Dream Word – GOODNESS
Psalms 107:25-32 For He commands and raises the stormy wind, Which lifts up the waves of the sea. They mount up to the heavens, They go down again to the depths; Their soul melts because of trouble. They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, And are at their wits' end. Then they cry out to the Lord in their trouble, And He brings them out of their distresses. He calms the storm, So that its waves are still. Then they are glad because they are quiet; So He guides them to their desired haven. Oh, that men would give thanks to the Lord for His goodness, And for His wonderful works to the children of men! Let them exalt Him also in the assembly of the people, And praise Him in the company of the elders. (NKJV)
Standing on the warm beach and looking at the deep blue ocean lapping against the distant horizon and splashing up against the far stretched clouds sinking with the setting sun, the sea looks beautiful and inviting, even an all-enfolding loveliness. For on the land, looking out at that immeasurable coldness, you still feel, secure, steady, rock-like, safe. Now then, climb aboard a small yacht and set sail for a day or two into that deep blue and its vastness becomes seemingly infinite, seemingly never-ending, eternally dangerous, deep, sucking, scary, and I tell you, that one you are there as a small bobbing speck in the middle of that desert of blue water, you feel anything but safe! I tell you that when a storm comes up across the Bay of Biscay and stirs the deep beneath into a leaping hunter, a force nine howler, that the insignificance of your little self against the roaring of so great a watery and all-consuming lion, makes you feel less than nothing, an angry voice maybe, a frightened one even, but never the less, at best, simply a small dot of dust, trodden on by gigantic actors of thunder and lightening, who are both fighting hot, living violently, and screaming their way into a fiery death upon a vast eternal stage, each one playing out a story of cosmic and multidimensional proportions, to which, in light of the conflict above, which is stirring the depths upon whose surface you are now so frighteningly trying to stay alive, you may seem to be as less an insignificant worm.
In the same way, I tell you that the more I read the Bible, the more days I set out to sea upon this deep and never-ending story of God, this narrative, this journey, this revelation of the Most High, and all of these revealed players, and their decisions, the whole kit, and caboodle of it all become to me, is nothing short of terrifying! For the Bible, the very Word of God is the most troubling book that has ever been written. If you disagree with me here, then friend, I do not think you have even begun to read it.
It was writer Frank Cottrell Boyce who wrote the screenplay for the BBC’s television Drama, ‘God on Trial.’ May I say that it is a quite brilliant and terrifying performance piece, for the screenplay wrestles with the deep question we all have on our hearts, which is this, ‘Why do bad things happen to good people?’ Or better still, ‘How can a good God allow so much suffering in the world?’
That 90-minute play has the unpacking of these questions take place amongst a group of inmates in Auschwitz, just hours before half of them shall be murdered. Cottrell himself confesses that his seemingly invulnerable Catholic faith was beaten black and blue as he wrote the screenplay.
The possibility of prisoners in Auschwitz concentration camp actually putting God on trial is rooted in an apocryphal story from WWII to which the Auschwitz survivor and writer, Elie Weisel, gives some credence to when he made his statement that, “God was hanged on the gallows in Auschwitz.” In the
