ALL I AM: Hulk Hogan and Hebrew Heroes Genesis 32:22-32

ALL I AM: Hulk Hogan and Hebrew Heroes    Genesis 32:22-32

 

It wasn't the day that it took place that was actually the hardest.  It was the next morning.  It was waking up and before becoming totally conscious of what the day held ahead, it was that thought for just a brief moment that maybe, just maybe, the previous 24 hours were a terrible nightmare.  But as I wiped the sleep out of my eyes and started to recognize no, in fact, it wasn't a dream.  Like an avalanche or a tidal wave of emotion, it just hit me.  I had these thoughts in my head, these feelings in my heart on that day, July 5, 2005.  The thought that I woke up with was failure.  I'd failed as a friend.  I'd failed as a pastor.  I'd failed as a guide.  I'd failed as a protector.  The previous day on July 4, 2005, I held one of the students in the youth group in my arms and performed CPR for an hour and a half while he took his last breath on a trail just outside of Fort Collins, Colorado.  A lot of you have heard me tell that story before.  You've heard my heart, but it's one of the things I look back on and see God's gracious hand in and his goodness most, but I can tell you that the 24 hours after it were pure hell.  The two years that followed were filled with questions.  I was a pastor and I felt like the biggest hypocrite because I was wrestling with God.  Some of the questions I had for God were:  God, if I'm going to serve you and this is how you're going to treat me, why in the world would I continue to give my life to you?  God, I thought I was following you, but there's no way if I'm following you that life should end up looking like this?  God, if I'm a fully devoted follower of Christ, if I'm a disciple, then why am I feeling so depressed?  This is two years of my life with this cloud, feeling like it's just sitting over my head.  God, if you're so powerful, why in the world didn't you stop this? And it pains me to believe that I know you could have.  Have you ever been there?  Where you just woke up in the morning and just wanted to say back to God, "God, I know you rule the universe and if that's true then why in the world does life stink so badly??!!"