May 2007
As we head into May and summer, it appears that it is going to be a very busy several months for our church family. Activities and special days appear on just about every weekend for many weeks to come. Please pay special attention to the calendar of upcoming events so you don’t miss on out all that is to come.
Yet in all the business that is upon us, just two days ago we, as a nation, have again been shocked out of our sense of peace and security with the news of the deadliest shooting in U.S. history on the campus of Virginia Tech. We’re taken back by the senseless loss of the lives of those professors and students. We think about all the promise and potential they represent that has been brutally cut short and we ask ourselves why did this happen and how could anyone commit such a horrific act of violence against other human beings? There is never a simple answer to situations such as this, though many will try to offer one.
The details of this event are just beginning to unfold and as they do we may gain a clearer picture of what happened that day, but we may never know what drove this lonely young man; this fellow student to follow such a tragic and pointless path. Our hearts go out the families and friends of all those who have been tragically affected by this horrendous act. They will continue to need our prayers for some time to come.
This event, for us Christians, should be a wake up call. It forces upon us the fact that we are mortal beings. Our lives on this Earth are finite and we don’t know the number of our days. We can’t guarantee that we will live past the present moment, yet we often live our lives as we have all the time in the world. So often we take our days for granted. We waste time on things of little or no eternal significance as if they’re the most important things in the world; things for our own pleasure. We justify it by telling ourselves we’ll deal with the important things tomorrow or the next day or the next... We buy into the lie that we always have tomorrow. Truth be told, for all those things we put off until tomorrow; tomorrow never comes.
For those who unexpectedly died at Virginia Tech, tomorrow will never come. I wonder how many of those students would have lived their lives differently if they had known what was about to happen. I wonder how many of them were Christians who truly lived their lives with Jesus as their Lord; working to make the Kingdom of God a reality in the world around them. I wonder how many really didn’t have time for God right now, but were going to get around to that later. That waiting is by far, the most tragic aspect of this whole dreadful event. That is the most tragic aspect of any Christian life that’s not lived for the Lord.
For those of us who have life, we must not postpone making the choice to devote our lives to Jesus Christ now; there is no better time than the present – this very moment. We pray in the Lord’s Prayer for His kingdom to come; on earth as it is in heaven. Jesus brought the reality of God’s kingdom into this world. It’s up to us to live it out as dedicated true disciples of Jesus Christ. Don’t put off devoting your life to Christ until tomorrow… Tomorrow never comes.
Grace and Peace, The Rev. Rob Hughes
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