CrossCurrents: Making Sense of the Christian Life

Chapter One

Chapter One

Well-Meaning Error

Bad Things—Good People

Book: When Bad Things Happen to Good People by Harold S. Kushner.[1]

Issue: How can an all-powerful and all-loving God allow suffering?

1. CrossCurrents Make Us Uneasy!

In the late 1970s, my wife, Carroll, and I were the parents of two young sons, Tim and Mark, and were ourselves young in the Lord. We had been around long enough, though, that we were no longer starry-eyed novices. We realized that not every new book about God was necessarily based on the Bible, nor did they always deepen our understanding of God, or His plan and purpose for our lives. Even our home church was not without strong currents that pulled us this way and that. Some of our friends went deep into Reformed theology, and left our church because it did not adhere to the five points of Calvinism. A youth pastor caused us great concern, because he believed that a baby was not truly alive until it received "the breath of life" at birth. He was teaching that abortion was not necessarily wrong. This denial of unborn life caused a huge uproar! We sometimes felt that holding on to the true faith was like a lumberjack balancing on a log in the millpond.

The federal government transferred us to Nevada in 1979, and we made the move across the country in the spring of that year. About one year later, in the spring of 1980, I joined a group of about fifteen, all federal employees of the Carson City District Office of the Bureau of Land Management, to float the East Fork of the Carson river. Tom, our District Recreation Specialist, organized the outing. I was the senior person on the trip, but I left everything in Tom's hands since I had never before been on the river.

We had a wonderful time. The weather was perfect, and we put three rafts in at a point where we could experience some of the moderately difficult rapids, and have an enjoyable trip. Tom gave a safety briefing, which ended with an instruction about the takeout point. He said that in case the rafts got separated we should all be on the lookout for a sign on the right bank that said: "Take-Out Point—1/4 Mile." At that point, we should guide for the right bank and pull out at another sign that simply said, "Take Out."

We had fun learning how to steer the heavy rafts and how to navigate through white water without tipping over. Our raft stayed upright, but one other was not as fortunate. We all had some fun at our damp friends' expense, then stopped for lunch in a cove. Afterward, we walked up a side canyon where there was a hot spring with a hot water waterfall. It was a natural hot shower. We all enjoyed it, and the pleasant surroundings, with azure-blue skies and the russet-brown bark of the Ponderosa Pines. Then, we returned to the rafts and continued. The rest of the trip was smoother, mostly a paddle and drift experience.

Our raft, for some reason, gained on the others, and we were probably 600–700 yards in the lead when we saw the sign we had looked for. Some of the people in our raft grumbled because they did not want the trip to be over. I said that we had to take out, just as we were told to do. The other two rafts soon joined us, and we had them out of the water in a few minutes. It was not too much longer before the trucks showed up. We loaded the rafts and started the drive back to Carson City.

About a mile down from the takeout point, Tom flagged us all down near a forty-foot high waterfall created by Ruhenstroth Dam. In his briefing about the waterfall, he said that once in a while, rafts went over the waterfall, and rafters drowned. The force of the plunging water held people under (despite their life jackets).

I almost fell over! Thinking that everyone knew about the waterfall, Tom had overlooked telling us why we should not go past the take-out point, but none of us in my raft knew that the waterfall was there. I had actually considered, for a brief moment, ignoring Tom's instructions. Even though I had been tempted, and even though I had not seen any strong reason to do what Tom had said, I had resisted the temptation to do what I pleased. It had been a good decision; it might have saved our lives!