Time to Take Inventory

Sunday will be an inauspicious day. Tisha B’Av begins on Saturday at sundown.

I’ve written about it before. This is the Jewish holiday–funny word for it–which commemorates God’s pronouncement of a punishment on the Jews. On this day, He told them the generation that left Egypt with Moses would not enter the Promised Land. It’s also the date of the destruction of Solomon’s Temple in 586 B.C.E. and the date of the destruction of the second temple in 70 C.E. And it’s a day on which other great misfortunes have befallen the Jews. You might think of it as Shavuot in reverse. Shavuot, the holiday of the first fruits, commemorates the gift of the Torah. Jews believe that without the temple, they are not able to enter the presence of God and receive and spread His blessings, in the manner in which they did it while the temples were in use.

It’s a tough day for observant Jews. No food, no drink, no sex, no bathing. Apparently, you spend the whole day thinking about what happens to rebellious people. It’s “Scared Straight” for people who believe in God. That’s a good thing. Mercy goes a long way, but eventually, you come to the end of it. And the result is things like the Diaspora. Or maybe your nation loses its political and economic dominance, and you find yourself paying Muslims and socialists $140 for a barrel of oil. A third of your corn starts disappearing into a wasteful ethanol scam, and the price of milk doubles as a result. Then you find your countrymen voting for a shallow, inexperienced, egotistical man who carries a Hindu idol with him wherever he goes. Things like that happen.

People wonder why God permits suffering. Here’s one reason. As soon as the suffering stops, we start to forget Him.

I remember a funny scene in a Burt Reynolds movie. He decided to kill himself, so he swam out into the ocean. Then he changed his mind. And he started promising God things, in exchange for help reaching the shore. The promises got bigger and bigger as he got more worried. Money and service, basically. Then as he got closer to shore, they started shrinking. And when he got close to the beach, he reneged on all of his promises, claiming he was close enough to make it without God’s help.

I don’t know about you, but that principle certainly applies to me. Maybe not as blatantly, but I always find it easier to be a good Christian when I’m in trouble. Religious people are like mental patients who go off their pills as soon as they start to work. They think they’re not crazy after all. When things go well for religious people, we think maybe we’ve been going a little overboard with the prayer and obedience. And maybe we got all that good stuff because we’re smart and we worked hard. We don’t think about all the smart, hard-working people in the world who live in squalor and misery.

I don’t know about you, but I expect to feel pretty uneasy until Sunday night. I was distressed by the predictable Muslim nutcake video, threatening destruction at the Olympics, and the sensation is exacerbated by the dream I had about the melting stadium. I’m not a psychic or a prophet, and the things I dream about almost never happen, but all the same, I don’t like it.

If the Muslim extremists want jihad, the Chinese will be happy to accommodate them. The Chinese don’t fear the ACLU, swing voters, Janeane Garofalo, or tort lawyers. They are leftists who don’t have to be nice, because they’re in control. They have never heard of due process or habeas corpus. Attacking the Olympics would probably be a really bad idea. But if it weren’t for bad ideas, jihadis would not exist.

The other day I listened to Brother Andrew, and he made an interesting point. He said that whatever we may think about Muslims, they are very sincere about one thing: trying to find God. If you can convince a Muslim that Jesus will save him, you will have yourself a very serious and dedicated Christian. He believes we should be turning that to our advantage. Appeasement is stupid–it’s surrender by inches–but what if you can replace a poisonous ideology with a fruitful one? George Bush says we have to fight terrorists abroad, to avoid fighting them here. Brother Andrew says we have to evangelize them abroad, for the same purpose. I guess we ought to be having prayer meetings all over the US, asking God to help us reach the Muslims. Are we doing that? I haven’t seen any evidence. I’m sure some churches are doing it. I know we pray for lower gas prices.

To get back to Tisha B’Av, I believe I have to improve myself while things are going well, to avoid being driven to improve myself by misfortune. My guess is that this is the point of the holiday. It’s a good lesson, and you don’t have to be a Jew to benefit from it.

More

If you have an interest in promoting Christianity in Muslim nations–or in helping existing Christians facing Muslim persecution–you should take a look at this page at Open Doors USA. It’s Brother Andrew’s site. It lists suggested contributions and tells what they will do with the money.