Jesus Isn't Decaf (By Naomi Meyers)

There was a school shooting last week. Another one. In Georgia. You probably heard about it, read the articles flooding your phone. I have. I’ve hardly been able to keep myself from reading every horrifying word as the story and backstory unfold. My heart is shattered at the senseless loss of life. I am sobered and saddened on behalf of the children and adults who will now struggle through every day they have to spend walking the corridors where those terrifying moments occurred. I ache for the parents and families who suffered such unimaginable loss. I can almost physically feel their pain. My mother’s heart, while fully acknowledging the abhorrent and unacceptable nature of the vicious attack, still weeps over the fact that a child felt so lost, so isolated, so helpless, so alone that they chose such a horrific and permanent end to a temporary situation. 

My children’s school held a lockdown drill the day after the shooting occurred, a necessity in spite of the locked facility, guarded campus, and multiple school safety officers. It was previously planned and impossible to move, but the exercise more firmly cemented the unsettling truth of our country’s downward spiral. There’s a hovering sense of anxiety in the air. It’s made me check my phone more often, looking for emails, texts, calls, reports. It has me praying even more than usual. Praying constantly. Praying earnestly. Praying without ceasing. For my children. For your children. For the children out there who feel so unloved, so unheard they believe their only recourse is to scream their inner pain through a firearm’s blast. 

Not everyone shares my sentiments. For some, the event in Georgia was simply a platform to further their own cause, push their own promotion. You’ve probably noticed that too. Everyone has. It’s an election year in America. Presidential. It’s a mess. They call it campaigning, the list of lies they tell, the pile of promises they’ll never keep, the finger-pointing and mudslinging. It’s worse than usual this time. Evil saturates the entire event. It’s palpable. Abject hate. Vitriolic rage. It’s not about the people. It’s about the party. It’s about control. It’s about pushing an agenda that pacifies some, satisfies no one, and damages everyone. It’s about greed and power. It’s not about me. It’s not about you. It’s about a handful of people involved in the upper echelons of political society. The whole scene is disheartening, wreaking havoc on hearts and minds across the nation. Playing an enormous part in the lack of equilibrium our young people feel. Adding to their social and emotional turmoil. Causing heightened mental illness and outrageous acting out. It has me praying more than usual. For my community. For my city. For our country.

A short scroll through the rest of the news page offers no consolation. Things aren’t better in other places. Wars are raging around the world. Artillery and words volley between nations in a relentless effort to tip the scale of power. Greed abounds. Hate runs rampant. Crime fills the streets, penetrates even the forces meant to enforce laws and uphold safety. Clamoring after the next big story, the media excitedly eats it all up and spits it out as if every injustice, every hateful crime, every heinous act is just a sideshow for their economic enrichment and personal enjoyment. It’s not. Fear grips our society in icy talons. We are helpless to know how things will play out. The stories we read and hear in the news have us holding our breath, waiting for the other shoe to drop, the next crisis to come, the final implosion to detonate. While we stand by, waiting for things to even out, but rapidly losing hope they will, prayers rise to our lips. Desperate prayers. Pleading prayers. Prayers for hope and help and peace. I know. I get it. I’m there too. Every time I read the news. 

Last week, however, along with the news, I also read Job 19. Wracked with excruciating pain and still scraping oozing sores, Job sketches a picture of how bleak and hopeless his situation has become. His friends are accusing him of sin he didn’t commit. God seems so far away. The heavens are like brass. His cries appear to go unheard. They definitely remain unanswered. His former friends and acquaintances seem to have forgotten him. His wife hates him. His family is repulsed by his appearance. Children see him as an object for ridicule. He feels alone, abandoned. He’s not. He knows it. In the middle of it all, when his miserable existence seems futile, when the future appears long and his endurance short, when he’d rather die than simply keep existing, Job spoke three words that stopped me in my tracks and halted the words of bemoaning on my own lips. He simply said, “But. I. Know…” (Job 19:25)

They must have been the hardest words to say in those circumstances. There was so much Job didn’t know. He had no logical reason for the suffocating pain, relentless suffering, unexplainable tragedies, unimaginable loss, hopelessness, helplessness, discouragement, and despair. Job wasn’t there for that. He wasn’t there to continually wallow in the things he didn’t know. He was there for what he knew. What he believed. What he had tested and tried and found to be unquestionably absolute. Job chose to lift his mind off the things he didn’t know and focus on the things he did. Things about His God. Job knew His living, active, moving, working  Redeemer was sovereign and eternal. He believed that when it was all said and done, he would stand before God as gold forged in the furnace of hardship and affliction. No matter how disgraceful or unpleasant his circumstances, Job refused to let the darkness destroy him. He chose to hope, to trust, to place his faith in what he knew. And Job knew His Redeemer. (Job 19; 23:10, 13, 17)

