Show Business

There's no business like show business

Like no business I know
Everything about it is appealing
Everything the traffic will allow

Faith is a matter of degree. God is not concerned about our doubts.

This world traveler-- always interested in the news around the world-- is now interested in the happenings in Mali, West Africa, where French and American troops are seeking to restore some control in the Saharan nation.

It was one of the worst days of my life. I had returned from a visit to the Dogon country-- perhaps the world's oldest civilization-- an almost impossible over-land trip. In Bamako, I had left my guide, sick in the hotel. He insisted that I go to the airport so I would not miss any flights on returning to London. There were only two planes in the Mali air service, and they ran into one another on the air strip. The terminal, about the size of a large shoe box, was filled with sight seers who took up all the seating. Over many years, I have found that airports (Tokyo, Rio, most of the world's large cities) are a place of great interest and enjoyment for the locals-- they have little other excitement in their lives but the excitement of planes and the strange people they brought. I had found a place to sit on the floor in one corner of the building. One lady had pestered me to death, trying to sell a handmade sword.

Old, blind, and tired, my faith in God was exhausted. My doubts about him taking care of me on this trip were soon to end. I said to myself, "I don't believe I can go through much more. It's time for me to leave it all behind...." What better place than one of the most unknown, deserted nations in the world. In the bleakness of the Sahara.

About that time, God said to me, very articulately, "Get up. Get on your feet. I'm not through with you yet."

Just then, the manager of the airport came over, put his hand on my shoulder and said, "Doctor, your plane is ready. I'm taking you to it." Evidently they had repaired the plane and as I flew to Johannesburg the engine sung the hymn Great is Thy Faithfulness.

Johannesburg's airport manager there came to the airstrip and retrieved me from the plane and walked me through the terminal to my London-bound flight. Most memorable-- as we walked through the terminal-- was a young girl saying to her mother, "Look at that blind man with the sword. I wonder who he is mad at."

In the sicknesses and disappointments of life, even the Christian-- even one who knows our longsuffering savior-- often finds trust replaced by doubts and fears. Those who are disabled, those who have followed the casket of a small child to an open grave, those who have seen the horrors of war (the inhumanity of men toward one another) ask the question, "Where is God?" No man will worship a god whom he understands. For God to be God, He needs nothing-- certainly not our understanding of him. He expects trust, with faith that He will do the rest. Faith is a verb. Action, based on belief sustained by confidence. We faithers trust God.

Even the disciple Thomas, walking/ living with Jesus, seeing him break up funeral processions, heal the sick, feed thousands, doubted. “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.” (John 20:25) Yet Thomas, after the resurrection (a feat which seems impossible to me because I have seen the Himalayas) walked- crossing the Himalayas attempting to bring the gospel to India (the most religious country in the world, thousands of false gods.) This writer has stood at Madras, where Thomas was martyred by a Brahma sword.

But, not just the New Testament-- Jesus preaching himself. The old testament is filled with men and women who trusted totally in God, but who had their doubts. You must put flesh and blood on these people to understand them.

Gideon, threshing wheat in a wine press, was attempting to provide food for his family. From Gaza to the Red Sea, the entire nation was starving. God had a mission for a reluctant Gideon. Read about the test, but most of all, God strategizing Gideon's army, from 30,000 to 300. As was the case with David facing Goliath, standing before 100,000 men. God made sure he received the glory. He teaches us to use what we have-- Gideon's 300 men: trumpet, pitcher, and torch; David, some smooth stones.

In my lifetime, those who sought prestige at the church house have fled. The spectators and pretenders are leaving because the world desires to terrorize Christianity. The church always grew under persecution. Just as the persecuted church is growing in China. Terrorism is nothing new, just the terrorist. It was terror in Vietnam, terror in Waco, Texas, terror in Oklahoma city, terror in lower Manhattan on 9/11, and certainly terror when JFK and his brother, RFK, were murdered by their own country. It was terror for General George Patton to be murdered by his own country.

I was in Romania during the reign of Ceausescu, the 70-year reign of terror. Think of a terror in Stalin's Russia, Mao's china, Pol Pot's Cambodia.

Americans love the horrors of tragedy on the screen-- after all, it is just a story/ movie/ play. Are we ready for the show business of terrorism which our enemies can inflict on us. Do we actually understand that there are terrorists in the world, who-- in a show-business type display-- will actually eat a dead man's heart while being filmed.

http://www.presstv.com/detail/2013/05/13/303319/syria-rebel-cuts-eats-soldiers-heart/