When bad things happen send me.

I received a nice note from Pam about my Catch last week on theological conundrums. She mentioned that her pastor often talks about how the world is “subject to gravity and meteorological activity and people’s bad choices and polluted air … you get my drift. Not that God doesn’t intervene in miraculous ways but calamity is just part of existing on this planet. What God does do for us when we are in need is send people.”

Now I love that, and I believe it is true. Not that this is reason for bad things to happen, but bad things do give God an opportunity to send people, and just who would that be if it isn’t you and me?

This could be any number of a million things like offering assistance, or offering counsel, or just offering a warm body to sit with someone and kick at the darkness. The important thing is to get yourself there, and the important thing before that is to ask yourself, “Is this my chance? Is God sending me?”

On September 11, 2001, my daughter was attending college north of Boston, and when she heard of the terrorist attack on the twin towers in New York, she wanted to go there. She was a trained EMT, for heaven’s sake. She could help. She could do something. Now in this case it wasn’t practical for her to go, but I never forgot that attitude. I think that’s what God is looking for — someone to say, instead of questioning, “Send me.”

Next time you hear about something bad happening to someone, instead of wondering what God is up to, I want you to imagine God pulling you aside and whispering in your ear, “I want you to go in there and help. I want you to represent me. Don’t worry about what you’re going to say when you get there; I’ll give you the words — that’s what my Holy Spirit is for — just get yourself there. I’ll handle the rest.”

When bad things happen, it’s really not up to us to try to figure out God; it’s up to us to try to figure out if God is asking us to do something about it.