Tag: suffering

Thanksgiving When You’re Not Thankful

How do you celebrate a holiday when things are rough? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

A few weeks ago, I did a podcast with the Mentionables and we talked about depression. It was largely about mental illness, but depression came up. I brought up that when the holiday season comes around, for a lot of people, it’s a happy time, but for some people, it can be rough.

For me, Thanksgiving has never really been my favorite holiday. Just picture being socially awkward due to Aspergers and then also because of that, having a dislike for all of the food served there. I know on my end, it’s really hard when people tell me to eat a lot of turkey. Yeah. Sorry. I don’t play that game.

Honestly, looking back, only two Thanksgivings stand out to me with fond memories. The first was in 1998. The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time had just come out. I also had the flu. It wasn’t faked at all. I never faked sickness. I had the flu. I couldn’t be around people at all, so I stayed in my room at home the whole night trying to get through the Forest Temple.

That was an awesome Thanksgiving. It might have been horrible if it had been the Water Temple, but it was the Forest one. That one is not the nightmare the Water one is.

The second one was the first Thanksgiving I had with Allie. We were dating and not even engaged yet and she invited me to be with her family. I’m sure that wasn’t the favorite Thanksgiving of my family since I was away spending it with a girl I was dating, but I remember it fondly.

If the holiday season is here though and you’re not into it because of your own suffering, it’s really understandable. Sometimes, holidays remind us of what is different. It can be really painful seeing other people happy. It can be painful hearing so many people say Happy Holidays or Merry Christmas or Happy Thanksgiving.

We know they mean well. They don’t know what’s going on in your life if they say that. If you’re in that position this year, try to remember that these people really do mean well.

The thing is that you are still supposed to be thankful. A couple of years ago or so, someone told me to be thankful for something when you get to the end of the day. If it has been a horrible day, at least be thankful that the day is over.

Also, remember if this is your first time going through a hard holiday season, you’re not alone. Other people have walked this path before. It could be your first time going through it, but it’s been traveled before. There are plenty of people who have walked down it who could be willing to help you as you walk it.

It’s often said that misery loves company. There’s a reason for that. That misery of other people can remind you that you’re not alone. This is a great benefit of groups like Celebrate Recovery. You can go there and know that you are not alone.

That’s something else to be thankful for then. You’re not truly alone.

If you also know someone going through a rough holiday season or think they could be, reach out to them. Give that waiter at the restaurant an extra tip just in case. Give a great tip to the guy who helps you carry your groceries out to your car. Give your Uber driver or deliverer a little extra.

If these people don’t serve you that way, give them a gift card to a favorite restaurant of theirs. If they have children, get some gifts for the children. Even just putting some money in the mail and having it sent that way could help and if you want to do so anonymously, that’s fine too.

If you’ve got a lot more money, do more. I remember the year someone gave us a Nintendo Switch. I still enjoy it and it gave me a lot of hope. Go and secretly pay someone’s electric bill perhaps or take care of their rent or go by them groceries.

By the way, if you’re a Christian, you’re supposed to show this kind of kindness anyway. If they are fellow believers, they are your brothers and sisters. Would you want your physical family going without over the holidays? Then don’t let it be with your spiritual family either.

Not only that, you will really give them something to be thankful for this year.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Pets and Suffering

What can pets teach us about evil? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

We’re awfully odd. Many of us take in creatures that are predators. They hunt and kill other smaller animals and eat them. It’s not anything pretty to think about. These creatures also eat their own poop and sometimes we have to clean up their poop for them. We know them as cats and dogs.

And why? Do we want other animals hunted? For some, this could be the case. My family’s first cat came because we had a mouse problem, but before too long, the reason for the treatment of the cat was not mice, but just a love for the cat. From then on, we were getting cats just because we loved cats.

Some people get dogs for the purpose of hunting. My in-laws, however, have a dog and they now have their second one after the sad passing of Nessie last year. While some value dogs for hunting, my mother-in-law was not pleased when Nessie brought a dead squirrel to her.

Nessie would eat her own poop. That sure isn’t an appealing thought to have. For our cat Shiro, I have to regular scoop into a litter box and clean out his. That’s also not a pleasant thought. With Shiro, we end up spending a good deal of our money making sure that he is taken care of.

And for what?

For Shiro, it’s just companionship and comfort. There’s something nice about having the little guy come sit on the arm of the chair when I play a game or watch something on TV. Sometimes, he seems to want me to hold him for a little bit and then he’s done and wants to go his own way. I love the little guy, but it would be hard to really put a finger on why. I just do. Taking him in though was realizing we would have to make sacrifices.

