For those of you that don't know, the past couple of weeks have been hard on the Lee County area. Four young people have passed away in the past two weeks. A young man by the name of Andy from Beulah was about to start his senior year in high school. A young woman from Opelika that was 17 years old. A young man from Auburn that I went to high school with. A girl by the name of Caroline that was about to start first grade. I feel like deaths of young people are very hard to deal with because they were so young. It seemed like they had their whole life ahead of them, but James 4:14 says, "Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes."
It is in these times that people begin to question God, which is what they need to do. Ask Him questions. He'll answer. I learned this while I was in Uganda. I met a young man that was 16 years old. I never got his name, but I hung out with him for a few hours on one day very early in my time there. We were walking and I began to ask him questions. I had been asking him questions for a little while then I asked him about his family. He then told me that his mother, father, and sister were all killed by the Lord's Resistance Army, or LRA. That is when I started asking God questions. Why did that happen? What made God put him in that situation and not me? Why am I so blessed to have a loving family, but his was taken away from him?
When the Sandy Hook shooting happened I went through the same thing. I was angry because all of these young kids were killed in a place that was supposed to be safe. So I started asking questions. Why those kids? Why so many? At the time that I was asking these questions I was spending some time alone in a hotel room in Arkansas reading the book of Isaiah and I read this:
"Seek the Lord while He may be found; call upon Him while He is near; let the wicked forsake His way, and the unrighteous man His thoughts; let him return to the Lord, that He may have compassion on him, and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon. For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are My ways your ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the Earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts."- Isaiah 55:6-9 ESV
God's ways are higher than ours, and we will never understand how He operates until we see Him face to face. He has a plan, and it is perfect. His plan is flawless. His plan includes things like these that I have talked about. He has a reason for doing everything. We might not know what it is, but there is always a reason behind these things that God does. It may sting a little, but God knows what He is doing and it is for our good that He does them.
"Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything."- James 1:2-4 NIV
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