I turned on the radio in my truck, listened a moment, and my heart sank. I thought: “Not again!”
I’d only listened for a moment before I realized that the announcer was describing yet another senseless, horrific shooting. Children in a Catholic school in Minneapolis had gathered in the connected church for a service, when someone fired indiscriminately though the stained-glass windows. Seventeen were wounded and two were killed. And first reports say that all the victims were children. The two who died were 8 and 10 years old.
That hits hard hit hard when you have children or grandchildren that same age. And it didn’t happen in a bar, late at night, in a rowdy crowd of grownups who were in a drunken rage. It happened at a church, in broad daylight, to a group of children who’d gathered in a church for a back-to-school service for their parochial school. This was unthinkable and unheard of not so very long ago. Now, when I hear news like this, my immediate reaction is: “Not again!”
My thoughts also immediately turned to my own family, and to our church family, and our children, and prayers for their safety came pouring up from my soul. I felt fear, and anguish, and helplessness. And I can’t imagine what the families of those children are going through. I pray for God to have mercy on them, and help them somehow.
What do we do in the face of such news, especially when it happens over and over again? Psalm 112:7 says this about the righteous person: “He is not afraid of bad news; his heart is firm, trusting in the LORD.” I read that and think, “But I am afraid of bad news! How could I not be?” How do we understand a verse like that? And how in the world do we bear heartbreaking, fear-producing news reports like the one I just described?
Full disclosure: I’m thinking out loud here, musing on all this and trying to process it myself.
First of all, there aren’t any easy answers to be had. We live on a broken planet, full of broken people, and we all have that brokenness inside of us. The Bible calls that brokenness sin, and it has affected all of creation (Romans 8:22). The Biblical viewpoint about suffering doesn’t answer all our questions. But it does give us a much more complete and comforting answer than materialism, agnosticism, or atheism. Those philosophies leave us with answers that give us nothing but meaninglessness, hopelessness, and despair. God doesn’t answer all our questions, but He does promise that our existence isn’t meaningless, that our lives do mean something, that there is a purpose to the things that happen in this world, and that He will redeem and overcome even the very bad things and ultimately make them work for good. His prime example of all this is how He turned the unjust murder of His Son into the redemption and salvation of untold multitudes
(1 Corinthians 15:3-4; cf. Revelation 7:9-10).
Second, there would be something very wrong with you if you could hear news like that and remain unaffected. We’re not supposed to be happy and cheerful when we hear of tragedies. These things grieve the heart of God, too. We are made in His image, and unless our hearts have become very, very hard, they will grieve us, too.
Then what does it mean, “…he is not afraid of bad news…”? In the context, the “bad news” means a personal threat from those who hate the righteous. In other words, the righteous person stands fast in the face of intimidation and threats from those who oppose him (or her). It doesn’t mean that you’ll never feel bad when you hear about something awful. If you have any sense of right and wrong at all, when you hear of the senseless slaughter of children, your heart will break. Especially if you have children in your life who are the same age.
“Why doesn’t God do something about terrible things like this?” He is. But He is doing it in His time. “Why doesn’t God wipe out all evil right now?” I don’t know for sure, except that maybe, if He wiped out all evil right now, He’d have to wipe out everybody on the planet. And the Bible tells us specifically that God is waiting for people to turn to Him so that He will never have to wipe them out: “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.” (2 Peter 3:9)
And if you’re thinking that any promises God makes to “the righteous” don’t apply to you anyway, not so fast. The Bible is clear that no one can measure up to God’s standards and thereby attain righteousness (Romans 3:10, 23). Then who are “the righteous”? They are those to whom God gives righteousness. “For our sake he made him [Jesus] to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Corinthians 5:21) Who does God give righteousness to? Those who admit that they are unrighteous, who trust in His Son Jesus, and who call on Him for forgiveness: “For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” (Romans 10:13)
But there are many who will not admit their need of God or His forgiveness, and who will not submit
themselves to Him and His Son (Psalm 2:1-2). And those who will not honor God as God open themselves up to descend into all kinds of futile thinking, unrestrained passions, and dishonorable desires (Romans 1:21, 24, 26-28).
It’s happened before. In the time of the Judges, “Everyone did what was right in their own eyes.” (Judges 21:25b) And even when God’s earthly chosen people turned away from Him, they sank into moral insanity, depraved sexuality, and mind-numbing violence. Their whole society descended into darkness.
So, do we just give up? Do we cover our ears, sing happy songs to ourselves, and try to pretend all these bad things aren’t happening? No. But neither do we despair. The story of Ruth was set during the time of the Judges. And even in the midst of that dark, violent, godless time, Ruth, Naomi and Boaz all led lives of quiet righteousness and determined faith in God. Just read the beautiful love story set forth in the four brief chapters of the book of Ruth. It won’t take you long. It fell to them to do the best of things in the worst of times.
It falls to us, too. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s response to those who asked how to face evil times was this: “Live not by lies.” That’s good advice. That’s Biblical advice. Live not by lies. Live by the truth. Don’t shrink from those who reject God and His truth, and who hate those who do seek God. And don’t be unmoved by reports of evil. Grieve for the victims, and grieve for their families. Then firm up your resolve to live a life of quiet faith in God, in wisdom, and righteousness, and if need be, sacrifice.
Live not by lies. Live by the truth. Live in faith. Live in Jesus. The Father will sort it all out in the end.
May God keep you in His shalom!
Pastor David