As I thought about this more it dawned on me that many of the phrases and sentiments we use to comfort and console one another, Christian and non-Christian alike, are very basic and biblical principles. Jeremiah 29:11 "For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." My friends are right, God doesn't want or cause terrible things to happen, his desire is for us all to prosper and to live with hope. It amazes me that while our Nation continues to take God out of everything the word of the Lord still infiltrates our everyday language and lives.
Whether someone is churched or not, the Bible has proven itself so real by the fact that even people who do not know the Lord are using his words to relate with one another. This really shouldn't surprise me all that much, the Bible tells us that this is true, Psalm 19:1-4, "The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge. They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them. Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world." Then in the New Testament we're told again, Romans 1:20, "For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse." The glory of the Lord is all around us. You don't have to go to church or have heard a single word from the Bible. He made the world a beautiful, complicated and wondrous thing to reflect his image and his nature so that all men may know him. Whether those friends realize it or not, they are testifying to the reality that God is real and active in our lives.
I'll close with a line that one of my favorite pastors usually says after he's finished reading the scripture, "this is the word of the Lord, it is given to us in love, and it is absolutely true."
