How are you handling this week’s news?
Sunday’s news of the Texas church shooting has left my heart heavy…for so many reasons. Sorrow and sadness for that community, wondering about the effect on all our churches.
One friend told me that this incidence shook her faith in God. Where was God? she asked. Why couldn’t He stop it from happening?
There’s no easy answers or solutions to these kinds of horrific events, but it seems as if the Evildoer gets “a pass” while God gets the blame for not intervening. There is real evil in this world, active and vigorous.
As real and aggressive as evil is, it is not equal to the goodness of God. Every single person in that Texas church on Sunday morning mattered deeply to God, and their deaths did not go unnoticed. “Precious in His sight is the death of His saints” (Psalm 116:15).
These terrible news stories seem to be coming so frequently that one friend said he feels numb. Rather than let our faith wobble, this is the time to lean heavily on it.
Is God sovereign overall all? All things? If so, that belief changes everything. A sense of security in an increasingly dangerous world, a hope and peace for a heavenly future. “We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure” (Hebrews 6:19).
There’s a note in my NIV study Bible under this verse: “Like an anchor holding a ship safely in position, our hope in Christ guarantees our safety. Whereas the ship’s anchor goes down to the ocean bed, the Christian’s anchor goes up into the true, heavenly sanctuary, where he is moored to God himself.”
This life on earth, as beautiful and awful as it can be, is not the end of our story.
So how are you doing this week? I’d really like to know how you’re processing the news. Please share your thoughts in a comment–it helps us all.
I’m certainly a overwhelmed by the news of the church’s shooting in Texas. That followed a terrorist in New York who drove his vehicle on to a bike trail killing whoever was in his path. I don’t ask where God was. Jesus never promised us a life with out trials and tribulations. In fact he said that we would have them through out our lifetime.
I think of things like the church shooting as a result of the sin and hate that’s in this world. God is love. Jesus told us to love your neighbor as yourself. I find this hard when someone goes out of their way to hurt me. But it is better to pray for that person than to hate them.
God is not to blame for the shootings in that church. Could God have stopped the shooting and why didn’t he interfere with the shooters plans ? I don’t have the answer for that but I do trust God. I know the victims who died walk in heaven with out LORD right now and if they had the opportunity of staying or coming back here I believe it would be their choice to remain in heaven with their LORD and Saviour. This comforts me very much and I hope it comforts the families who lost loved ones and the entire community and the nation.
The Bible says that before the return of Christ, men shall wax worse and worse.
So how am handling this?
With a broken heart…
and my eye on the sky!
Lord come quickly!