Fear stopped me in my steps this week. I know we shouldn't fear, but what do we do when we do? I wrote my message on Monday. Tuesday, I was in a meeting with Aaron and we were planning a future worship service, and our phones started to blow up, like yours probably did too. Got the news that there was an active shooter situation at STEM. Gathered our staff together to start to pray. Tried our best to contact people we knew that had kids involved to tell them we're praying, we love them, is there anything we can do? It just didn't seem fitting to give the message I had already written. I think that in moments like these, especially in a series called "Brave in a New World," to not talk about the actual world we live in would probably be a misstep.
As weird and awkward as it is to try to tackle the problem of suffering and evil on Mother's Day, forgive me if that offends you, but I'm going to do my best to try to step into this moment, please hear me, not as somebody who has all the answers. I stand up here with more questions than I do answers right now, to be quite honest with you. I stand up here with questions like you probably have----God, why? God, are you involved? God, is so, how? I stand up here, along with many of you, who had to try to answer questions for your kids about.....is it safe? All those questions, right? We had to cancel school a few weeks ago because of a scare. On THAT day, I was up early studying, and one kid came down, right after the other, dressed for school, and I had to explain to them why they weren't going to school that day. One of them asked me, "Dad, why would somebody want to do something like that?" Another said to me, "Dad, they must be a really, really bad person." Another one asked me, "Dad, can we have a pajama day?" It hits all of us differently. I think that's just a microcosm of the way that we probably all feel in this room, to some degree. That tragedy hit us all differently, but my guess is, we're all, at least on some level, asking this question, "Where. Was. God?" Where was God? Does he care? Is he involved at all?...
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