Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Are We As Sheltered As We Think?
I've been watching the tragedy at Virginia Tech and continue to be amazed. Like millions of others, I wonder how this could happen, why it happened, and what the reprecussions will be. This morning on the Today Show, Stone Phillips interviewed a father that after three days has yet to be notified by the school of his daughters death, he heard about the shooting, called his daughter's cell, dorm, and friends, and then traveled down to the campus where an ambulance personal informed him and a police officer confirmed. Obviously the officials of the school are overloaded and overwhelmed, this will not be easily overcome, though I am quite confident that time will bring healing. As the chancellor of a christian school with nearly 200 students I am wondering what I would do if this happened at our school? What if some parent came strolling through on a normal day and suddenly went nuts? How would we respond? What actions would we take? Certainly we are never prepared for such violence, how do you get through these things? The question arises in my mind, in a world that we have endeavored to make safe, a president that has based his entire presidency on ridding the world of terrorist and making our nation a safe haven, are we as safe as we think? We can all say what should have been done, talk about break downs and learn from this crisis, but the truth is that as long as there is evil in the world evil things will take place. I certainly pray this never comes to our town or schools, I pray that our schools and colleges learn and take extra precautions, but what I really pray is that we realize that America's only refuge is the Lord. Notice I didn't say it was going to church, going to church isn't the answer to everything, it's the place christians gather to celebrate and to be instructed, being a christian is about being christ like every day, every where, and allowing the love of Christ to shine through us. This is an opportune time for the church to arise and minister, not to cast out demons and rebuke the devil, no, this is the time to heal and cry, to hold and comfort, to admit that we don't understand or have the answers, but we are here and willing to be a shoulder to cry on, an ear to listen, and an arm to reach out and hold the falling. We are safe in Christ, even in a evil and hurting world!

2 comments:

Barbara said...

The devil is on his job, Neil. I wrote about this in my Newsletter yesterday. When God isn't in the mixture, these things happen. And, then, there are some people (not just kids) who have problems that are overlooked because of our political correctness now. And, it seems to be alive and well on our college campuses. It's like the 3 monkeys - See no evil, speak no evil,and hear no evil.

Jesse said...

I agree with Barbara, and would add, that we're partly all to blame. As ministers we need to stop watering down the Gospel and confront evil for what it is, and start holding people to a standard of holiness that God still requires from us, even if its not popular in Hollywood. From video games that we play, to the movies we watch, to the actions of our country, we don't value human life. We've replaced the Roman Coliseum sports, men being torn to shreds, gladiators fighing to the death, with video games, reality fights, and unholy television programming, and whats sad, is more and more Christians follow the same course as the world. No wonder that research shows, that the line that separates Christians from the world is so blurred, you can no longer tell a difference. We desperately need God to visit us again!