Pondering Severe Mercies

Yesterday was a day to note. After a delightful several hours interviewing prospective communicant young people, fellowshipping over a meal with the church, and going to our little prayer meeting, I stopped in my office for just a moment before I went home.

As I too often do, I checked Facebook. Two sad items greeted me. The first was the monster tornado that devastated Tuscaloosa. We lived south of Tuscaloosa for 3 years, and spent much happy time there. Sadly, it seems prone to devastating tornadoes --we lived through one the Saturday before Christmas. This one hit the very busy shopping district that straddles I-20/59, and stretches up around the University area. We pray all those we know and love are safe. This was just one of the record number of tornadoes in yesterday's outbreak.

Then, I saw that David Wilkerson, of The Cross and the Switchblade, founder of Times Square Church and Teen Challenge, was killed in a car accident and that his wife is in critical condition. Wilkerson was an incredible man albeit an exotic prophet --he picked up Life magazine one evening, and saw five boys charged with murdering another boy. He began driving from his rural Pennsylvania pastorate into the rough neighborhoods of NYC. He slept in his car. He put his life in danger. He bought an old house, and started a ministry of working troubled youth all day, and praying with them all night. Countless lives have been saved from temporal and eternal destruction because of his obedience to God's call. Now God called him home.

What a world. So beautiful and so broken. So uncertain. No rock but Jesus. So easy to say that when times are easy. Sometimes, though, it is like clinging with your fingernails while the flood tries to carry you away.

Any answers would be pat answers. There are no "answers" per se, at least not any that makes news like this easier to take. The only answer, ultimately, is Maranatha. And one day he will honor that cry, and fix all this stuff.