What a week

As you know recently I was writing about how there is a lot going on and this week proves that to be true. It was interesting for us that last Saturday evening I came into the family room, sat down and did something I rarely if ever do, I turned on the television. I don’t normally turn it on at around 6:00pm on a Saturday unless to watch golf or a football game. I was doing so simply to see who was leading The Scottish Open. The person was speaking about something and then it went straight to the feed from Butler, PA and what would be determined to have been an assassination attempt.

So the week has been ripe with commentary, conjuncture, conspiracies and more. Life and death were playing out in real time as one person attempted to take the life of another. In any case, where this occurs there are devastating consequences but in this particular situation it would have been devastating consequences which would effectively touch our entire nation and possibly the world in certain ways.

As this has unfolded throughout the week, we have learned and are still learning about the shooter but as much at this point as to why. Why is a question we all always seem to ask in just about every situation. The why question is a great one but it is not necessarily the only question. What are the consequences? That is always a great question for someone to ask.

We will never know the why of anything until we accept that it is the decisions we and others make which have consequences we must live with those consequences in the aftermath. We may never know the true why of what someone did what they did. Yet we can see the consequence’s of that action.

There is a wife and daughters who no longer have a husband or father. He was not the target so certainly not the answer to why. However, he is a consequence but more than that someone who’s life was taken needlessly. A hero as he shielded his family in a moment of rifle fire.

There is much said this past week and the word providential it often used to describe what occurred. The word implies an intervention or help of a higher power. You and I know there was a providential intervention by God Almighty. He did protect someone’s life. He also provided salvation by Grace to one who’s life was taken. Even those who were injured have been recipients of providential intervention. If you look at this in the big picture we all experienced providential intervention.

How did Carol Cymbala put it?

“God is working, He’s still working, God is working even now.

Though we often don't know just how, God is working, He's still working, God is working even now.”

So today we move on and put the past beyond us. Hoping we have learned something that can make the future better. As someone said this past week about the future, we can’t know the future but we know who holds the future in His hands.

In God’s Grace,

Elbert Nasworthy