“On July 23, 2015, a shooting occurred at the Grand 16 movie theater in Lafayette, Louisiana. John Russell Houser, age 59,opened fire during a showing of the film Trainwreck, killing two people and injuring nine others before he committed suicide.” This was the day my hometown experienced a horrible tragedy that would change our community in a huge way. The question was would it be a change for the good or the bad.
Let me start off with the question everyone always asks when there is a tragedy, WHY? WHY? WHY?
Why here? Why those people? Why did God allow this? Why so much suffering? Why do bad things happen to good people? According to Christian author and pastor Lee Strobel, he commissioned a national survey and asked people what question they would ask if they could ask God only one thing. The number one question was:
“Why is there suffering in the world?”
The “Why” question goes back thousands of years. There have been so many tragedies that lead to “WHY” over the years, such as two World Wars, the Holocaust, genocide in the Soviet Union and China, deadly famines in Africa, killing fields in Cambodia, AIDS epidemic, genocide in Rwanda and the ethnic cleansing of Kosovo. Then of course there is 9/11 and the Syrian slaughters.
We don’t know the answers to the WHY, but we do know Jesus warned us of evil and said they are coming. Jesus told us the truth about pain, suffering, and evil. He says in John 16:33, “You will have suffering in this world.” He told us that it is going to happen, not maybe. We can’t see with God’s eyes, think with God’s mind, or walk in God’s shoes, but 1Corinthians 13:12 tells us “Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.” With this knowledge, all we can tell ourselves is that even though we don’t have the answers we are looking for and things are unclear, someday we will have full clarity and understanding of everything in our life.
(Genesis 3:14-16) Because of sin there is evil, therefore God is not the creator of evil and suffering, we are. Genesis 1:31 says: “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.” God comes from perfect love, so love is the highest value in our universe. God created us to experience love, but with the ability to love came free will. With this we can decide whether or not to love or be loved. Love involves a choice. The consequence of having this free will has led many to reject God and abuse our free will, which resulted in evil. There is moral evil and natural evil. Moral evil is evil coming from immorality, pain, suffering, and tragedy. This evil is what leads to irresponsibility and self-centeredness in the world, like famine, killings, abuse, etc. We all have a Choice. Natural evil are things that happen naturally like earthquakes, hurricanes, wildfires and things that cause suffering for people. The Bible says that because of sin in the beginning, nature was corrupted.
John 3:16-17 says “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” If we choose to be thankful and make good of our shortcomings, then God will fulfill his purpose to cause good to emerge from the bad. “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” Romans 8:28
“This is what he said to his brothers in Genesis 50:20: “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.” And if you’re committed to God, He promises that He can and will take whatever pain you’re experiencing and draw something good from it. You might say, “No, he can’t in my circumstance. The harm was too great, the damage was too extreme, the depth of my suffering has been too much. No, in my case there’s no way God can cause any good to emerge.” But if you doubt God’s promise, listen to what a wise man said to me when I was researching my book The Case for Faith: God took the very worst thing that has ever happened in the history of the universe — deicide, or the death of God on the cross — and turned it into the very best thing that has happened in history of universe: the opening up of heaven to all who follow Him. So if God can take the very worst circumstance imaginable and turn it into the very best situation possible, can he not take the negative circumstances of your life and create something good from them? He can and He will. God can use our suffering to draw us to Himself, to mold and sharpen our character, to influence others for Him – He can draw something good from our pain in a myriad of ways…if we trust and follow Him.” Lee Strobel
“Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart. Then each one will receive his commendation from God.” 1 Corinthians 4:5
People have been asking me how I can travel to another country that is so unsafe or tell me their concerns about how dangerous this trip will be and I need to reconsider. My response is that danger, evil, and tragedy is EVERYWHERE no matter where we go. Now I have living proof in my own hometown. Our community has never experienced anything like this before. It is different to see things like this happening around the world because you never think it is possible to happen to you. It can happen anywhere at anytime to anyone. EVIL is all around us and sometimes we don’t know it’s there. It is a crazy feeling to pray and send thoughts and prayers to another community thousands of miles away when a tragedy occurs and another to be receiving or sending them only one block away in your own home town. But tragedy can bring unity, and that is the case in my community. It has only made us stronger and reunited people in a deeper way than ever before. My church is packed from wall to wall and has brought people back to God that had left for a while. It reunited some people with HIM, it reunited a church with other churches, it reunited our community with Faith all to make something better and good. For this I am grateful, for this I am blessed, and for this I am ever thankful for the Lord protecting my life. Through this all, I am reassured more than before to do my world race mission work in 11 countries in 11 months, with some of these countries even being Rwanda and Kosovo. Even though tragedies leave us unclear and maybe confused, we have to remember that good can overcome the Evil. We all have a Choice. As bad as pain and suffering is, it can also create good and with this good we allow God into our community, stronger than before. My community has chosen a change for the good and created unity. They chose to come together as a whole to focus on the good and how we can strengthen our community, instead of how it was broken. Where we give into weakness the Devil brings his wickedness. I am so THANKFUL for my life and BLESSED to have a community where we are Strong and will not bow down to wickedness. We Will take what the ENEMY meant for Evil and let GOD use it to make Good!
Evil’s job is to instill fear in us. The problem with evil is he turns fear to him when we should be fearful of God. Proverbs 1:7 says: “The fear of the LORD [is] the beginning of knowledge: [but] fools despise wisdom and instruction.” Our only fear should be with God on judgment day. 1 John 5:13 says: “These things I’ve written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God in order that you may not know that you have eternal life.”
So my answer to why does God allow tragedy is that in order for him to take away all this evil he would have to destroy the cause of it…People. So our job is to bring back people to the source of our creation and create more good and unity in the world and push away the evil. My calling is greater than ever and this journey I have begun only has more power and meaning than I ever imagined. My hometown tragedy only created more of a fire to seek God in a deeper way and help others know that they have a purpose.
The Bible is clear that we can be religious but not be in a relationship with God. I have always had a relationship with HIM, but never a deep one with knowledge and peace that would lead to salvation in the end. Salvation comes from having a personal relationship with HIM. It is about getting to know YOUR Savior, absolve yourself of YOUR sins, ask for YOUR forgiveness, ask HIM to lead and save YOUR life. This doesn’t come from saying you are going to make a change and start attending church or hanging out with a group of Christians. It will ONLY come from making a change in YOUR heart…a change and decision to start turning from your sin, to stop trusting your own resources and ways, and to accept forgiveness and eternal life with HIM. Open your heart so that YOU can gain God’s peace and confidence. Don’t let fear of evil take over and keep you from your own journey with HIM. I’ll admit it can be lonely at first to be born again and be very difficult because of Change, but it is only because you are steering from your comfort zone and making a true change that will change your life Forever and lead to an Eternal life of happiness (without sin) in the Kingdom with HIM.
Wouldn’t it be amazing, that through all this suffering and pain, that this tragedy actually brought people into HIS kingdom at this very moment, that this tragedy led people to search for something that was intended for evil and turned it into something good, or that this tragedy brought unity to people that maybe didn’t realize they were losing hope or faith. We need to use this suffering as a warning to keep us from even greater suffering and pain. We can do that by spreading God’s love and opening our hearts to change, acceptance of our LORD!
“For I consider that our present sufferings cannot even be compared to the glory that will be revealed to us.” Romans 8:18
