Many will remember the Nashville Christian School shooting that happened a couple months ago. After it happened, there was some discussion about how this could happen to a Christian school. Atheists took it as an opportunity to claim that this shooting proves that there isn't a God because he would have at least protected a Christian school. One twitter user went so far as to ask if Christians would claim that the kids were not praying correctly. This shooting was a targeted attack on a Christian school. The Bible tells us that there will be trials in this life. We will face persecution because of our faith. Jesus says in John 15:18, "If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first." People are going to hate Christians because of their faith. The important thing is that God has it all under control and we don't know what his plan is, but we know it's good. We need to make sure that we continue to listen to God as he reveals his plans to us. God has not promised to protect us from everything on this Earth. We are to rely on him and seek his help to get us through the trials that we god through. There will be bad things that happen, but they should be reminders that we need to seek him even harder. That is not to say that any of those killed in the shooting did anything wrong. This is very sad and my thoughts and prayers go out to the friends and family impacted by this tragedy. God's plan might not make any sense right now, but all in all, it is the best plan. I've asked God "why?" many times before. Truth is, we don't need to know why. All we need to know is that God has a plan it is better than what any human could imagine. He has thought about things that no human would have thought about before. There are plenty of times where we might want a different outcome, but we know that there is a plan.
There is a Christian song written by Anne Wilson that was released recently. It's titled the "Seventh of June." It talks about the loss of her brother who has died and how it has affected her. It talks about how its hard for her to understand why he was taken from her and why he is up in heaven instead of "down here" by her side. One of the lyrics says, "Just thinking and crying and praying and trying to make sense of what don't make sense in this life. Like why you're up there and not here by my side." Dealing with the loss of loved ones is hard. We would like to think of all of them as in heaven so that we can see them again some day, but there is not guarantee of that. This is why it is so important to lead those you care about to Christ, because unless they accept his forgiveness, they are doomed to an eternity in hell. The Bible tells us in Matthew 7:13-14 tells us to "Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is hte gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it." As Christians, we are called to love all people. This is probably the hardest, but also the most important command that Jesus gave to his people. That means that we should hope to see every person brought to a knowledge of God and accept his forgiveness.
God has a plan for your life. God has a plan for the lives of everyone on this Earth, whether they believe in him or not. We don't know when his plan is to take us off of the Earth, but we need to be prepared. We need to be ready because, while it might not seem urgent now, you don't want to wait until it's too late. If we believe in Christ and follow his commandments, then we shouldn't be scared of death because we know where we are going. However, that doesn't mean we are to just sit around and wait for our time on this Earth to come to an end. We are supposed to be make disciples.