When we first got him, we had been apartment hunting and someone had abandoned him and he wandered the complex looking for food. We went back one more time and we were told the pound was going to get him the next day. We decided to take him in. Very few people supported that choice, but we did it. I don’t blame them for being skeptical about it. It costs a lot of money to take care of a pet and they had our best interests at heart, but now most of them also know taking him in was a great decision.

Yet that first day, he didn’t think so. I remember going into the apartment office and there Shiro was and the staff had a maintenance man trying to catch him so we could put him in a kitty carrier we had got. His first time with us was spent taking him to the vet to check on shots and matters like that. That’s hardly a good introduction.

Slowly though, he came to trust us. Our first night with him, he had ran under the bed, so Allie and I just went to sleep. Around 2:30 in the morning, I heard the cat crying. Now I had told Allie she wanted the cat the most so he would be her responsibility, but being the good and loving husband that I am, I did what any good and loving husband would do when the cat whines at that time of night.

“Honey. Wake up. The baby needs you.”

As it turns out, we both got up and stayed with him for about an hour and he actually ate for the first time. As it turns out, for awhile, he would only eat when Allie was watching him. As I wrote this, I just now heard his food machine go off indicating breakfast is ready, and it saddens me now because like the first time, he had to go to the vet today.

Nothing serious. No need to worry. It’s just a regular check-up. Still, that sound is a reminder of his absence. On the way, Shiro whined some and I am sure he doesn’t care much for me right now. After all, I put him in a kitty carrier and he hasn’t got to eat.

Now the difference between a cat or a dog or any other animal is a finite distance. The degree of difference between a human and God is infinite. We can never fully understand God. The interesting point about the passage of “My ways are not your ways” is really not about that, but about how God is so willing to forgive the wicked when we are so not. The wicked fear turning to God for judgment. God tells them He is not like us. He forgives. They just have to repent before they can receive it.

So it is that right now, assuming Shiro is still cautious as they have to get him anesthesia to work on him, he probably does not understand why he is there at all. What did he do to deserve this treatment? Now I am not saying that Shiro is thinking like we do, but I am sure it is confusing. This is just a way of saying that if a cat could think like we do, could he understand this?

Not only that, but when Shiro communicates to me, I don’t always understand. I rarely do really. I don’t speak kitty. I don’t know exactly what a purr means or what a meow. I’m pretty sure I understand what it means when he hisses at me, but that’s about it.

There is also a difference in that I can feel compassion for Shiro. Possibly, his whining could motivate me to not put him in a cage and take him to the vet, but that would not be love. That would be just me acting for my own interest in not wanting my cat to think ill of me temporarily. It’s not really a loving thing to do.

If this distance is hard to understand, then imagine the much wider gulf between man and God. Part of the whole problem of evil is when we assume that God must give a justification for His actions. No doubt, we want to understand a lot of them, but isn’t that a high presumption right at the start to assume that if God exists, His actions must be in the wrong?

As one who holds to impassibility, I also don’t believe God has feelings for us in any way. This does not mean God does not love us or care for us, but it does mean we can’t change God in any way, which would include emotionally. This is really a good thing. Do we want it that we could blackmail God in some way by pulling at heartstrings and have Him do things for us just because He wants us to think well of Him?

God will do things to us at times knowing we will not understand them and that we will even resent Him for them. We will accuse Him of being in the wrong. God does them anyway. He does them because He knows what it is that He seeks to accomplish for the good.

Does this mean we cannot love God if He does things to us that hurt us that we don’t understand? Not a bit. Understanding why someone does something, even if it seems cruel to you, does not mean you cannot love that person. There’s one person many of us do love that does things all the time that we don’t understand and are hurtful and we love them anyway. That person is ourselves.

How many of us love ourselves, but we do things we don’t understand to ourselves. We want to lose weight, but we open another box of Oreos. We want to stop drinking, but we wind up going to the bar. We want to love our wives more, but we’re watching pornography instead. We want to save money, but we go on a shopping spree. We can say we get some pleasure from these actions, but how many times are we doing something and asking ourselves, “Why am I doing this?’

Yet we still love.

We love because we seek our own good. To love is to seek the good of that which is loved. Even the person attempting suicide in some way loves themselves. After all, they want to put themselves out of their pain and misery. In a twisted way, they want something better for themselves. It is a wrong way and it is too much an emphasis on self, but it is still seeking the good.

If we cannot understand our very selves and we cannot fathom how we could explain things to our pets, why do we think we could understand God or that He could even explain things to us in a way that would make sense to us? The problem is likely so multi-faceted that it’s beyond us. What we have to ask is overall, do we trust God even when there are aspects that we do not understand. That is not a requirement to love after all, as we do the same with ourselves.

