to understand
that death is not only an inevitable end to this life, but also a beginning
of the next life...the eternal one. I can see how God may not really see the
passing of this life as the worst thing that could possibly happen to a
Christian, since he has an entirely different perspective on it. We fear it,
we don't understand it and we may not even REALLY believe it, but He's
already there so He knows what it is we're trading this life for. The Bible
says "Like water spilled on the ground, which cannot be recovered, so we
must die. But God does not take away life; instead, he devises ways so that
a banished person may not remain estranged from him." 2 Sam. 14:14. This
verse seems to support the idea that God has an entirely different
perspective on death.
I believe that he "takes" us at the precise moment that is the most
beneficial for everyone and everything. Who knows what the future holds? For
believers maybe if they were to "stay" they may somehow lose their faith
from some other event that may happen to them, maybe they would cheat on
their wife or visa-versa and it would cause him or her to lose rewards in
heaven or even maybe their salvation. I've heard before that there is a
story in the Bible about a woman who prayed for her son's life, God meant
for the son to die, but answered the mother's prayer and the son turned out
to be excessively evil, but I cannot for the life of me find the story, so
maybe someone else has heard of it, or can set me straight if it is a myth.
On the other hand there's the awful person that seems to live forever, those
people I think God is giving them ample time to come "around" if he gives
them 80+ years, you'd think that might be enough for them to have enough
time, right? They say "the good die young" and I think that may be evidence
that he takes them, despite the "prime of life", it's the prime of a
person's "Christian life" or body of "works" which is more what He's
interested in, He doesn't want anyone to lose rewards they had earned, or
miss out on heaven altogether or, on the other hand "pile too much coal on
their heads" (why he may take some "bad" people early, to limit
punishment?). At least that's my take on it.
BUT I also don't think we should NOT be sad about missing the person for the
rest of "OUR" life, for instance Jesus wept when lazarus died. It is a
lonesome and painful experience to lose someone that we love and since Jesus
experienced the death of a loved one, He can relate.
Again I'm sorry for the loss.
Sincerely,
Sondra
>From: "Howard J. Van Till" <hvantill@chartermi.net>
>To: Glenn Morton <glennmorton@entouch.net>, asa@calvin.edu
>Subject: Re: Predetermination: God's controlling will?
>Date: Tue, 08 Jul 2003 15:10:46 -0400
>
>I had asked:
>
> > Did the God who controls everything do this to Josh Speer and Holly
>Coupe?
> > Is this commonly displayed portrait of God and of God's relationship to
>the
> > world acceptable to the folk on this list?
>
>
>Glenn replied:
>
> > My reply might be summed up in Isaiah 45:7
> >
> > I form the light and create darkness,
> > I bring prosperity and create disaster;
> > I, the LORD , do all these things.
> >
> > Maybe it is the Lord's will. No one likes this verse and I never see it
>on
> > the Bible verse calendar of the day.
>
>Nor, in my judgment, should it. Just because these words appear in the
>Hebrew canon adopted as part of the Christian canon must we blindly take
>them to be an accurate or acceptable portrait of God? I do not.
>
>Neither would I apply these words to the tragic death of Josh Speer and
>suggest that God chose to end Josh's life in what appears to have been a
>car
>accident, thereby causing profound grief in the lives of Holly Coupe and
>others who loved Josh. God gets remarkably bad press sometimes, even in the
>canon.
>
>Howard Van Till
>
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