Max Lucado - America Looks Up: Reaching Toward Heaven for Hope and Healing

AMERICA LOOKS UP

America Looks Up

Reaching Toward Heaven for Hope and Healing

Max Lucado

AMERICA LOOKS UP

Copyright 2001 Max Lucado

Edited by Karen Hill.

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any otherexcept for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Published by W Publishing Group, a Division of Thomas Nelson, Inc., P.O. Box 141000, Nashville, Tennessee 37214.

Author royalties from this book will go toward relief organizations to help victims of the 911 disaster.

Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, NewCentury Version (NCV), copyright 1987, 1988, 1991 by Word Publishing, Nashville, TN 37214. Used by permission. Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version. NIV . Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked (MSG) are from The Message. Copyright by Eugene H. Peterson 1993, 1994, 1995. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group. Scripture quotations marked (NASB) are from the New American Standard Bible. Copyright The Lockman Foundation 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977. Used by permission. (www.Lockman.org). Scripture quotations marked (TLB) are taken from The Living Bible copyright 1971. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked (JB) are from The Jerusalem Bible 1966, 1967, 1968 by Darton, Longman & Todd, Ltd. and Doubleday. Scripture quotations marked (KJV) are taken from the King James Version.

Some of the material for this book has been adapted from The Great House ofGod, In the Grip of Grace, and When Christ Comes.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available

Printed in the United States of America

01 02 03 04 05 PHX 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

For Doug Kostowski,who loves cities

CONTENTS

Introduction
When All That Is Good Falls Apart

Chapter One
Where Is God?

Chapter Two
Gods Great Love

Chapter Three
Eyes on the Father

Chapter Four
Good Triumphant

Chapter Five
The Bitter Taste of Revenge

Chapter Six
In the Silence, God Speaks

Chapter Seven
In the Storm, We Pray

Chapter Eight
From Gods Perspective

Do It Again, Lord:
A Prayer for Troubled Times

When all that is good falls apart,

what can good people do?

The LORDis in his holy temple;

the LORDsits on his throne in heaven.

Psalm 11:34

ISNT DAVIDS QUESTION OURS? When all that is good falls apart, what can good people do? When planes pierce strong towers, when flames crown our fortress, when cities shake and people plunge, what are we to do?

When all that is good falls apart, what can good people do? Curiously, David doesnt answer his question with an answer. He answers it with a declaration: The LORD is in his holy temple; the LORD sits on his throne in heaven.

His point is unmistakable: God is unaltered by our storms. He is undeterred by our problems. He is unfrightened by these problems. He is in his holy temple. He is on his throne in heaven.

Buildings have fallen, but God has not. Wreckage and rubble have never discouraged him. God has always turned tragedy into triumph.

Did he not do so with Joseph? Look at Joseph in the Egyptian prison. His brothers have sold him out; Potiphars wife has turned him in. If ever a world has caved in, Josephs has.

Or consider Moses, watching flocks in the wilderness. Is this what he intended to do with his life? Hardly. His heart beats with Jewish blood. His passion is to lead the slaves, so why does God have him leading sheep?

And Daniel. What about Daniel? He was among the brightest and best young men of Israel, the equivalent of a West Point cadet or an Ivy Leaguer. But he and his entire generation are being marched out of Jerusalem. The city is destroyed. The Temple is in ruins.

Joseph in prison. Moses in the desert. Daniel in chains. These were dark moments. Who could have seen any good in them? Who could have known that Joseph the prisoner was just one promotion from becoming Joseph the prime minister? Who would have thought that God was giving Moses forty years of wilderness training in the very desert through which he would lead the people? And who could have imagined that Daniel the captive would soon be Daniel the kings counselor?

God does things like that. He did with Joseph, with Moses, with Daniel, and, most of all, he did with Jesus.

What we saw recently is what the followers of Christ saw on the cross. Innocence slaughtered. Goodness murdered. Heavens tower of strength pierced. Mothers wept, evil danced, and the apostles had to wonder, When all that is good falls apart, what cangood people do?

God answered their question with a declaration. With the rumble of the earth and the rolling of the rock, he reminded them, The LORD is in his holy temple; the LORD sits on his throne in heaven.

And, today, we must remember: He still is. He is still in his temple, still on his throne, still in control. And he still makes princes out of prisoners, counselors out of captives, and Sundays out of Fridays. What he did then, he will do still.

It falls to us to ask him to do so.

In these pages well ask the questions on all our minds: Who is our God? Where is God in all of this?

Can good come from evil? And prayeris God really listening? As we ponder these questions together, I pray that Gods peace and understanding will touch our hearts and bring healing to our spirits.

MAX LUCADO

MANY PEOPLE TODAY ARE WONDERING how God could allow the tragedy of September 11, 2001. What could he be thinking? Is God really in control? Can we trust him to run the universe if he would allow terrorists to take the lives of so many people?

It is important to recognize that God dwells in a different realm. He occupies another dimension. My thoughts are not like your thoughts. Your ways are not like my ways. Just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts (Isa. 55:89).

Make special note of the word like. Gods thoughts are not our thoughts, nor are they even