Hopefully, before too long I will pick up Shiro with a good report. He will be angry for awhile, but in the evening if I get in some gaming or watching something, I hope he will be right there next to me. Perhaps I don’t know why I care about Him, but then I don’t give God anything He needs and He could do just fine without me and yet He has a great love for me.

Maybe it’s best to just accept it.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

You Know Not When

When will your time come? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

There are warnings in the New Testament that you know not at what time your Lord will come. That is true. On the other hand, so is the reverse. You know not at what time you will come to the Lord.

Yesterday after driving home from the grocery store after church, I get the news that Alex Trebek has died. I am a gameshow junkie and I grew up watching Jeopardy. I was quite saddened to hear the news. I had last heard his fight against cancer was going well, but I guess not that well. It was a surprise, but it was not totally unexpected. When you have cancer at that level, you can prepare for it.

Then last night I’m browsing through Facebook to see what people are talking about and I see someone talk about the death of Ben Arbour. Ben was a friend of mine on Facebook, but sadly, I never got to know him well. Now I won’t get to this side of eternity.

So what did he die from? Did he have cancer? Did he have COVID? What was it?

None of those. He and his wife were hit by a drag racer. Their car burst into flames and the Arbours and other driver were killed.

The last post Ben Arbour had made on his Facebook page was something about how he was proud of his dad. For him, he probably anticipated life would go on as normal. It wouldn’t. They left behind four children who are aged from 10 to 16.

In this story, everyone thought they would be going about their lives. The drag racer though the same thing. At one moment, he’s in an illegal race just trying to go faster than another driver. In the next moment, his ultimate race is over and now there’s no going back. We can hope he was prepared for eternity.

Ben Arbour was also in ministry. That’s no exception to the rule. If you’re doing ministry, you don’t get a free pass for God to protect you from suffering in your life or even an untimely death. Also, whoever you are, you are not needed by God. You are wanted and desired, but God can bring about His plans without you. God is not up in Heaven wondering how things are going to turn out now that the Arbours are gone. That is not to insult them at all. The same could be said if the same event happened to me. It is to humble us. To get to be used by God is a privilege.

We can imagine looking back and wishing we had done things differently. Did we need to spend all that time on Facebook? Did we really have to watch that game on TV? Did we really have to get to that level in that video game? I’m not saying these activities are wrong, but they need to be put in their proper perspective. We should enjoy our lives, but the purpose of our life is not just amusement.

But here are some things likely that won’t be regretted.

The wife won’t say, “I really regret spending that time making love to my husband. I wish I had spent that time better.”

The parent won’t say, “I really regret going to my child’s baseball game. I could have spent that time better.”

The adult child won’t say, “I really regret making those phone calls to my Mom just to talk with her. I could have spent that time better.”

We won’t regret time spent in prayer or money given to a good charity. We won’t regret doing pure acts of love just for doing them. We won’t regret being thankful for what is happening in our day. We will wish we had forgiven more, listened more, and loved more.

None of us is entitled. None of us is owed anything. The only exception is if God explicitly promised you something, much like He promised Simeon that he wouldn’t die until he saw the Christ. Since that is true, all that God gives you is a gift. Be thankful. Love what you have and celebrate that.

You know not what hour your Lord will come. Neither do you know at what hour you will come to the Lord. Be ready anyway.

Prayers to the family of Alex Trebek, the Arbours, and yes, the drag racer who died as well.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Do You Want To Get Well?

Do you really want healing? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

When we read John 5, we read the story about a man at the pool of Bethesda wanting to be healed by being put in the water. Jesus asks him if he wants to get well. The man says he wants to, but every time the water starts up, someone gets in before him. Jesus heals him at that point.

Now I know skeptical readers of my blog will think that event never happened, but that doesn’t matter right now. I want to focus on something else. That question Jesus asks can seem surprising. Do you want to get well? Of course, he wants to get well! Right?

Maybe not.

Sometimes, we talk about the problem of evil and personal suffering with sickness of some kind, be it mental or physical. Now most of us would say we want to get better if we have something, but do we really want to get better? The reality is that sometimes we do not want to get better. Some people base an identity around their sickness.

“Whoa, Nick. Hold on a second. I have an email from you and in your email you say you’re an Aspie. Aren’t you identifying with your condition?”

Yes. I am. I also would not take a cure if I were offered one because I think the condition has a lot of strengths to it that I don’t want to risk losing. However, I don’t speak about Aspergers saying “Woe is me!” Instead, I speak about it saying, “Yes. I have this condition, but I choose to overcome the deficiencies and live a successful life.”

