From Samantha:
Dear God,
It’s me again, Samantha. I know it’s been a while since we’ve talked, but my mind is buzzing with questions and things I don’t understand.Where do I even start?!
I’ll start with the most important thing – the things I’m worrying about. The thing that is on my heart, right now, is COVID19. Will it ever end?! I ask you to protect the people who don’t have it and help the people who do. Please help the doctors/nurses as they work around the clock, helping the people in need. Help the people who have COVID19 to get better and not spread it. Please help the children (including me) that are being home schooled in these tough times.
Now I’ll move onto the things I don’t understand – plus some questions.
How did Jesus rise again after dying, if he was a human being? That just doesn’t make sense. If I died, I wouldn’t rise again would I? Then how does it happen? How come when we die, we go to heaven? Does the Holy Spirit swoop down and take us to heaven? Or does Jesus come to our grave and take us to heaven with us? None of it makes sense.
How did they get hold of the writing that is now in the Bible? Because, the people who wrote those passages were probably well dead when the first Bible was made. It’s so confusing!
How did you make Earth and all the things on it? Did you just imagine it and it all appeared? Did you wave a magic wand, say some weird words and it all appeared in a puff of smoke? Did you find a witch and get her to make a magic potion, then it appeared, sizzling and popping? What does sin look like? Is it colorful? Is it black and blue? Is it floral? Is it invisible?
I thank you for all you have given us – the land, the families, the friends, the homes, the animals, the schools, the shops, the parks. I am sorry for all the bad things that I’ve done and all the sins I’ve made. Thankyou for your son dying on the cross and saving us from our sins.
I hope you can answer some of my questions – or at least some of them. I hope you hear my pleas and do as I’ve asked. Please write back soon.
Love,
Samantha
From Kim:
Dear Samantha,
This is Kim here. Wow, what a wonderful letter! You really are a gifted writer! I’m conscious your letter is a letter to God, (so a reply from some ordinary fellow like me might seem strange), but often God uses people to help me with my questions, so hopefully God might use me with a couple of yours.
Thanks for your honesty about COVID:19. It’s affecting all of us, and I pray you know amazing peace from God in this strange and unsettling time. The good thing is that God is good and will have a plan, even if we can’t quite see yet. It will end, but we just can’t see when yet. In the meantime, in the midst of all this trouble, lots of beautiful and creative and healing things are happening. That’s what God does through life’s challenges. The story of Good Friday is about how God transforms the worst thing ever into the most celebrated thing in world history. So we can trust God even in really hard times. Your Dad has said to me a couple of times, “God’s got this”, and I reckon your Dad is right. It helps me not to worry.
“How did Jesus rise again after dying, if he was a human being?”
It’s hard for us to know exactly, but the important thing is that the Bible teaches that Jesus was both God and human at the same time, and God can do anything J. Ordinary people can’t rise like he did, but when he rose he showed that he had power even over death. Nothing could defeat him. The Bible says that the Holy Spirit helped Jesus rise again, and that the same Spirit who lives in you and me will also raise us. (Romans 8:11). Similarly, Jesus promises that if we believe in him, he will raise to eternal life too (John 6:40). Again, he doesn’t say exactly how he’ll do it so much as that he will do it. For me, I find that just knowing that brings me a great peace and hope.
“How did they get hold of the writing that is now in the Bible? Because the people writing the Bible were probably well dead before the first Bible was made.”
You’re right, the writers of the New Testament would have died before it was all collected into the book we have now. But the people like Luke and John and Paul were well and truly alive when they wrote down what happened and how Jesus had changed their lives. The stories and letters they wrote were treasured so much that people copied them down and shared them with their friends. Today we have an extraordinary amount of ancient copies from lots of different places, and the writings are remarkably consistent. This means we can confidently trust that what we have in the Bible is a reliable collection of what was first written.
Well, that’s lots from me. For the other questions I’ll write in person, but thanks again for sharing your prayers with us. Isn’t it wonderful that that God loves us so much he sent Jesus to forgive and rescue the world.
God has heard your prayers & I pray you have a magnificent Easter,
Kim