Encompassed in the latest decade are the following stats. Forty two major school shooting sprees… one hundred and forty four innocent individuals dead… twelve suicides…. unregistered numbers of victims left with life-long disabilities… ages of the perpetrators – the youngest was six years old, most were between thirteen – twenty seven years old, some into their early thirties and one was forty one years old. Interestingly, most of the events took place in what we call civilized and developed North America.
I looked at these stats and pondered a short lived news item of recent days. It was reported that a young university student in Montreal, while accessing a chat room, became persuaded that a young man in the UK was about to terrorize his school with a rampage similar to those described above. The student in Montreal initiated a connection with the police in Great Britain and they in turn connected with this disturbed young man and the intended carnage was averted.
What is my point? What is my musing? This, to the best of my knowledge is the only case reported that such a potentially tragic situation was suppressed. My thoughts are as follows. What in this world influenced the mature student in Montreal to search through the chat room and detect this situation? The media reported that he was seeking conversation about music. Was this coincidental or providential? What sparked the interest of this student to intervene in such a strong way? Was it personal integrity? Did it stem from a strong moral up-bringing that emphasized care and concern for your fellow man? It surely didn’t smack of personal glory in any fashion. What about the young man that had very disturbed intentions? What was his back-ground? Did he come from an abusive home? Was he in the midst of personal identity struggles? Was he the victim of bullying? We don’t know! What we do know is that his mind had wrapped itself around a horrible intention that as the Bible says comes out of the heart. His heart was shattering in a million pieces. Why this young man was unknowingly protected from senseless acts of destruction, horrible consequences for life and ultimately inner regret that would haunt his mind forever, one can only presume on the providence of God.
Some conclusions are always foundational to deliberations. The problem above is we don’t have obvious answers to the questions. I project that somewhere, someone prayed for either the school or the young teenager. Was it a mother? Was it a church? Was it a concerned elder or a friend? Again, we probably will not know. While I sincerely rejoice in the averting of another school disaster, I am more intrigued with the fact that somewhere in God’s oversight of this universe, compassionate circumstances were exercised to allow a young trouble teenager to receive much needed help and potentially hope for a rewarding future. Now before I move on, I know someone will be asking why God didn’t intervene in all the other events to prevent such horrific sadness. I don’t know. That is part of the mystery which lays open to thought and meditation and essentially the ultimate revelation of God’s intervention in the affairs of mankind.
Was it prayer? I think it was. Do I have proof? No! But I am persuaded of a couple of things. “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.” (Jas 1:17) Compassionate intervention was a gift – a God kind of gift. Secondly, “as every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.” (1Pe 4:10) We don’t know what sadness is being averted or what joy and hope is being projected when we pray and respond as stewards of God’s grace.
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