War and Peace
5 min read
10 “Know, then, that not a word the LORD has spoken against the house of Ahab will fail. The LORD has done what he announced through his servant Elijah.”
— 2 Kings 10:10
The history of the world is a history of violence and war. And many people wonder why a good God would allow such devastation in human lives. But it is a mistake to suppose that God desires or ordains human devastation.
God desires and has ordained a way of peace in the kingdom of God. That’s what makes the good new so good! Everything outside the boundaries of His kingdom are subject to a kingdom of sin, and everything else that comes with sin.
We cannot expect God to make everything good for us when we decide to go our own way and build our own kingdom. And we can never build our own kingdom anyway. We just end up building a kingdom of the devil.
Of course, this is not to suggest that if we follow Christ that bad things will never happen to us. This age has been marred by the curse of sin and there is nothing we can do to reverse that.
What we can do is to live our lives in faith. Through faith, we live in the promise of God’s kingdom. In many ways, living in the promise of His kingdom is like living presently in His kingdom. That too is what makes the good news so good.
To know that “not a word the LORD has spoken … will fail” is good news (great news) for those who reside in the kingdom of God. For those who choose to live as citizens of other countries … well, what is it that they would expect? They have no right to demand anything of God.
A few years back, my eldest was in Turkey for a mission trip. While her team was in the airport waiting to return home, a coup broke out, and the entire country was in chaos. As soon as the coup broke out, representatives of the Republic of Korea were going through the airport to find their citizens so that they could take them home. I never particularly desired for my family to be citizens of the ROK until that moment.
To be fair, it would have been much more difficult for the US to pull that off, given the number of US citizens that were in that airport compared to the number of ROK citizens.
Even so, what the ROK did was quite impressive, and it is what I expect Christ to do for me as a citizen of His kingdom.
Father, Thank You for saving me from sin and death. There is still so much devastation in this world because of sin. You never said that I would never encounter trials in this world. But You have offered me peace and a powerful hope in You. I look forward to Your coming. Make me ready, Lord. In Jesus’s name. Amen.