My thoughts, heart and prayers go out to the families of the latest tragedy at the elementary school in Texas.  Evil seems to be winning in our society, so much so even people of faith are loosing heart.  If God is good, and He is, where is He in all of this?!  Certainly a sovereign God could have prevented this from happening?  There is an age-old problem of why the righteous suffer while the ungodly seem to prosper?  We start questioning the ways of God, and I think even blame God for some of these tragedies.

Tragedies and questions are as old as the Bible.  We read the account of the tragedies of Job’s life.  The bible said “his wife said to him, ‘do you still hold fast to your integrity?  Curse God and die!’”  Job’s response, “shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity?”

The bible said that Job fell to the ground and worshiped God in the midst of his tragedies and said, “naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I return there.  The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.”  The text goes on to say, “In all this Job did not sin nor charge God with wrong.”  Asaph, a levite who served as a musician during King David’s reign, when he witnessed the prosperity of the wicked was so much troubled the Bible says that his “feet had almost stumbled; my feet had nearly slipped”, meaning he was questioning his faith.  Asaph said, “when I thought how to understand this, it was too painful for me.”  Even as followers of Jesus, we have things in our life that are too painful to understand and our faith is tested.  As people of faith, with God’s help we must look past the tragedies, look past our feeling and emotions.  Get beyond our questions and look to who God is as recorded in His word.  When like Job and Asaph your faith nearly stumbles, fall down and worship Him.  Draw near to Him and put your trust in Him regardless of what is happening all around you.  When you do, you may not have all your questions answered but like Job and Asaph will come to the conclusion that “truly God is good!”

“Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy, to God our Savior, who alone is wise, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and forever.” (Jude 24-25) - and all God’s people said, “Amen!”

Pastor Rodney