By Steven Norris
O God,
Weeks like this make it hard to be a pastor. I could not sleep on Saturday night. I kept checking the updates on all the various news sites, hoping to hear good news of the missing girls from Camp Mystic in central Texas. I knew I was going to have to stand before Your people on Sunday and bring a message, but I did not know what to say.
To be honest, I was not even sure that I could identify—much less understand—all the emotions that flooded my own heart and mind. Why would You allow this to happen? Why did You not intervene? They were just children, God! I cannot comprehend.
In the book of Exodus, you parted the Red Sea for the people of Israel to cross. In Joshua, you parted the Jordan River so that they could enter the Promised Land. In 2 Kings, both Elijah and Elisha stopped the flow of the Jordan River to cross on dry ground. Why not here? Why not now?
I cannot imagine what the pastors of those families are saying to their congregations this week. Truthfully, there is nothing that would make the pain any less excruciating. There are no scriptures, no words of comfort that could adequately make sense of such a tragedy.
The only real comfort I find, O God, is knowing that You understand what it is like to lose a child. You know that gut-wrenching torture. I find comfort in the fact that Jesus wept over the death of his friend, Lazarus. This is the same Jesus of whom Isaiah wrote, “He was despised and rejected—a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief” (Isaiah 53:3).
I thank You that, in your wisdom and grace, You led Your people to preserve un-sanitized words of complaint and objection in the Psalms. There, we find passages like, “All night long, I prayed, with hands lifted toward heaven, but my soul was not comforted” (Psalm 77:2). We hear the honest cries of abandonment, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far away when I groan for help?” (Psalm 22:1).
I believe that the Psalms demonstrate to us that You desire honesty over performance. Maybe it is like the Sarah Hart and Chapin Hartford song, “Better Than a Hallelujah.” I hope and pray that the sentiment of that song truly reflects Your heart, O God, “We pour out our miseries / God just hears a melody / Beautiful, the mess we are / The honest cries of breaking hearts / Are better than a Hallelujah.” I hope so, because that is all I have this week.
Therefore, I confess that I do not understand what is going on here, O God, but I believe that You are here. I believe that there will be a day when death and suffering will be no more and I pray that it might come soon. Therefore, today, I join my voice with the father in Mark 9 who declared, “Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief.”