It’s Christmas time again, and I love Christmas music. But there is one song that I heard today that is sort of a Christmas song, but not your typical one. This song was a very, oh how do i say it? Interesting? I looked up the background information on the song and that intrigued me a bit more. This song is called Dear Mr. Jesus. I’m sure you’ve heard it before, apparently it’s a very famous song…however, I had never heard it until today. It speaks of a child being beaten and asking Jesus to stop it all. Here, allow me to share you the lyrics of this interesting song.
Dear Mr. Jesus. I just had to write to you.
Something really scared me, when I saw it on the news
A story ’bout a little girl beaten black and blue
Jesus, thought I’d take this right to you
Dear Mr. Jesus, I don’t understand
Why they took her mom and dad away
I know that they don’t mean to hit with wild and angry hands
Tell them just how big they are I pray
Please don’t let them hurt your children
We need love and shelter from the storm
Please don’t let them hurt your children
Won’t you keep us safe and warm
Dear Mr. Jesus, they say that she may die
Oh I hope the doctors stop the pain
I know that you could save her and take her up to the sky
So she would never have to hurt again
Please don’t let them hurt your children
Dear Mr. Jesus, please tell me what to do
And please don’t tell my daddy
But my mommy hits me too
Please don’t let them hurt your children
click here to download and listen to the file
When I read that, it brings a lot of questions and emotions into play. Both religious questions and morality questions. The basic questions of the morality side of it all is “how could anybody beat their child, and why?” The religious side is a bit more interesting, at least to me. This song is an example of the problem with religion. God is supposed to be this person thats knows all, sees all, loves all, and can do anything. And with this type of strength, this god should be able to stop these kind of things. And thats the problem that lies here, he doesn’t. Thousands of people die every year due to a cause that God himself should be able to stop. But he doesn’t. Maybe it’s just me, but I have a huge problem with that.
I read on a Myspace group that I joined a long time ago for my youth group thing. And a girl from my church (or so I assume, I don’t know her) posted a prayer request for her little brother. He had burnt his hand really badly, causing 2nd degree burns. The doctors said everything would be fine, but it should take anywhere from one to two months to heal. So here we go, we had several people say “ok, so and so, I promise to pray for her.” Now, it has been two weeks since she lasted posted that original message. I checked the group yesterday and she had posted a thing saying “there is a god! there is a god! my baby brothers hand is all healed due to the grace of god and all of your prayers! this is a true miracle.” Now, maybe its just me, but that gave me a bit of a giggle when I read that. I found it humorous of how quickly she jumped to conclude that god had healed her little brother.
Now with all of that said, what if god really did heal her brother? Ok, thats awesome..god god..you get a high five for the team, or…do you? I’m not about to give you a high five for “healing” a child’s hand from a burn that would soon heal on its own, when all the while there is someone else out there literally dying from a disease, or maybe even cancer…or maybe there is a child out there being beaten to death as this child was in this song. Yeah, ok, go God!
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Hope Lounge 
I always tell my children that God is not a magic genie. He gives us choices and allows us to choose (some) things just like any parent does.
Thanks for the thought provoking post.
Debbie
By: realworldmartha on December 1, 2007
at 6:27 PM
I think you’re kinda missing the point that God allows things to happen and things not to happen. Praise God for that and praise God for other things.
By: sparkydannyman on December 2, 2007
at 12:48 AM
Retain Knowledge
The Bible tells us to retain God in our knowledge, for if we do, then unrighteousness will not rule in our lives, for knowledge of God’s Word will always lead us to repentance in Christ Jesus. Our Lord knows that our flesh is weak, but our spirit must always be willing at all times to come to His Word so that we can receive instruction in all areas of our lives.
Now many of us put sins into two distinctive groups, some sins we feel are so bad that surely those who commit such sins will be severely punished. Yet other so-called minor sins fall into another category of not so bad, we must always receive instruction from the knowledge which is found in God’s Word. For the Bible see’s it differently, for all sin needs to be repented of.
Paul the Apostle says that we are inexcusable for we are quick to judge others, and by doing so we often condemn ourselves, because we to sin in other areas of our lives. None of us are going to escape the judgement of God unless we repent, there should not be a single day that goes by that we have not brought our sins to the foot of the cross to be cleansed by the precious blood of Jesus.