Not all people do that.

Sometimes it has been said that happiness is a choice, but do we really want to be happy? If we do, we need to realize that means letting our guard down many times and not having control of our lives given to others who don’t deserve that control. Some people don’t really want that.

In some ways, when we do that, we are holding the universe hostage, or at least trying to. “I won’t be happy unless XYZ is going on in my life.” Make it whatever you want. It could be a great marriage, a great career, great kids, your sex life, the health of yourself or others, or any combination thereof.

Perhaps we should really ask what does it take to make us happy? If we are Christians, do we truly need anything besides Jesus Christ for our joy? Now when I say that, this isn’t to say that other aspects of life shouldn’t bring us joy or can’t. Many of the items mentioned above are great for bringing joy. However, picture any of them and ask “If you lost that and you still had Jesus, could you have joy?”

This isn’t to say you wouldn’t mourn what you lost. There is a place for sadness and mourning. We are told to weep and mourn with those who weep and mourn. We’re not told to just say “Cheer up and get over it.” There are real realities to mourn. Jesus Himself wept at the graveside of Lazarus, even knowing what He was going to do.

But if we say that we refuse happiness unless we have anything else in our lives, then we are putting ourselves in our own prison. If Jesus asked us “Do you want to be well?” our answer could very well be, “No.” It might seem like a simple question, but sometimes those are the best ones to start with. If you are not having joy in your life right now, well why not?

Whatever it is that you’re lacking in your mind, do you have to have it? I am not saying it wouldn’t be nice if you did, but is it essential for your joy? If it isn’t, then what is? If it is, then you are making your joy dependent on that and do you really want to do that?

This doesn’t mean also you try this path alone. There’s nothing wrong with seeking out a good therapist and good friends. Recovery from some matters is not easy. If it is physical health, you can still have joy. My friend, Ed Komoszewski, has a virus that has been rampaging his body for years and causes great pain, but talking to him you’d never know it. He’s got a lot of joy. It’s not easy, but he has it.

If we complain about evil, let’s make sure it’s not of our own making. Suffering has very little to do with what actually happens to you. How you respond to it personally makes up most of the suffering that you go through. What happens to you is usually not in your control. What you do in response usually is.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Evil is Temporary

Will this truly pass? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Yesterday, in preparation for a possible upcoming operation, I had to go and get a COVID test. It involves a swab being put in each nostril while a nurse counts to ten. I was sure that wasn’t a whole ten seconds, but I wasn’t going to complain.

I had seen Allie get this done before and so I wasn’t looking forward to it for myself. Still, there was the desire to be the tough guy and take it. It reminds me of a time Allie and I went to the Titanic museum and you can stick your arm in water that was the temperature of the water the night the Titanic sank. I thought I would be the tough guy there and show Allie how I could handle it.

I couldn’t last two minutes.

So while the swabs were in, it was horrible, but as soon as they were gone, there was some mild irritation, but then not too long later, I was just fine. I thought about that later that day. That’s the way most suffering is. Something that we can consider so awful and extreme can just a year later be forgotten about.

“Just forgotten about? I lost my child in a car accident years ago. You don’t just forget about that!”

True, which is why I said it can be. Not all evils are like this. What happens to a parent in this situation is awful, but the thing is the suffering while still ongoing doesn’t remain at the same level. You manage to learn to live somehow even if it is difficult and even if there always is that hole in your heart.

Sometimes you will get reminders that will still hit hard. To this day, whenever I visit the gravesides of my grandmother and aunt, I am tempted to cry about my loss still. On the anniversary of the death of a loved one or at holidays like Christmas and Thanksgiving, an empty chair is a painful reminder.

But you learn to manage.

It’s the same with feelings of happiness and joy. They do diminish over time. Now if you pause to think about something really good in your life, you can at times start to experience the joy again, but it doesn’t last. There is a law of diminishing returns in place.

The Christian answer to this is that all evil will be overshadowed by God in the end and knowing Him for the Christian. There is no law of diminishing returns with knowing Him in eternity because there will always be more to experience. God being infinite cannot be exhausted at all by us. We will spend all of eternity going deeper and deeper.

Our problem often today is we treat things that are temporary, like the evil we suffer, as if they were eternal. We then treat the eternal things, like our after-death, as if they were temporal. There are temporal things here for us to enjoy, but they are all meant to point us to the eternal to enjoy.

Whatever evil you are suffering now, even if it is a permanent evil, the level you are experiencing it at will pass. It will not last forever. There will be a new day eventually and you will find yourself not being hurt as much. Of course, you should still seek to take the steps to recover as much as possible and if it was a victimization you had, the best thing to do is to wake up and say “I am not going to be a victim anymore” and then follow through.

