Lessons Part 2: God is Sovereign

As I sat in a training class at my job yesterday preparing to take an exam that will dictate if I can keep the promotion that I received in October... my heart was breaking. Once again senseless violence had broken out on American soil with the mass killing at an elementary school in Newtown, CT. I checked out mentally because so many things were going through my head I just simply needed to pray. Pray for the peace of Jesus to comfort and envelope those families, including the family of the shooter who had lost several of their relatives in one day. Pray for those such as myself who have recently lost loved ones and would hurt all the more with those who are mourning now. Pray for Pastors and church leaders who will have to provide Biblical answers for many questions that will arise in the aftermath of this tragedy. Praying for those who are lost and lack the Hope that we have to mourn in a way that will honor Christ. And finally praying that as Christians we will remember Romans 12:15... "Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep."

This morning I woke up in a weird mood after listening to Pastor Albert Mohler's podcast, "The Briefing." Pastor Mohler did a special broadcast yesterday evening regarding the massacre that happened in Newtown, CT.  Something that he shared just resonated with me, I had to share.

I in no way want to diminish the agony that many parents and families are feeling in Newtown, CT. However as Christians we have to engage incidents like this through the lenses of our Biblical Worldview, as with anything else. We cannot start simply blaming gun laws, mental illness, the failures of our government and our public school system, and any other place we can turn to point fingers. We need to assign blame to where it is due per Scripture, human evil and sin. We are talking about someone who coldly calculated, planned, and murdered those he knew and loved and small children who had nothing to do with whatever his issue was. It was an immensely evil act. (Rom 8:3) The reality is that evil of this nature is a part of all of us, we are all capable of unspeakable evil as Pastor Mohler shared and with the testimony of Scripture, I 100% believe to be true. 

The Grace of Moral Restraint

Why doesn't this happen more often? If we are capable of such evil? The Word of God makes very clear that God restrains evil in all of us. It is by His grace alone and the gift of the Law of God, which though it cannot save us, restrains us from acting on our evil inclinations, that things like this do not happen every single day. The conscience that God has given us is used to restrain us from doing the evil that we all can do, and this is a gift from God. (Rom 2:15-16) Finally the sovereignty of God limits Satan in what he is allowed to do, limits us in what we would seek to do to one another if we were not restrained by the Holy Spirit. (Job 1:6-12) He holds us fully accountable though, for the sins that we do commit. God is a righteous and just judge and He will judge every one of us, justly, for the evil we have done. (James 4:12) Some who He has called to salvation will not be consigned to an eternity in Hell, yet each one of us will have to answer for the things we have done regardless of our eternal destination in Heaven or Hell. (Matt 12:36-37)

A Different Vantage Point

Life was difficult growing up in my immediate family for many reasons but one that came to mind in the aftermath of what happened yesterday in Newtown was living with a brother who has bipolar disorder.  I have an older brother, Clement Jr., who we lovingly called simply, Junior, who was diagnosed with bipolar disorder as a teenager. His mental illness had a profound effect on our family. My father had a difficult time dealing with it because I believe he did not understand the nature of Junior's illness and thus was very impatient about dealing with the symptoms and working with my mother so he could be treated correctly. My mother was always caught between a rock and a hard place regarding his treatment because of my fathers ambivalence towards traditional medicine and his reluctance to sign off on him being in any mental institutions or taking anti-psychotic drugs. 

I was very young when Junior started to present with symptoms so I vaguely remember the first days, but all I knew was something was very wrong and my mother was torn between honoring my father and protecting her children.  You see Junior always became very violent in his manic state, especially towards family. I remember as a teenager, when he would go off of his medicine, he would show up at my high school and pace outside waiting for me and my brother Levar to get out of school. I remember waking up in the middle of the night with him standing over me with a knife, yet he walked away every time and did not use it. The worst incident of all that I remember, is when my father and brother had to defend my mother...and a gun, ironically, is what kept him from taking her life. Unfortunately there were many more things that happened and even though it hurts me to recall the memories, all I can think is Thank You Jesus for I know he could have killed us all at any time really, but it was by the grace of God that he was restrained.

For me it's interesting to recall all the debate about mental illness: is it demonic, is it something that God can simply deliver someone from, is it all chemical, on and on. The reality is God can do whatever He wants for He is Sovereign. Nevertheless Junior is still living in a home for people who suffer from mental illness, being supervised to make sure he takes his medicine, and to my knowledge has not had a manic episode in many, many years. He has a church home in Illinois where he is an active member of the family of God and worships every Sunday. It still pains my father that he suffers from bipolar, my mother still stands with Junior in treatment and support, and unfortunately many of my siblings including myself are not very close to him due to the memories of the terrors that happened during his manic episodes. This is something I am not proud of and am dealing with, with Christ to this very day. I still deal with fear whenever I am around a person who is not mentally stable because of my past, yet because of what I know about Christ now I believe that going forward I will be able to walk more upright in this area. 

There is Hope in Jesus  

So as I look at what has happened in Newtown, CT my perspective is a little different. It pains me to see people passing judgment on the killer, via social networking etc. We do not know the circumstances of his illness, or if he knew Christ. But what we do know is Jesus is still on the throne and fully in control of EVERYTHING that happens, or does not happen for that matter. Our responsibility as Christians is not to pontificate about his judgment or his motives but to proclaim hope that can only come from Jesus. Jesus died because of sin, sin that includes unspeakable evil such as that which was perpetrated against many in Newtown, CT on yesterday. As I said my brother is still walking through this illness today and though Christ has not healed him for whatever reason, however He has restrained Junior from doing unspeakable evil to my family and the families of others. Many families deal with this same issue and Christ in His infinite grace and mercy has been faithful to keep their families as well. This is the lesson I have learned from this incident that never occurred to me regarding this issue with my brother Junior, until today.  We must focus on the sovereignty of God and trust that all He does is for a reason and we should not question that. And like God showed us with Job, He is not required to answer our questions about why He allows, what He allows. As His children we must continue to trust Jesus for protection, and look to Him for comfort in times like this.

 29 “The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law." (Deut 29:29 ESV)

    "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as we share abundantly in Christ's sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer. Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort."
(2 Corinthians 1:3-7 ESV)