Would you be free from your passion and pride? There is power in the blood, power in the blood; Come for a cleansing to Calvary’s tide, there is wonderful power in the precious blood of the Lamb.
By: evangelistbillybolitho on December 2, 2007
at 8:08 AM
I’m sorry, but what does that have to do with anything I said?
By: trumpethope19 on December 3, 2007
at 3:12 PM
Sparky: How do you know its god that allows things to happen and not others. (besides, that kind of my point..god seems to allow these horrible things to happen..which he should not) How do you find justice in any of that? I surely do not.
By: trumpethope19 on December 3, 2007
at 3:14 PM
I wrote a post on this subject “Fix the World God.” I hope you get a chance to read it.
http://realworldmartha.wordpress.com
By: realworldmartha on December 3, 2007
at 8:51 PM
Regarding the religious issue:
I believe a response is required that is not always welcomed in the modern world. When we look at the Bible, man is portrayed as someone who is in a bad situation. Man alone is depraved (Morally corrupt; perverted.) without God. Because of the state of man (sin), we deserve nothing from God except His wrath. That’s my first point — We deserve nothing good. (sidenote – Justice would be for God to punish us all eternally)
God is omnipotent (all powerful) and all things happen by God (from broken arms to bridges collapsing — bold statement, I know). We may not see the good in anything, but we know that God works all things for the good for those who are called according to His purpose (Rom 8:28). Although it is impossible for me to see good in the death and destruction of some, I must trust that God is in control and also that if they are “in Christ” then God worked (or caused) what to happen for their benefit. So there’s my second point — God works all things…
Instead of looking at what God has said to us (the Bible) we now have turned things around. God is now on trial for not doing things our way, when we want them done.
I believe you have valid questions here. The bottom line is the Sunday School God that most people learn about is only part of God. God has the capability to hate (Ps 5:5, Rom 9) and before we are brought to salvation we are enemies of God. The early Reformers in the church wrote and talked a lot about this.
Meditate on what God has told us about these types of issues in the Bible and I believe God will provide you with some more answers.
(Not sure if i was able to answer your questions or not..? Don’t have too much time to write as studying for finals are becoming overwhelming — got your post and I’ve been doing well, busy, but OK. Hope everything is going well for you also and I will try to pay more attention to the blogging world soon!)
By: cognitivecontent on December 5, 2007
at 1:34 AM
Regarding similar issues:
I ran across this explanation also — this is only part of several pages so it may not be totally clear.
Psalm 135:6
Whatever the Lord pleases he does, in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all deeps.
“I have commended a solution to you before and I will commend it again: namely, that the death and misery of the unrepentant is in and of itself no delight to God. God is not a sadist. He is not malicious or bloodthirsty. Instead, when a rebellious, wicked, unbelieving person is judged, what God delights in is the vindication of truth and goodness and of his own honor and glory.
When Moses warns Israel that the Lord will take delight in bringing ruin upon them and destroying them if they don’t repent, he means that those who have rebelled against the Lord and moved beyond repentance will not be able to gloat that they have made the Almighty miserable. Quite the contrary. Moses says that when they are judged, they will unwittingly give an opportunity for God to rejoice in the demonstration of his justice and his power and the infinite worth of his glory. “(J.Piper)
By: cognitivecontent on December 5, 2007
at 1:41 AM
I used to wonder as well why God let things just happen…you know, the old adage, “why do good things happen to bad people” and vice versa.
I think over time what I’ve come to conclude(for myself) is that God gave us the gift of choice. He wants us to worship him and do good, but he doesn’t want us to be robots either. So, he gave us the choice to do good or evil.
Unfortunately, we(myself included) all sin and do evil and this sin doesn’t always just affect ourselves. It causes other bad things to happen, etc. So God didn’t *let* this bad thing happen, the sin of man caused it to happen. Yes, God could swoop in and fix anything, but what would be the point in that? That means we could do sinful things without consequences…
By: jawn on December 5, 2007
at 3:21 AM
Another problem that stands in the way of the solution to this is just that: We have “concluded” things about God without first consulting what God has actually spoken to us in His Word.
By: cognitivecontent on December 5, 2007
at 4:13 PM
For the short amount of time I have I’ll on reply to your last statement Brad. Hope you don’t mind!