So did David. Turns out, being chosen as King Saul’s successor had significant drawbacks. Not that it hadn’t started well. It had. The beginning had been all victory songs, harp playing, and marriage to the king’s daughter. It hadn’t stayed that way. Saul had become jealous and agitated. There were fewer things he wanted more than David’s head on a platter. David’s life became littered with treacherous flights and narrow escapes. He spent years running from Saul before finally settling down to carve out his own existence on a little piece of land in Philistine territory, called Ziklag, from where he forayed out to raid the regions around him. (I Samuel 27)

He was very good at his job. The raids went amazingly well. He brought home flocks and herds and clothing. He gained the trust of Achish, king of Gath. So great was the trust between them, that Achish took David and his men to go into battle with them. The rest of the Philistine leaders weren’t having it. There was no way they were putting their trust in David. They knew who he was. They didn’t believe his defection was true. They weren’t about to put their lives in his hands. Unable to change their minds, Achish was forced to send David and his men home. (I Samuel 29) 

Arriving back in Ziklag after 3 days of travel, David and his men found their encampment had been raided and ravaged by the Amelekites. Ziklag was burned to the ground. The women and children had been kidnapped. Not killed. Kidnapped. Anything could be happening to their wives and daughters even as they stood there assessing the mayhem. The men were gutted. Many dropped to their knees, crying out in grief until their voices were raspy and tears would no longer flow. David wept with them. He’d lost too. Both of his wives, Ahinoam and Abigail, were gone. That wasn’t all. With what little voices they had left, the men were talking of stoning him. They were convinced this was his fault. They needed someone to blame for the loss of their beloved families. They wanted revenge. They were coming for him. David knew it. His life was on the line.

Not one of us would fault David had he attempted to talk those men out of their plans. We wouldn’t criticize his choice had he run away, hidden himself, found safety in a cave. There would be no surprise in any of that. He’d done it all before. But not this time. This time David chose to stay.  With no idea how to remedy the situation, no options for moving forward, no strategies for reclaiming their loved ones, David did the one thing he knew to do. He turned to his God. He drew strength from the One who had always been his refuge and strength in times of trouble. He encouraged himself in the God who had stood by him in every struggle and trial and dangerous situation throughout his life. He rested in the God who offered him protection from all evil. David turned to the God he knew for comfort, for strength, for advice. Because David knew what Job knew and what I am learning, no matter the season of your life, regardless of the mess in the world around you, in good times and bad, you can rest your battered soul and tattered faith in the unarguable truths you know about the sovereign, eternal, omnipotent God of the universe. Your living Redeemer. (I Samuel 30:1-8; Psalm 46:1; Psalm 18:2; I Samuel 17:37-51; Job 19:25)

 So often we read the Biblical accounts of men like David and Job and sit in awe of their spiritual stamina. We see men who never fought fear or worry or doubt. We see the end of their stories and forget the middle, the part where they were scared, angry, frustrated, tempted to quit.   We talk in grandiose terms of their faith and courage, but diminish their humanity, the times when they were stymied and stricken with confusion and grief, illness and pain. We forget they were just like us. Human. Needy. Daily surviving by forcing themselves to focus not on the harrowing circumstances around them or the unknown future in front of them, but on the God who is right beside them. The God they know they can trust. The living, active God of yesterday, today and forever.(Psalm 102:27; Hebrews 13:8; II Corinthians 4:16-18; John 5:17)

Overwhelmed by the continuous flow of life-sucking news stories highlighting the injustice, indecency, and inhumanity suffocating our society, we are often left to wonder what is next. What will happen in our country? Our world? How do we fight off the encroaching darkness? How can we keep ourselves, our families, our schools safe? As the questions swirl around our minds, we are struck with the gut-wrenching truth that we have no answers. None. We simply don’t know. I get it. I’m there too. But. I know this. Our God is sovereign. He has not abdicated His throne or relinquished His authority. He is God. Of all. Over all. In heaven and on earth. He is our Redeemer. Our Sustainer. Our Strength for whatever comes next. And He is eternal. His years have no end. For what we are walking through right now and what we will traverse in the future, He will be there. He will never let us down. Our Redeemer lives! He reigns! I know it! Do you? (Isaiah 45:7-9; Job 42:2; Lamentations 3:37-39; Acts 17:24-28; Psalm 90:2; Deuteronomy 31:8; Psalm 78;35; I Peter 2:6)