Who's The Fool?

Restore us, O LORD, and bring us back to you again! Give us back the joys we once had! Or have you utterly rejected us? Are you angry with us still? [Lamentations 5.21-22] 

If the Church today should be praying anything, this would be it. With the indistinction today between the world and those who are God's (the Church), how can we really think we are in God's care? People in the Church suffer just as much brokenness as do people of the world. People in the Church are just as in debt, insured up, bound to medicine and enslaved to technology as the world. Let's face it, "Christian faith" today (at least in the West) says nothing of our God to a watching world.

I recently sat among a group of adult Christians whose conversations were almost without exception about their health. In particular, their conversations were about their diagnoses, surgeries and drugs. These are people whose God said (in the Bible they claim to believe), "I am the LORD Who heals you."

I admit, as I sat there, the relief they seemed to enjoy due to their respective treatments sounded real good but I heard nothing of God in it. Their conversations could just as easily have been those of Satan-worshipers who were enjoying what modern medicine has to offer. But the relief from pain and suffering they claimed still sounded good as I sat there in discomfort from my own ailments insisting in my own mind that I will wait for my healing from God... I could not help but think that those around me who could see my obvious condition were thinking I should just go to the doctor and get it fixed. In fact, I feel that same feeling every time I go to church too.

The thing is, Christian people claim they believe that God knows the number of their days. They claim God is in control. They claim God is Healer. But how can that be so if they label me "foolish" for not taking medicine or treatments? How can they say I will suffer or die early if I don't partake of modern medicine? Whose faith is really pure if I say I will trust God alone and they say God uses medicine?

Am I the only person alive who thinks the Church today has been utterly rejected by God while we still go through dead religious motions enjoying practically none of the tangible promises of God (making us no different than the lost world)?

In the aforementioned health conversations, I heard not one hint of repentance or soul-searching mentioned even though the physical ailments they described were directly or indirectly listed in Deuteronomy 28 as curses for disobedience. Likewise, I heard not one mention of Jesus Christ, in those conversations, as their Redeemer from those curses (ailments, medical conditions), but only heard that "modern medicine has come a long way..." Tell me, who's the fool?

Father, restore us and bring us back to you again! Give us back the joys we once had! Or have you utterly rejected us? Are you angry with us still?