21 December 2012

God's got perfect attendance, even at Sandy Hook

What kind of Savior are we looking for?

Where was God?

He was in a very surprising place on December 14.  He was standing next to Adam Lanza, next to the principal Dawn Hochsprung, the teachers, the children.  He was there in the midst of the chaos.  God is bigger than the legislation we Christians have jumped on blaming for leading to this tragedy.

I wasn't prepared for this deflection from what happened on the 14th.  I wasn't prepared to see fellow Christians post pictures of Christ standing outside of Sandy Hook-looking as though he had been banned.  I wasn't prepared to see a comment that made God look like a powerless pouter in which one person asked where He was, and He stated He wanted to be in the school, but He wasn't allowed.  I like Mike Huckabee, but when he went on this rant, I wondered what kind of God he believed in.

I'm tired of Christians playing the blame game with what is wrong in our country.  Look no further than the mirror.  It seems we're quick on the right to say that people won't take responsibility for their own actions or circumstances, but what about our own lack of action?  I think it is time for the church to begin to accept some responsibility, but oh, it is so much more convenient to try to point fingers to a political solution.  Funny how that's ok for prayer in school, but the same camp says additional legislation on gun laws won't work.

We're still looking for that political savior, aren't we?  That king who will make things right, not the king who came to change hearts.  We're probably like the people who got to the manger and realized there was no way this baby could be a real king....so they just passed Him by.

There wasn't prayer or Bible reading when I went to a public grade school, nor did this happen when my parents were in school, and I'm not so certain that it happened when my grandparents went to school.  And there weren't mass shootings then.

The fact is there probably is MORE prayer and Bible reading in school today than there ever has been.  Prayer clubs and Bible clubs have sprung up around the country and the only time you hear about it is when some opposition arises.  And the truth is no one prohibits your kid from praying or reading their Bible in school.  I can't understand the thinking that if we just coerced kids who maybe don't even believe in God to read the Bible and pray-that somehow that makes them Christians and then shootings won't happen.

God never left our schools.  If you think He is somehow prohibited from entering, I have a very different idea of what God is capable of compared to your small-god thinking.  Several of my wife's family members teach in public schools, my aunt is a principal of a public school.  Several members of my church teach in the public school.  Several of my friends are counselors in public schools.  Every single one of them carry God into their buildings and classrooms every day.  Unconcealed.  They pray for your kids, and I don't doubt would also take a bullet for them.

To suggest that God isn't in our schools suggests you don't believe the Bible itself when it states "where two or more are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them".  I've heard of accounts where children are being the hands and feet of God Himself on a daily basis as they enter the school building.  My wife and several of her friends distribute the love of God every week in nearly every school in River City.

I think of some of the most profound accounts from Sandy Hook that show just how much God was in the building that day.  As the principal and staff sacrificed their own lives to save the children, I think about my Savior who laid down His life, and I think about what He said "no greater love than this, that a man lay down his life for his friend".

You are right to blame evil.  You are wrong to suggest that God was absent.

2 comments:

Jim said...

Dude, you are on fire. Well done.

Kestrel said...

Amen!

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