Evil is temporary for the Christian. Whatever you fear will pass before too long. It could be that something you are dreading now you won’t even think about a year from now.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Jesus Drowned Babies?

Did Jesus drown babies? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I’ve seen a meme making the rounds on Facebook that says “btw, Jesus drowned babies.” Well, this is interesting since the second person of the Trinity always existed, but He wasn’t known as Jesus until the incarnation, but I digress. We get the point. Jesus is God and God drowned babies so Jesus drowned babies.

What are we to say? I mean, we are against abortion which is the taking of the life of an innocent baby. Therefore, shouldn’t we look at an event like the flood and think that it is awful?

To begin with, it’s interesting how many atheists who post this are actually pro-abortion. Apparently, if you’re God, it’s wrong for you to take a life. However, if you’re a human being who is far less knowledgeable and good, then taking that own life within your body or the body of the woman you love is your moral right and must be defended.

Some atheists are against abortion thankfully and so they are being consistent at least. For those who aren’t, this is a problem. I asked one atheist multiple times in a group I’m in on Facebook why it is that killing babies is wrong. I mainly got some stunned response that I was questioning that premise. My reply was not at all, but I accept it on theistic grounds and he can’t so what’s his reason?

Still waiting.

One of the mistakes with this kind of thinking is that it assumes that God is a moral agent just like we are. We know this is not the case though. Even among ourselves, there are different degrees of authority. A parent can punish their own children. That doesn’t mean that someone else has the right to do so. A first-responder can do things that I cannot by their own authority. If the president wants to pardon a criminal, he can. If my friend is a criminal and I want to pardon them, I can’t.

What about God? God is the source of all life and the one who provides it. As said in Job, if He withdrew His breath, all life would perish immediately. Every single one of our lives is in His hands and every single one of them will die someday by accident, illness, or murder. As Clay Jones says, everyone you know will die that way and the only way you will avoid seeing that is your own death the same way.

So God will do what is moral. Right? Wrong. God does what is good. Goodness and morality are not the same thing. Goodness can go beyond acts that are demanded by morality. Morality is doing what you ought to do and there is no ought for God. There is nothing that He is bound to do.

This means that God doesn’t owe you anything whatsoever. The only obligations He has are those He has obligated Himself to, mainly to keep His word since He is truth. If God promises you something, He will do it. Other than that, He is in no debt to you whatsoever.

That means also He owes no one a single moment of life. Not a one. Upon what grounds can it be said that God took a life too early, as if He owed that person some more life? None.

Also, a big difference between us and God is God can restore life again, even eternally. We can’t do that. Once we kill that baby in the womb, we are done. There is nothing more we can do. God could do a miracle if He wanted, but there is nothing we can do on our end.

If we picture God as a moral agent like we are, then we do have a problem, and that’s what many atheists do. They think that God is in the same boat we are and plays by the same rules. It won’t work. God has no moral obligation to anyone and can give and take away as He wants.

Some might ask why He does. Many people out there have lost babies and not through any evil act of their own. It could be through any of the reasons I mentioned above when speaking about Clay Jones. For each circumstance, I cannot say that I know. That would be ridiculous on my part. What are you to do in that boat?

It’s okay actually to get angry with God about this. Go to Him with your hurts. At least you’re trying then. Peter Kreeft has said that’s faith trying to reconcile itself with reasons. If God was dead to you truly, you wouldn’t care. Frankly, there’s no apologetic answer I could give that would soothe a breaking heart, and there shouldn’t be. Intellectualism won’t answer that dilemma.

This is where the church needs to step up and be the church and love like Jesus did. Odds are I don’t know you personally and I can’t do that. I can tell you that if you love God, this will work for your good. I can also tell you that any child you have lost like that is in the arms of Jesus now. God does not neglect any little one that dies in such a way.

Feel free to hurt and you should. Be angry and grieve and ask the why questions. If you know someone going through this, please be there for them. I have a saying that I give to would-be apologists and that’s that if you’re ever in a position such as the pastor of a church and a mother comes to you crying because her teenage son died in a car accident, if you put on your apologetics or theologian or philosopher hat at that point, I will come over and smack you. At that moment, she needs a minister, a counselor, a friend. Perhaps after some time she can have a rational discussion about the problem of evil, but that is not the time and answering that question won’t soothe her heart.

