Writing about my life is boring. I'm just 1 patient transporter, 1 child of God. But there is the whole WORLD out there to think about!!! Hence, this post will focus on much larger issues!
I just read an old TIME magazine report of the Sunni / Shiite schism in Iraq and the Middle East. It seems the rift began after the initial creation of the religions of Islam. They were going through establishing a church leadership and they had a disagreement on who would be the first Imam (the Muslim equivalent of the Pope). The Sunnis wanted one and the Shiites wanted another leader. The Sunni group had their favorite established as the first Imam, and as human nature is rather greedy, they have 'lorded' over the Shiite groups for the most part, thus that whole domination / oppression has caused the problems seen today in Iraq.
The consequences of a civil war in Iraq could flare up the Sunni / Shiite divide elsewhere, and experts say it's starting already with groups in the West Bank / Gaza and Lebanon being somewhat at odds.
So, the question TIME ultimately asks through this article is "What is there to do about this issue?" More accurately, "What can the west (more accurately, the United States) do about bringing this divide to an end and what will it cost us (the US mostly and then Europe following?)" The pending unrest is something a lot of people understandably get worked-up about because it means more unrest which would cause economic failures and more importantly, humanitarian suffering.
The question that I and other Believers must ask when we read this is: What is God's hand in this? We all know the end is coming. John Meyer is a rather adamant at teaching that the end is quite soon – as in within 1-3 generations. At first I listened with a smile and nod when he would get into it in a sermon. Then I would shrug it off as 'John's speculation' and begin more urgent things like planning for medical school.
However, the world situation is getting rather urgent with the seemingly under-focused situation in Darfur and with the pending unrest that's in the Middle East. Also, with the sharp increase in the number of active Muslims that is reported here and there on the news from different surveys and censuses, I now see a rather clear opposition to Christianity coming up which would be one of the causes of heightened persecution. Another thing is the rise in atheism / humanism. So, considering those 'current-events' indicators, I'm starting to agree with John Meyer and others (I think several ICR people are in this group) that believe the End Times are rather close by.
What does this mean for me? Not me as in my own small life. But my prayer life and how I ask God to use me. How should I pray then? For where I'm going. I'm going into at least two more years of being a student in a heavily humanistic field. Oh, God, I know You are reaching out to the field of Academia, to Your children in the ivory towers that still look to Your throne. I pray You will keep then strong, bring more of them – students, faculty to You before humanism becomes more of a norm, before it starts to cloud Your light more. The ivory towers will come down, but You, the Word of all knowledge will prevail.
And for the medical field, I offer that same prayer. That though we come close to defying mortality, though we have internal pacemakers and virus / cancer destroying agents, we have the human condition to battle – our own selfish ambitions, our patients' sicknesses and accidents. We hide behind stone and glass walls, complex molecules, and the ever-present technology that we claim will aid us in certain cures. But I know that the medical field takes a toll on its people because we see so much suffering even through medicine's victories. I pray all of those in the medical community will reach out to God, especially as they see their patients that reach for Him as they take in the cures at hand.
I wondered briefly how these fields would be affected by the End Times, and I realize that these are the fields – Academia and Medicine that have the most strongly become humanistic, but yet, history has shown that followers of God had influenced them first. Hospitals were set up to treat those society shunned because of illness, schools were set up to teach students about the Word and God's Creation. Yet these institutions have fallen away, and I truly do believe that in all the nations / groups that praise God for eternity, He wants the remnant of the schooled, the healers that walk in His footsteps to be among those that endure to the end.
No comments:
Post a Comment