Why?

The shooting event last week in Tucson Arizona really had an impact on so many because it pointed out how uncertain and precarious life is, even in a country where we feel relatively safe and secure. We have great police and military people in this country, but when even one individual is intent on doing harm to some, it is almost impossible to stop it from happening.

Bad things do happen to good people. It always surprises us when something like this happens, but it occurs so often that it should not shock us as much as it does. Each of us probably have lost a family member or know someone personally who has died tragically at no fault of their own.

What do we learn from this type of tragedy that occurred last week, killing a young nine year old girl and a seventy-six year old member of the church. First of all life here is very brief. Even if we are not faced with an event like this we all are going to die. We may even live 70 to 100 years on earth, but we will spend trillions of years in eternity.

This is just a temporary home here and what we are really doing is preparing for eternity. I read an interesting interview with Rick Warren who had some very insightful views on this. He said that we were made by God and for God, and until we figure that out, life isn’t going to make sense. Life is a series of problems: Either you are in one now, you’re just coming out of one, or you’re getting ready to go into another one. God is more interested in your character than your comfort and is more interested in making your life holy than He is in making your life happy.

If we will keep our sights focused on eternity we can face life knowing that bad things do happen, but they don’t have to defeat us because we have a permanent home with God if we remain faithful to him until the end of this time here.
-Jim Keevert