So in the end, I find this meme highly ineffective and just trying to pull emotional strings. Not only that, if God exists and we have arguments for that and Jesus rose from the dead and we have arguments for it, then Christianity is true. We could simply say we don’t understand everything, but we will go by what we do understand. We have to do that in many other areas.

And yes, if your atheist friend is pro-abortion, press on that point.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

You Are Not Safe

Can you avoid suffering? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Many of us have been shocked recently to hear about the news of the death of Mike Adams. It gets even more saddening when the reports indicate that it looks like a suicide. When I first heard he had died, I was suspecting foul play. After all, Adams is a warrior type and he really enjoys being in the heat of controversy.

If there was ever a time I would have hoped that I was right….

As I thought about that, I thought about what my friend Clay Jones says about evil and suffering. You are not safe. This morning, I remembered what he has said before that in your life, you will see everyone around you die of murder, accident, or disease. There is one thing aside from the return of Christ that can prevent you from seeing this. That is your own death from murder, accident, or disease.

Years ago, we also saw Nabeel Qureshi pass away. He was just 34 and had stomach cancer strike him. Many of us around the world were praying for him and were confident God would not let this one pass away. This would be a miracle for the world. It was not to be.

You are not safe.

We have this strange idea that we are to avoid suffering and evil. When it hits us in our lives, we act like we have been dealt an unfair hand. Why should we be the ones who receive this? The real question to ask is why should we receive anything different?

We often want to act like life is great for us. Most of us on Facebook want to put on a happy face and act like everything is okay. Many of us thought the same thing about Mike Adams, and yet apparently underneath that warrior spirit, there was a deeply hurting individual and it really hadn’t been seen.

I have seen people I respect greatly go through sudden crises in their personal lives that come out of nowhere. I then wonder “Why didn’t they ask for help?” Then I think, “The same reason I normally don’t.” I want to be a man in part and say “I can handle this.” There’s also great pride in admitting many struggles one has.

I’m not saying be an open book entirely on a place like Facebook and share everything, but I am saying to be willing to be open to a certain group of people and tell them what’s going on. I have a personal mentor I email every night who knows a lot about what’s going on in my own world. I am sure if many of you saw the correspondences over the years, you would be stunned.

Churches sadly are not the best place because many churches have it that you show up and put on your Christian face that life is great. My wife and I were at a small group years ago at a church we definitely no longer attend when Allie talked about how she was struggling with doubt in prayer request time. She was actually told that they don’t talk about that there. Yep, church. That’s how you help the wounded.

You all know I’m not going to back down on Christian morals, but we can hold to Christian morals in the right attitude such that someone living a lifestyle they know we see as sin will not be afraid to come to us. How is that possible? Well, they weren’t afraid to come to Jesus. If they are afraid to come to us and not to Jesus, we are doing something wrong.

We need to be there because after all, no one is safe. Years ago a book was written about Jim Morrison called “No One Here Gets Out Alive.” That’s a description of us too. We don’t like to think about that, but unless Christ returns first, it’s true.

That event could happen for you even today, even if you’re in perfect health. You could die in a crime or a car accident. Remember the story of Ghost Rider where the main character’s Dad has a disease and he makes a deal with the devil to heal him? The deal is set so the Dad will live a long life. Right? No. He is healed, but the next day he dies in an accident.

It could happen at any time.

Suffering is inevitable for all of us and that’s why as Christians, we need the message of hope, but not just the message of hope, but the living of hope. We need to come alongside and help one another out as best we can. It means so much to still get a kind message from someone out of the blue offering prayers or encouragement or to get a gift in the regular mail or email from someone just because.

I remember years ago after Allie and I were married, we were in financial straits, which we are still in. I remember praying and asking God to please send a little bit to help us. Shortly after I went to the mail and a friend from California had mailed us $100 saying she had just been thinking about us.

Friends. You have no idea how much hope something like that gives. It’s a way of getting the message of “You matter to us.” That’s something we all need to hear. We all want to matter. We all want to know we’re important to someone.

There are too many people in this world who have gone the way of Mike Adams and will go that same way. It is a tragedy every single time. Please get help. Don’t be ashamed to see a therapist. For many of my own struggles, I also see a therapist. There is no shame in it. Please also reach out to the suicide prevent hotline at 1-800-273-8255.

Something I enjoy doing is watching YouTube videos about gaming. One video I watched recently was something along the lines of dumb ways to die in video games. The video was humorous and out of the blue, at the end the speaker says “While we’ve all wasted our lives this way in games, there’s no need to waste your own life.” He then goes to give a positive message about the dangers of suicide and about the good in the world and to please get help if you’re struggling.

