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Today as the details filter in, the name of the shooter is finally released, the names of many of those killed are also released and details about their life are remembered, it will be a day of mourning and sadness. As it should be. Questions will be asked today by many parents, friends, and observers as to why it happened, what could have been done, and deep in our hearts another question will raise it’s head yet again: Why God? If You’re really there, why?
Because as much as we’d like the police to have acted more quickly, as much as we wish the University administration had locked down the campus earlier, there’s also the matter of why God didn’t stop such a thing from happening.
And ironically, a tragedy like this will drive people toward God, and drive others away, all at the same time.
Was God judging those kids? Does God exist at all? How many of them were saved? Why would God create someone He knew would someday walk into Virginia Tech and kill those innocent kids?
Let’s be honest, regardless of what I say or any other religious person says, it doesn’t take away the pain or really do justice to the question of WHY? at this moment. Right now, it’s just plain tough to deal with for many people. So I don’t want to write some condescending, know-it-all, easy-for-me-to-say, kinda religious answer. Here’s my honest take, right off the top of my head.
I don’t know why God allowed it.
I know that the Bible says the world has all sorts of tragedies and death in it because we’re all suffering under the curse brought about by sin way back in the beginning,
I know that in the midst of this messed up world, the Bible says God still gives us a choice to believe in Him and hope for something better.
And I know the Bible says God Himself came down out of heaven in the form of Jesus Christ, suffered and died right along with us. A God who knows what I go through, and what those who suffer greatly go through. The book of Hebrews spends a lot of words making this point.
And I know that the Bible promises a time when all this pain, sorrow, and death will be over. A time when God will put a stop to all the tragedies and tears forever and ever.
But mostly I know that God says these horrible things are temporary and He has called each one of us to stand up for something better. He’s called us to believe in Jesus and work to make everyone’s life a better one, to make the world a better place, to sacrifice and serve others instead of mistreating others and caring only about ourselves.
A lot of people who claim to be Christian haven’t lived up to this calling, but the calling still remains. And the promise of eternal life and a new order of things is our hope. I can’t prove it, but I have enough hope to stake my lifetime on it. God says what you do here matters. Obviously the shooter didn’t think anything he did matters, but I think this is where he was wrong. There is a new tomorrow, there is a better way, there are things worth living for, fighting for, and standing up for. There is a good. That’s what I believe. My hope is the promises of God are absolutely real.
If they aren’t, this world is a dark, meaningless place to live. I refuse to believe there’s not something better. I believe what the Bible says about God, His Son Jesus, His love for us, and the promise of a new life. I choose to believe in the good. I choose because the alternative is hopeless. If I’m wrong, I haven’t lost anything. If I’m right, not only have I gained everything, but what I do here on this planet really DOES mean something.
I like that idea.
And there’s one more thing. God is eternal and everyone spends a lot more time on God’s side of eternity than they do living in this world. If you were in God’s shoes, (I have no idea what size we’re talking, but I imagine pretty big…) If you were looking at things from His perspective, these kids have missed out on what? 50-80 years? Compared to a million years? Compared to eternity? And if the world to come is better? Then those who have put their faith and hope in a God who sent His Son to die for our sins, well they’re probably not upset at the moment. If we could see and experience just how great it feels, we might even be jealous. I’m pretty sure we would. Paul the apostle wrote:
“For me to live is Christ (that is, he could serve Jesus as long as he was here on the earth), but to die is gain. (As he would say, to go be with Jesus is “better by far“) Philippians 1:21-23
Hey, we still have to live in this mess. For those who put their hope in God and pass on, they already enjoy the promise of no more dying, death, pain, sorrow or tears.
Those tears, the pain, and the sorrow are left for us. For now.
Romans 12:11 says “never be lacking in zeal, but keep up your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord.” Literally it means don’t be lazy with your eagerness, but keep up your spiritual fire, serving the Lord. Being “on fire” is your responsibility to keep up.
But how? I mean, it always seems that being on fire for God is something that just happens. Usually on Wednesdays or Thursdays. Really. I’ll be at a week long conference, or a week long mission trip, or a week long summer camp and along about Wednesday or Thursday, it seems like I really connect with God. Ever had those experiences? Suddenly you feel like that God just spoke to your heart. Maybe it was a reassurance, or perhaps an answer to prayer or an encouragement. Boom, it happened. The music seemed to lift you a little closer to God, the prayer of someone in the group connected with your heart, or the message from the Bible that was being preached really hit home. One way or another, on-fire just happens.
