Please enjoy the weekly devotional below.

I pray you hear God speaking to you in new ways this week!

Blessings, Pastor Lou

Weekly Devotional “Getting What We Always Got”

“The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.” Psalm 38:18

Have you ever heard the saying “If you do what you always did, then you’re gonna get what you always got?”

If we don’t change anything, adjust, improvise, adapt, or overcome, we can expect the same results.  Same book, different chapter.  Same song, different verse.

We’ve seen now yet another school shooting. Another mass shooting. More senseless acts of violence.

My instinct is to turn to anger, frustration, and complete despair. What must we do to make sure that our children are safe in a place we force them to go. How do we ensure that our children don’t get murdered?

Social media has no shortage of answers, news outlets have no shortage of answers, and folks I overhear at the grocery store have no shortage of answers. As you read this, you too probably know exactly what isn’t to blame and I bet you even know what is to blame.

If we all have the answers so certainly, why does this continue to happen, over and over and over again.  Why do we continue to get what we’ve always gotten? 

Let me ask this another way, what do we need to do as followers of Jesus Christ when our prayers and concerns don’t move the needle?

I remember being glued to the TV screen at my college in Massachusetts when there was live coverage of horrors of Columbine.  I didn’t move for hours.  I was in shock then and I am in shock now. There have been 376 school shootings since Columbine. In fact, just last week there was a school shooting in Denver and this week a shooting in Nashville.

If you are reading this saying, oh God, here he goes, prattling on about school shootings trying to further some political agenda…you’re wrong.  I am not going to be suggesting any solution here but simply sharing my grief and heartbreak.  However, if our response is anything other than heartbreak and disgust, who are we?  We don’t have to be theologians to understand what Jesus would do, how Jesus would respond, and how Jesus would expect us to react/respond to news of children and their teachers being murdered.

These are real people, real children, and real lives that ended in horrific violence.  I wonder what these children were thinking as they were shot and killed.  Why me?  I’ve been a good boy/girl, how did God let this happen? God, please keep my little brother/sister down the hall safe, ok? 

What do you think went through their innocent little minds?

Our scripture reading today is reminding us that God is always near the brokenhearted and the crushed in spirit.  I’ll be honest, I am brokenhearted again and my spirit is crushed.  I am grateful, as the author of this Psalm reminds us, that God is near me and comforts me. I feel God’s presence as I go to God in prayer about this, discerning how to advocate well for change and policies that will actually help our country be safer.   I pray that the families of the victims also feel God’s presence during this seemingly impossible time. I pray for the family of the perpetrators who are also left wrecked and in shambles.

May we continue to seek solutions to this epidemic of violence rather than virtue signaling and political posturing. We are the greatest country on earth, and we can absolutely do better.

May it be so,

Rev. Lou Ward