It was great to see that message. We need to hear it more often. Maybe you should tell it to someone today.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Job and Personal Experience

Do we really know what God is doing in our lives? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Lately my wife has been reading Job and when she does, it’s an interesting experience. She doesn’t just read the book to herself. She reads it quietly, but in an audible voice. I can hear what she is saying which gives a new way to really interact with the book. Many of us might not understand reading out loud today for private reading, but in the past it was the norm. Augustine was surprised when he walked in on his teacher, Ambrose of Milan, reading silently.

Something that occurs to me hearing the accounts is that in the first two chapters, we are told what is going on behind the scenes and we have no indication Job was ever told it nor his friends. If they were, they certainly didn’t know about it during the discussion in the book of Job. Yet what happens when we get to this discussion?

Everyone apparently “knows” what is going on. They all know what God is doing. This includes Job. Job knows that God has turned on Him and is ignoring Him and is not being just with Him. Job wants to have his day in court. Job wants to speak to God about what has happened.

Meanwhile, his friends have the wisdom of the ages. Eliphaz tells Job that men with gray hair older than his father are on his side. These people also “know” that Job has sinned. They “know” that he just needs to repent and get right with God and then everything will be right for him.

These people all sound too much like modern-day Christians in the West.

Many times when I go to a church service, I hear the speaker talking about everything that God is doing in the life of the church. I always want to ask how they know that. How do you know that what is happening is because of the activity of God? I am not ruling out that they could be right. It could be the hand of God. I want to know how do they know.

We are all too quick to speak what God is doing into someone else’s life. This is especially so when disaster strikes. Christians at funerals can say some of the worst things ever. Their intentions can be noble to provide comfort, but they are not. Imagine telling small children that God took their mother away because He needed another angel. Bad theology aside that human beings become angels, what view does that give the children of God?

When a disaster strikes, it’s too easy for Christian leaders to stand up and say that it’s judgment. Consider when AIDS showed up and it was a divine judgment on the homosexual community. Of course, I do not support homosexual activity, but what are we to say if a cure shows up? God wanted to judge the community, but He couldn’t overcome science? What kind of God is that?

When an earthquake or a hurricane hits anywhere, I don’t bother listening to people who claim that this is the judgment of God. Again, it could be, but I want to see some real evidence of that first. I want to know why I should accept this person as a prophet speaking with divine authority.

In our own lives when suffering comes, there’s nothing wrong with looking at yourself and seeing if you need to repent in some way. After all, we all always do. None of us lives a life that we ought to be living. Still, it is false to always think it must be because of a sin and once we repent, God will restore us. That is actually the very way of thinking being challenged in Job and yet we still hold to it today.

If someone you know is suffering, one of the best things you can do is what Job’s friends did originally. Be there. At the start of the book, the friends show up and they just sit there. No one says anything. The gift of presence was enough.

Most of us have a hard enough time figuring out why we ourselves do things. It is quite arrogant to struggle with that and still think that we know why God is doing what He is doing. Of course, He is active in the world, but we need to be careful when we try to say what He is and isn’t doing. Speaking for God and about Him should never be taken lightly.

Remember, in the end, everyone was wrong even though everyone was convinced they were right. None of them saw properly what was really happening to Job and all of them got humbled. Let’s not make the same mistake lest we also have to get humbled for speaking out of turn.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

On Ravi And His Cancer

What are my thoughts on Ravi’s health right now? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Years ago when my apologetics journey began, The Case for Christ was the book that lit my fire. Shortly after, I commented about seeing The Case for Faith while in a bookstore with a friend and he surprised me by buying it for me. In that book, I learned about a man named Ravi Zacharias and something about him just stuck out with me. It might have been his gripping story of overcoming suicide. I don’t know. From that point on, I proceeded to buy everything I could by Ravi. His style of writing just intrigued me. I never missed an episode of his podcast, Let My People Think.

One Christmas, my Dad asked me what I would like for Christmas. It was an unusual request, but I said I would like to get to meet Ravi. Any Dad out there that’s a good one knows when a kid asks something like that, you go and do everything you can to make it happen, and that April my Dad and I drove to Atlanta together. (Interestingly, that’s where I live now and I have tried getting employed at RZIM as well)

When we got there, I also got to meet Paul Copan who I think was just starting out his major career at the time. Before too long, Ravi came and I got to go into his office. He was going to give me all of his books, but I already had them. Instead, he gave me several CDs of his show. They are still here in our apartment.

Whenever I got the chance to meet Ravi, I often took it. The last time was a real surprise. My wife and I went to a church he was speaking at. Allie had insisted I grow a beard since the last time I had seen him and when we went up to meet him with everyone else in a line, when my turn came up I greeted him and he didn’t seem to know me. Then I realized it was the beard and after awhile he looked up with a sudden shock, “Nick? Is that you?”