Except that’s not what the verse says.
It says YOU keep up your spiritual fervor. (Literally, the word fervor means “to be hot,” and symbolically it means “to be fervent, eagerness.” In our language of today, it means to be on fire…. how? “serving the Lord.”
A man of God who encourages ministers made a great point to me over the phone a couple of weeks ago. We support his ministry because pastors are some of the most discouraged men in America. It’s true. First, he said that all ministers go through difficult times. Hey, I knew that! Second, he said the key is how we respond to those difficult times that matters. We can choose to get down and discouraged and believe the worst, or we can choose to trust in God, to accept our shortcomings and circumstances but focus on the fact that God loves us, will be with us and will help us overcome our shortcomings or circumstances.
In other words, we can respond with faith in Jesus, or we can respond with unbelief that says, “Jesus I know you said you’d be with me, but I just don’t believe you are really going to help me. I’m just going to stay a total failure.”
If that’s the sort of Jesus we follow, we are in trouble. Fortunately, we don’t. A cursory look at the book of Acts will tell you that the apostles sure didn’t believe in a God of failures, or a Jesus who was handicapped by mistake-prone humans. They would get knocked down, beaten, mistreated, thrown in jail, and still come out swinging… I mean preaching. Bad circumstances didn’t stop them or even seem to faze them! In Acts chapter 5, Peter & John rejoiced because God had counted them worthy to suffer for Him. Worthy to suffer? The word used there literally means worthy to “be shamed.” What had happened? They had been whipped with 39 lashes in public.
How many of us would be rejoicing after that?
You know, if a church believes that the preacher’s “skill” determines the rise and fall of the church, they don’t know my God. And if you believe that God can create the Heavens but he can’t help you because… well you’re too far away from perfect, then you haven’t read Genesis 1:2.
So how are you going to respond to difficulty? Faith or Despair?
Easy for me to say isn’t it? Not really. I’ve had people tell me that I preached so well, that someday I would be famous. A guy in my church got us to start video-taping the services because he believes more people need to hear and see what’s happening in our church. Cool huh? Yet in the same church, I had a person tell me he hadn’t been “fed” by any of my sermons for a long time. Even Charles Stanley (he’s a famous preacher) had to leave a church in apparent failure and says “they didn’t like my preaching.” Preaching is what preachers do. When we do it poorly, or when people say we do it poorly, it’s disheartening. When our churches don’t grow, or when we aren’t reaching people with the Gospel of Jesus Christ, but instead seem to merely be trying to put out fires (not the good kind) and presiding over bickering… It just gets you down. I got into ministry to reach people with the Gospel, not to argue endlessly over some doctrinal point that makes little difference. I wanted to teach the Bible so that others could understand it properly and grow in their faith, not stay up late at night worrying about my “style” or whether preaching a particular passage in the Bible would be good enough to impress the more critical. Man, I just wanted to preach the Bible.
So what do you do? Do you respond in faith or despair? Truthfully, it’s easier to despair isn’t it? Why else did Henry David Thoreau write: Men lead lives of quiet desperation? We’re all trying to measure up, to matter, to be someone our kids can be proud of, someone our wife can be proud of. Or husband. (you know…if you’re a woman…)
What I’ve discovered is it seems God teaches more in the difficult times than the easy ones. Hmmm…. maybe it’s more like this: We LISTEN to God more in the difficult times. Fact is my sermons really are better (I think) these days, than they were when I got some criticism on them. I pray harder before them, I seek God’s help in doing a better job. I’ll never quit trying to improve I hope. I didn’t always feel like a man of faith, and instead felt more like a man of despair, but God carried me a couple of times. He never left, just like He promised.
And here’s the deal: To keep up your spiritual fervor, to stay “on fire,” you have to stay close to the source of the fire. You and I are just the kindling, the fire is the Holy Spirit living in us. It is the Spirit that produces love, joy, peace…. did you notice joy and peace? States of mind aren’t they? Emotions. In fact, peruse the book of Acts again and you’ll find that most of the time when Peter, or Steven, or Paul stood up and boldy displayed a “fire” for God, the Bible says they were “full of the Holy Spirit.” They were close to the Source. Full of the Source. We keep up our spiritual fervor by being filled with the Spirit.
We get filled with the Spirit when we put our hearts and minds on God. When we spend time with the Source. Don’t believe me? Check out Romans 8:6 ” to set our minds on the Spirit leads to life and peace.”
