Yesterday, our nation experienced another tragic school shooting. However, this shooting resonated with me like few, if any, of the previous shootings in our nation's history for the simple fact that the shooter targeted my brothers and sisters in Christ. As a result of this tragedy, mothers lost their children. Families were cruelly torn apart.
I was not personally acquainted with any of the victims (at least not to my knowledge). That does not matter. They were part of the body of Christ, and when one member suffers, all the members suffer with it. How do I feel about this tragedy? I'm hurting for the families that have lost loved ones. I can't even imagine the pain and shock that each family must have faced to learn that their daughter, son, brother or sister would never come back. However, I'm also hurting for the man who brought this pain to all these families. While I want to be angry at him, I cannot help but pity him. Here is a young man, in the prime of life, who suddenly finds himself overwhelmed with a mass of crime. Not only that, but he will never be able to change the damage he has caused. He has been destined to live an eternity with the choices he made in the moment. Just imagine having to spend the rest of eternity with the knowledge that you ended the lives of several young people, and you will never get the chance to make things right.
In the face of this incredibly awful tragedy, the struggle for myself and every other Christian remains: how are we going to respond? Indeed, what is the right response for this situation? Please note that I do not in any way consider myself to be the "perfect Christian example." However, I will share several insights into this tragedy.
Probably the most obvious thought that comes to mind is that our world is becoming an unsafe place. After all, what individual goes to college thinking that they will be shot and killed during their time as a student? It's astonishing to think that our everyday world is becoming an unsafe place; however, as Christians we must not be surprised. Paul specifically warned Timothy that in the last days there would come men who are "heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good. (II Timothy 3:3 ESV)" Later on in the chapter he tells Timothy that "evil men...shall wax worse and worse." As much as we would like to think it otherwise, our world is in a state of negative entropy.
What is even more chilling about this shooting, however, is that it has become the outburst of a gradually increasing resistance to the message of Christ and Christianity. This, too, should not be surprising for us as Christians. John tells us not to be surprised if the world hates us as Christians (see I John 3:13). Things like this are going to become commonplace. However, we need not live in fear, since He who is in us is greater than he who is in the world.
"As for God, his way is perfect: the word of the Lord is tried; He is a buckler to them that put their trust in Him. (Ps. 18:30)"
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