Alright, alright I’ll bite. What has Gods word spoken to us? And on that (as I’m really unsure of where this is going…) how do we know that gods word is the truth? Don’t you have a problem with the inconsistencies in the bible? How about all the bad things god did, especially in the OT. (For explanation on my thoughts on that you might want to check out my post: “God and the OT”
By: trumpethope19 on December 5, 2007
at 6:59 PM
I think I’ve read (and commented) on God and the OT. What qualifies things as bad? That’s another issue in and of itself. We have inserted human definitions of good and bad, which may not necessarily line up with biblical good and bad. You may think God causing an entire nation to be killed is bad — however, because of sin, what more do even you and I deserve. God saves, by grace, through faith — God doesn’t save because it’s the right thing to do, it’s good, or it’s what humanity deserves.
The inerrancy of Scripture is an important part of Christianity. I think many of these so called “inconsistencies” may seem apparent in plain English. However, if you examine the context of the verse, look at the actual Greek words used in each place, you may find they are not so inconsistent.
By: cognitivecontent on December 5, 2007
at 7:30 PM
See, I think this is the difference between you and I. I don’t think theres ever going to be a time that I think god killing someone is ok. I don’t care the reason. We sin, so he kills us off? Uhh…thats like me killing my own child because he didn’t listen to what I told him. Would you ever say thats ok? Of course not! So then, why is it ok for god to kill us off? Are we not the same thing? His children? Did he not create us only for us to be destroyed?
I’m unaware if you did or not. But going back and reading it myself, I didn’t say much of anything, just that I basically was irritated at god for the things of the OT. Definitely, not cool.
I’m not big on the subject of inerrancy, but I definitely believe the bible is NOT (I definitely want to emphasize that) meant to be taken literally in most places.
By: trumpethope19 on December 5, 2007
at 9:45 PM
Jon, or Jawn…whichever you prefer…
I lied before when I told you I would give you the same response I give nearly everyone else. Lets take this somewhere else by me quoting a friend of mine (I’ve previously quoted the same thing in a previous blog):
“Human free will is completely inconsistent with an omnipotent, omniscient creator deity. My reasoning is thus. An omniscient deity is capable of understanding the full consequences of all of his choices upon creation, including the results of various drives and desires held by humans. An omnipotent deity is capable of creating the world in any way he sees fit. Thus, due to this omnipotence and omniscience, every single choice we will ever make was already made by God when he created the universe, according to these facets of Christian doctrine held by many Christians.
Thus, according to these facets of Christian doctrine, and the doctrine of original sin, when Eve made that choice, it was the desires that God placed within her that caused her to make it in the way that she did. If you want to blame the snake for corrupting God’s design, then you have to realize that God made the talking snake too (and no, the snake wasn’t Satan, that connection was not made until many centuries afterwards…I believe in the original tradition the snake was Lilith). “
I’ll just leave that at that.
By: trumpethope19 on December 5, 2007
at 9:51 PM
Your response – “thats like me killing my own child because he didn’t listen to what I told him. ”
What we must realize is that we are not all God’s “children.”
“First of all, Scripturally, people are adopted into God’s family – it is not something that human beings naturally have by right. He saves all of his children and “none of them will be lost”. This is, in fact, a Biblical illustration that God saves only those who are his children but not the children of the Devil. Lets look at the Text:
Of the unbelieving Jews, Jesus said, “You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him….Whoever is of God hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God.”
In other words, one must first be a part of the family of God if you are to hear the words of God. The reason, Jesus says, they do not hear them is BECAUSE they are not of God, but rather, children of the devil. Likewise, in a similar analogy jesus says you do not believe BECAUSE you are not my sheep. (John 10:26)”
By: cognitivecontent on December 5, 2007
at 11:24 PM
Are you in agreement with the quote you posted to Jon (Jawn) ? Or are you just making a reply to his unbiblical supposition?
By: cognitivecontent on December 5, 2007
at 11:26 PM
Beautiful lyrics! If you like Christmas carols straight from the heart…
I am from South Africa. As we are in the Southern Hemisphere, we celebrate Christmas during summer of course. We have a carol here called Somerkersfees, which has become very popular. It was written by a singer-songwriter and poet, Koos du Plessis, who died in 1984. A few weeks ago I decided to translate the song into English. You are welcome to take a look on my blog at http://mykopop.wordpress.com/2007/11/23/a-summers-christmas/
Inside my posting, you will find a link to another site where you can get an mp3 of the song in Afrikaans.
By: mykopop on December 6, 2007
at 2:01 AM