Bulletproof
Friday (September 12)
Bulletproof
1 Samuel 7:10, 12
As Samuel was offering up the burnt offering, the Philistines drew near to attack Israel. But the LORD thundered with a mighty sound that day against the Philistines and threw them into confusion, and they were defeated before Israel. … Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen and called its name Ebenezer; for he said, “Till now the LORD has helped us."
I drove up from Raleigh, NC to Columbus, OH this weekend to lead music at a conference, and I left the conference center feeling overjoyed by the desire I saw in that community of believers to sing and proclaim the gospel and stir each other on to love and good works. But on the drive home yesterday, somewhere in the mountains of West Virginia, I heard the breaking news that a children’s Vacation Bible School session at a church in Michigan had been intruded upon by an active gunman. Thank God the story didn’t end in tragedy though, as a security guard fired back and a deacon rushed to his truck to take out the shooter. Yet it struck me that it could’ve been the conference I’d just left. To think that hundreds of us had just been vulnerable to attack, lifting our hands together in praise of God, with eyes closed and hearts yielded, and anyone could’ve walked right in during that half hour and taken us out. The paradox is that we believers are at our strongest against the enemy when in the posture of prayer and praise and submission to God; yet we are also at our weakest and most vulnerable at the same time. Nevertheless, do you remember the Columbine School shooter from generations ago who pointed a gun at Cassie Bernall’s head and asked, “Are you a Christian,” and she replied, “Yes”? God didn’t stop the bullet from taking her life, but her integrity resounds still today. Remember when Jim Elliot and Nate Saint visited the Auca Indian tribe to share the gospel with them, only to get speared to death? God didn’t miraculously spare their lives, but their sacrificial ministry led to that entire tribe accepting Christ years later. Friend, mark this: God thunders through our submission to Him whether the enemy bullets land or not. And evil loses even when it wins.