Although I realize that war in Ukraine no longer dominates the newsfeeds in the way that it did at the moment of the Russian invasion in February of this year, this war, unfortunately, continues to create immense difficulties and hardships for the people of Ukraine.  Its human toll is singularly devastating:  thousands of lives lost, thousands of homes destroyed, hundreds of businesses gone forever.

    And for what?  In his mad obsession to restore Russian "greatness," Vladimir Putin seems willing to ruin the lives of millions of people, and not just in Ukraine.  If not for the recent agreement to allow Ukrainian grain to be shipped to other parts of the world, the Russian leader's war threatened to drag millions of people into starvation.  It's unconscionable.

    I struggle with the war's destruction, I struggle with the mind of a person bent on aggrandizing himself, and I struggle with the person and place of God.  Though for the first two of these I can find some material explanation, for the latter, I have no ready answers.  It is the dilemma that it poses that constitutes the ultimate challenge of faith.

    For it will not do to respond that, "Well, God has a plan."  For whom?

    No, it is these times that force those of us who believe in an infinite and loving God to make an extremely revolutionary stand:  will we affirm the fact of loving and transcendent purpose in worldly darkness or will we continue to believe that, in a random world, bad things happen and we will never know why?

    The choice is upon all of us.