On
Wednesday the 17th June, Dylan Roof, a 21-year old male walked into
the Emmanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina and
shot dead nine people who were attending a Bible Study in the church. Among the
dead was the Reverend Clementa Pickney the church pastor and a state senator. Immediately
after the killings, the usual questions and statements were asked and raised. “God’s
dead”, “Is God alive?”, “If there’s a God, why didn’t he stop it?”, “Maybe God is
not as powerful as they say he is”. Sigh!
The
troubling thing is that Christians, even pastors have these thoughts and ask
these questions. However while it’s okay to have these worries and doubts, the
only way they can erase these doubts and answer these questions is only by
going to God’s revealed word, the Bible. Psalm 115:16 says that “The heavens
are the Lord’s heavens, but the earth has He given to the children of men.” John
4:24 goes further to say that “God is a Spirit and those who worship Him must
worship Him in spirit and in truth.” Hebrews 1:14 tells us that “Are not the
angels all ministering spirits sent to minister to the heirs of salvation?” If
we understand that God is a spirit and the angels and God live in the same
place, then what these verses tell us is that the Heavens are for spirits while
the earth is for humans.
The
Bible makes us understand that we are spirits with a soul and we live in a
body. With our spirits we connect with the heavens, God’s own or the devil’s
own. With our souls we feel and express emotions. With our bodies we interact with
the world around us. While we know that God is a spirit, the fact is that spirits
are not legal in the earth. God is only legal in the earth through human agents
in answer to the prayers of individuals. That is mainly how miracles happen.
But the fact is that we live in a fallen world where crazy things happen
because as the Bible says “The heart of man is desperately evil.”
Tragedies
will happen. At times we will lose loved ones when we are not ready to let them
go. Horrible things will happen in the world that will be broadcast on the news
that will make us wonder: “Is God in control?” Yes he is. The Bible tells us
that the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof. He owns the earth. Which
then leads to the question, “Why did he let it happen?”, the answer to that is “He
didn’t. He gave the earth to men. The evil in the hearts of men makes them
commit heinous crimes. “Does that mean God is helpless?” No. God set the rules
by which the earth runs. While he is God, he chooses to abide by the rules he
has set to govern the world in that spirits are illegal in the earth. However because
crazy things happen in the world, at times we fail to see or understand the
love of God because of the bad things that happen. No matter how long we live
on the earth, we will never have the answers to all the questions we have. We
should however take comfort in the fact that he has promised to never leave nor
forsake us. He also promises to comfort us when crazy things happen. That
should comfort us in the midst of our troubles.
JC Cruz is the author of DECEPTIO published by WestBowPress, a division of Thomas Nelson publishers
and LOST,
BUT FOUND.