It’s good to be remembered.

My wife showed me the picture of him this past week with him and his wife on their 48th anniversary. This time, it was me who didn’t recognize him at first. It required a second look from me. The silver-haired apologist I had known for years looked radically different. I could hardly believe my eyes.

Ravi’s daughter has put out a statement concerning Ravi’s health. It looks like unless a miracle occurs then Ravi’s not going to beat the cancer and time is very limited and we’ll have to see what the future holds for RZIM. It’s really something to think that a man who has spoken so often on college campuses about suffering and evil is now before the world going through a great trial of suffering and evil.

So what can you say at such a time? Nothing really. No words of mine can make the cancer go away. Nothing I say can make Ravi’s family have immediate joy. They have great sorrow now and they should. Scripture doesn’t tell us to bring immediate joy to those who mourn. It tells us to mourn with those who mourn. We often treat sadness and sorrow like they’re diseases here. They’re really just part of the human spectrum of experiences.

Should we pray for healing? Yes. God can still do what He wants to do, but if He chooses to not heal, that is what He does and that is what is best ultimately. If He decides that now is the time, then now is the time and we will be grateful for the time we were given.

The greatest joy I think we could do for Ravi is to remember that he was part of a wave of apologists that are now passing away, the next generation rising up needs to be ready to face the challenge. The great honor we could do then is to continue his ministry.

As I close this blog then, I think about this item I have on the wall here. It was a gift given to me on my wedding day. My seminary president had emailed Ravi to tell him the news. The president had the email redone in a style of calligraphy and presented it to me. It is framed and hanging on my wall. I apologize for the glare in the picture, but it was a wonderful wedding gift from Ravi.

Thank you for your ministry my friend. Here’s to your health. May a generation of apologists rise up to defend the faith that you love so much.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: Worldviews and the Problem of Evil

What do I think of Ronnie Campbell’s book published by Lexham Press? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

If there is any objection normally raised up against theism, it is the problem of evil. How can a good God allow so much evil in the world or any evil even? The argument from my perspective is not the most rational or logical, but it does have a strong emotional appeal. As I write this, our society is on lockdown from fear of a virus and even before this point, atheists were already making memes about God allowing or not doing anything concerning this virus.

In this book, Campbell looks at how different worldviews answer the problem of evil. He deals with naturalism, pantheism, panentheism, and theism itself. Each topic is dealt with the same way. In the end, there is more examination of theism since this is where Campbell lies and he spends more time on defenses of it. In each chapter, he also looks at the best defenders of each position.

Each worldview has to deal with the following questions: Life, human consciousness, the metaphysics of good and evil, and human responsibility. At this, I would have preferred the first two be left out. Let’s suppose we grant the positions of life and consciousness as questions to be set aside for the moment. If we look at just evil itself, how well does each worldview explain it?

Campbell does treat each view fairly and then looks at theism. Here, I would have also liked to have seen more distinction. He focuses naturally on Christian theism, but I was hoping in the book to see a comparison between Islam and Judaism and perhaps even deism as well. Campbell makes the Trinity a necessary part of his defense, so Islam would definitely have some problems, but couldn’t Judaism possibly work still since it would be open to incarnation, resurrection, and Trinity? After all, the first Christians were open to all of these and were Jews.

I was pleased to see the engagement with New Testament scholarship when talking about the Trinity. Campbell looked at some of the best research on this and if you’re not familiar with it, you will gain enough to be basically cognizant of the issues. This is explained in a way that is easy to understand as well.

Campbell also has some questions about classical theism. I really did not find them convincing as a classical theist myself. Still, it is not necessary to Campbell’s book that you embrace his view. I did appreciate his critique of open theism, however.

The final chapter also deals with the defeat of evil and looks at questions such as the nature of Heaven and Hell. While I am not a proponent of conditional immortality, I don’t think many of them would find his arguments in this case tenable. There was some said on Heaven, but I think more needed to be said.

If there was something else I would add, it would be a brief chapter on those who are dealing with suffering right now. What advice does Campbell have for us when we are in the midst of the pain? At that time, the intellectual arguments don’t really help out that much. I realize this book is not meant to be a pastoral book, but that would be something good still to have.

Overall still, this is a very thorough work on the problem of evil and atheists who want to use it as an argument need to deal with it. It’s also a rare book that deals with pantheism and panentheism on the problem of evil as well. Now maybe someone who studies this more will go forward and look at Judaism, deism, and Islam more on evil.

In Christ,
Nick Peters