Where was God?

The entire nation was shaken by the news coming out of Blacksburg, Va., Monday, April 16, 2007. The campus of Virginia Tech has been besieged by a lone gunman who killed 32 people before taking his own life.

When our emotions range from sadness and anger, many questions are asked, not least of which is, 'Where was God? "

The truth is that God was there. The psalmist writes in Psalm 139:8: "If I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there." This tells us that God is with us obscure, it is unlikely places.

The real question is not where he was, but why did he let this happen? It is a question much more difficult. And while theologians and philosophers debate on this issue, there are some things we can know for sure:

No, this was not the wrath of God

There are those who would have us believe that this is yet another example of God Meting out his wrath on an unbelieving world. As Scripture tells us that God will one day judge the world, now we are in an era of God's grace. This means that God is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9).

or God is intimately linked to each person who dies

In Matthew 10:29, Jesus tells us that God is aware of each sparrow that falls to the ground. If God is as intimate knowledge of every sparrow, how much more he is aware of each person?

Jesus then mentions that God has a lot of hair on our head numbered! The consequence is that God is dealing with even the smallest details of our lives. This leads to the last and perhaps most difficult to accept that the observation:

God has a plan behind the tragedy

The first two verses of John 9 is very revealing. The disciples asked Jesus why a man born blind, he thought it was a consequence of the sentence of God on sin or the sins of their parents.

Jesus said that was not who was born blind so that God's power can be seen in it. So Jesus healed the man became a living testimony of God's goodness.

It is certainly difficult to accept in the wake of a tragedy on the scale of the slaughter of VA Tech, but I think the power of God displayed through it. How? Not sure. But one thing that comes to mind is the story of sacrifice that a teacher has to protect the few students who could.

What better illustration could be the love of God to sacrifice his own Son for our salvation?