I have had it up to here with terrorists. I have had
it with their threats, their videos, and their shock value. Most of all, I have
had it with their recruiting strategies. Did you see the video several weeks
ago of the young man with the American accent, sitting in the desert with
machine gun in hand, trying to tell other Western kids that “this” is the real
Disneyland? (This, apparently, being the brutal, senseless mass murders of women
and children.)
Here’s the truth, people. If you’re looking for more
adventure, more excitement, more passion and purpose in your life, you don’t
have to pick up a weapon and pretend to be scary and powerful. All you have to
do is align yourself with the One who is
all powerful. And if you’re not on His side, there’s no one more scary in the
universe. He has leveled cities. He has wiped out the entire population of the
earth. All the wealth and resources in the world are His, and He never sleeps.
“We may fear a dangerous, transcendent God,” writes
Drew Dyck in Yawning at Tigers, “but
we need him. Desperately. Other deities may suffice for a season. As long as
things are going well, smaller and safer gods may keep us happy by promising
never to rock the boat. But the moment we encounter evil, when our lives are
overturned by injustice, that’s when we need the dangerous God. The one who
judges sin and hates evil.”
Evil is making big headlines right now. It’s in our faces
all day long, and it threatens to haunt us in our sleep. I don’t know about
you, but right now, I don’t want a puny, manageable god. I don’t want one I can
figure out and who I require to make sense to me. I want a fierce, untamed lion
of a God who always, always, ALWAYS triumphs over evil. I want a God who makes
the earth quake and the mountains melt like wax. A God who controls a leader’s
heart like a stream of water (Proverbs 21:1), and a God who sets up “kings” and
removes them (Daniel 2:21). This is exactly who He is, and so much more.
Here’s the
most amazing thing of all. I can barely begin to wrap my brain around it: That power—God’s
power—lives in me. The very power that raised a dead man to life lives in little me (Romans 8:11)! I hope
He’s taken up residence in your life, too, because if He has, think of what it
means. Back to the Yawning book:
“How much
different would it be if Christians saw themselves as the dangerous ones? We
are bearers of the most wild, dangerous, untamed force for good in the world!”
Don’t be fooled by those old ladies in flowered
dresses and 8-year-olds carrying pink Bibles. They are dangerous. You are
dangerous, and so am I. We are dangerous in the face of evil and injustice. We
are on the side of good, of truth, of love, and light. And we win. We know how
this story ends, and we know that God and His Son Jesus Christ win. That
assurance alone gives us great power in these dark days.
If we Christians are doing our job well—truly living the way God intends for us—no “disenfranchised youth” should
have to board a plane and pick up a weapon to find the thrill of a lifetime.
They should see it in us. There is no
greater adventure, no more fulfillment to be found, than walking every day with
the most holy, powerful, awesome, dangerous Force in the universe.
Do I fear terrorists? No, I fear only God.