That’s why at a conference, camp or mission trip, along about Wednesday or Thursday we suddenly feel so close to God. We’ve been spending a few days setting our minds on Him and amazingly we discover He’s been there all along, offering life and peace to our heart and mind.
It’s also why when you teach a Sunday School class, you learn more than you ever did sitting in one. Or when you sing in the praise team, you start to feel God working in other places in your life. Or when you get more involved in the church, start putting God in your home, pray out loud over meals at work instead of whispering the children’s version of rub-a-dub-dub-thank-God-for-the-grub….
Start living for God instead listening about Him, start “serving the Lord” then the spiritual ferver is easier to keep lit. If only we had stayed close to Him more often. If only we stayed closer to the Source. It would be much easier to stay “on fire.”
Maybe the preacher wouldn’t have to blow so hard on Sunday trying to catch you on fire….
Just sayin’…
Here is an excerpt from an article that appeared on the Drudge Report today:
Last year at this time, we heard over and over and over again about global warming, and the huricanes that were sure to materialize and pound the US into a watery goo….
This year the sound of crickets chirping is the only thing coming from the media or the politicians in regards to the temperatures. And the sound must be somebody whistling because the real crickets won’t come out in the cold!
Pretty soon someone will announce that Global Warming caused the cold temps.
Right.
And if the next ice-age shows up, I’ll expect mild conditions and Spring Break parties to break out in Alaska.
Here’s the thing. The average global temperature has gone up 0.6 degrees in the last 50 years. In the last 10 or so, it hasn’t changed a whole lot, if at all. Any real scientist will tell you that 50 years means nothing in the scope of studying the long-term changes in earth’s environment. Fifty years is a snap shot. It sounds good in the media, but it takes centuries for this earth to finish preheating if you know what I mean. Yet, the alarmists cry out that we are on the verge of catastrophe that could happen any day. Twenty-foot rises in the ocean are bandied about in the media, yet the actual figures are more akin to one or two feet over a long period of time. And the truth is, no one really knows for sure. There is consensus on the broad issues, but the specifics are woefully short.
CBS News led off it’s program last Friday with a report that ended with the statement “Scientists no longer debate global warming, only politicians do.” And the next day the top hurricane forcaster William Gray blasted Al Gore’s claims on global warming…
Guess not ALL the scientists agree. Fact is there are still many dissenters to the overall world consensus on global warming. Any unbiased look tells you that quite a few respected and accomplished scientists either disagree completely, or they believe humans are not the likely cause.
Now… why am I bringing this up? Besides the fact I get annoyed by “reporters” and “politicians” who make bold scientific claims?
Because this demonstrates our ability in the world and our ability in politics to latch on to a scientific theory and defend it to the death. It happened in the Dark Ages with out-dated beliefs and it happens today. If anyone dare teach against the norm, dare speak against the “consensus” they are labeled as kooks. What we should be doing as a society is acknowledging the facts even when they seem to contradict our theory and taking great pains not to exaggerate in order to convince.
We exaggerate when we boldy proclaim there are no debates in the scientific community when there really are. We exaggerate when we fabricate evidence or results in order to stir the emotions of our listeners. We exaggerate when we conclude that anyone who disagrees with us must be an idiot. History says we (human beings, the church, the scientific community, even pigmies in Africa) have been wrong before. It’s quite possible we might be wrong in the future. I’m just sayin.
The devil is not really in the details. The devil is in the exaggeration.
The truth is in the details.
I’m perplexed when obvious shortcomings and contradictory evidence is ignored by the media, the world, and the general populace because of an almost religious desire to defend a theory.
And who knows, perhaps global warming is for real.
But it reminds of how zealously the world (and even the Kansas State School Board) defends any threat to yet another theory that, although it has a “consensus,” also happens to have many dissenters in the scientific community. Just like with global warming, you’ll never hear of a scientist who rejects Evolution in the media, and if you do, he/she will be labeled a kook. And details for this theory have often been fabricated or exaggerated.
Especially at the Scopes Trials when an entire family of missing link people were drawn up and displayed when the only real evidence anyone had found of this family was a tooth. A tooth of an extinct pig as it turns out.
Evolution. Global Warming. (insert next great religious/science theory here)
Hey, mess with either of those theories at your peril. The world has already decided what they want to believe.
The devil is in the exaggerations.
The truth is in the details.
We may end up disagreeing, but don’t accept anything without looking close.
