How do we handle the news?

These all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication, with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with His brothers. – Acts 1.14

‘What do we do now?’

That must have been at the heart of what was going on for the disciples. They were told to wait, but in the meantime they had business to take care of. They knew the scriptures and they knew that Judas had to be replaced.

So the disciples, the women associated with Jesus’ ministry, and Jesus’ mothers and brothers gathered together.

They gathered together to pray and submit themselves to God’s leadership. I love the fact then when we first meet what will soon be the church they are together praying and seeking God’s face.

I am having a tough time working on this today.  The full gravity of the terrible shooting last night in Connecticut is just setting in. As I watched some of the news clip the tears flowed as I thought about  the children who saw the events, the heroic adults associated with the school, and especially the families who dropped their children at school yesterday having no idea they would never see them alive. I think about I dropped AJ at school yesterday, gave him a kiss and a little swat on the bum, and watched him go through the door. Twenty children, about AJ’s age, did the same thing yesterday. Only they never came home.

So what do we all do now? We can get up in arms and demand that laws be changed. We can talk about the evil in the world.  Some may even doubt their God today.

But the reality of evil ought to drive us to God. We ought to be in one accord physically or even spiritually in  prayer and in seeking God’s face.

What do we do now? We realise that we live in an evil world. This kind of tragedy happens all the time, but rarely in such a visible and public place. Four and five year olds die all over the world every day because of violence and poverty, we just don’t see it in such a dramatic way.

And then we do what these early believers did. We turn to God in prayer and seek His face on how to deal with the evil that is all around us. Then we can talk about all the other issues involved. 

And in this case we pray for all those involved in the tragedy that is now Newton, Connecticut.