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Faith

Silence before impending doom

Silence and tranquillity do not necessarily mean that no storm is coming. In life we often do our best to “live happily ever after”, but troubles in life are inevitable. Everyone encounters disappointments, disasters and ultimately death somewhere along the way, and yet we seem to spend a lot of effort in denying that those things exist or that they will ever happen to us. Chapter 8 of the Revelation describes a period of silence in heaven, and what happened thereafter:

When the Lamb opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour. I saw the seven angels who stand before God. Seven trumpets were given to them… The seven angels who had the seven trumpets prepared to blow them. The first angel blew his trumpet, and hail and fire, mixed with blood, were thrown on the earth. One third of the earth, one third of the trees, and all green grass, were burnt…

One of the problems with our idea of a God who only does nice things to people is the fact that bad things inevitably happen to us, and we all get to experience death. Somehow our understanding of who God is has to embrace these realities. We have to recognise that God is the one who is in control of our lives, not us, and that what seems bad in our eyes may be good in God’s eyes.