Why do bad things happen?

-  All bad things really come from sin being in the world.  The world was perfect.  But sin didn’t just affect people, sin hurt the whole world, including nature and creation.  (Romans 8:19-21)  This doesn’t mean that the people hit by tornadoes sinned.  It just means that our whole world is messed up by sin.  Sin is that bad.

-  God allows good and bad to happen to all people.  Bad people experience God’s grace and goodness, and bad affects all people too.  Matthew 5:45 says, “He causes his sun to shine on evil people and good people. He sends rain on those who do right and those who don’t.”

Why did God let tornadoes hurt people?

-  God’s plans are different than ours.  We will never totally understand the why behind much of what He does.  Sometimes we can look back and see.  Some answers we will never know on this earth.   Isaiah 55:9 says, “The heavens are higher than the earth. And my ways are higher than your ways.  My thoughts are higher than your thoughts.”

-  His main goal is not for people to be happy.  His main goal is to bring people to Himself for His glory.  Romans 8:28 says that we works ALL things together for good.  And that good is His ultimate good. Not just what makes us happy.

-  Suffering is a part of everyone’s life.  Suffering is also a tool that God uses to bring people to Him. Lots of people don’t listen to Him until they have to.  Romans 5:2-4 tells us that God sometimes uses suffering to make us more like Him.

Did God not protect those people?  Will He not protect me?

-  God does protect us and keep us safe.  Help your child think of many, many times that he/she or your family could have been injured or injured more than they were or healed quickly.  God does take care of us.  Psalm 91 is an excellent reminder of this.

-  There are times that God allows bad things to come into our lives.  But He never leaves us alone.  Never.  Even in scary, dangerous times, even if we get hurt, we do not have to go through it alone (Isaiah 41:10).

-  In God’s eyes, death is not the worst thing that can happen to His people.  Psalm 116:15 says, “Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints.”  Death means God’s people go to Heaven and live with Him.  This is good.  Not bad.  If we believe in Jesus, we don’t have to be afraid of dying.  We know we will go to Heaven.

Don’t things like this mean that God isn’t really good or kind?

-  Absolutely not.  God is always good.  Always.  Even when we don’t understand it.  He always does the best thing.  Again, it might not be the best thing for us as individuals, but it is the best thing for His plan.   (Psalm 107:1, Nahum 1:7, 2 Corinthians 1:3-4)

Should we help people?

-  Absolutely and that is one of the good things that comes out of the tragedies.  One of the jobs of God’s church is to help other people in times of need.  Help your kids see that our responsibility is to pray hard and to help as much as we can.  Hebrews 13:16 says, “Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.”  By doing this, we share God’s love.

This is in no way comprehensive or implying that I understand it all either.  I say “I don’t know” an awful lot.  My fallback answer is always, “Baby, I just don’t know, but I do know that God is good, He is big, and He loves each of us so much.”

Here are my thoughts on processing this with kids through a Biblical world view and I’d love to hear yours:

1.  Be honest: Sometimes as parents our first instinct is to protect our kids from all of the yuck in the world.  Our kids need to see the bad as well as the good and happy.  The bad is part of life and part of God’s ultimate plan. To ignore that is to poorly prepare your kids  for the real world.  I’d rather my child begin to experience and process some heartache from a tragedy that doesn’t  directly impact her now rather than wait until tragedy hits her world, which it will one day.   These situations are good training ground for instilling a way to view tragedy through God’s perspective

Don’t be afraid to talk to your kids about what is going on BUT do it in the filter of God’s word.  Be realistic, but don’t over-emphasize the worry and the stress and the helplessness.  Kids will take that from you and multiply it within their own hearts.  Talk about the circumstances so you can pray for the people.  Talk about how God’s people are helping.  When you hear miracle stories, tell those.  When you share something sad, pray quickly and specifically. Talk about how God is good, even when bad things happen and even when it doesn’t make sense.  God is always good.

2.  Be cautious: While you want your kids to learn from this, you don’t want it to consume them.  Don’t leave the news running for hours at a time while they are awake.  Don’t talk too much.  Do protect them from gory or sensationalistic details.  Your goal is not for them to get caught up in the drama.  Your goal is for them to get caught up in the God who will receive glory through this tragedy in one way or another.

Talk through fears and concerns.  Be reassuring, but don’t lie.  This is hard, but I want to always be honest with my kids.  When they ask, “Is a tornado going to hit my house?”, my first instinct is to say, “No baby, that will never happen.”  That sounds good and is probably true, but I need to speak whole truth to my kids.  I also don’t want to say, “Well, it could, now good night.”  That’s a recipe for nightmares all night long.

Instead I try to say, “There are no storms tonight – nothing is going to happen tonight.  And that will probably never, never happen here.  But God has a perfect plan and He is right with you all the time, so you don’t have to be afraid of anything.”  I do recognize that sounds too perfect parent, and I can assure you that those words were either preceded or followed by: “Who is going to get a spanking next!” or “Who put their toothbrush in the toilet?” or “Everybody just go to bed immediately!”.   This is a very real house, I promise!

3.  Look for tangible ways to help: 

Model for your kids that God’s plan is for His church to be His hands and feet when people are hurting.  Model that as believers we don’t just fret, we move into action.  Giving money and stuff is great and this is a great example for your kids.  Also look for ways to get kids more actively involved.

-   Go to a shelter and let your kids hand out water.

-    Our ministry is collecting teddy bears for young victims.  Allow your child to pick out the teddy bear and pray over it before giving it away.

-    Pray for specific communities as you look at pictures online.

-  Challenge kids to think of ways to raise their own money to help those in need.

Then a couple days later the “pet” had a couple of friends.  It was pretty annoying and I made a few valiant swipes with the fly swatter.  But honestly, I was a little bit busy in  newborn baby land to even think about it.

Then last week I realized that we no longer had just a couple pet gnats.  We had 10-15 fruit flies flying around.  And I realized we had a problem.  So I threw out fruit. I cleaned counters and cleaned the sink.  We took out the trash.  We made an effort, but granted it was a pretty half-hearted effort.

And the next morning there was a swarm.  It was gross.  I had obviously not solved the problem.  I noticed there was a number of them around the pantry.  So I started dragging out everything in there.  And then in a box behind the garbage can, I found it.  A bag of potatoes.

Or what was formerly a bag of potatoes.  Gross.  Black.  Rotten.  And obviously the source of the flies.

Can I tell you that fruit flies are hard to get rid of?  Getting rid of the source was a start but it wasn’t good enough once they had moved in.  I have googled incessantly and have tried a number of different things – some mildly successful most not.  Still every day I have a fly swatting session with the lingering five or so that will not go away.

So what is the purpose of sharing this heart warming story?  It hit me that too often the same thing happens in our lives and in leadership.

There is a problem.  We don’t deal with it.  Either because we truly don’t know it is there or because we would prefer to ignore it.  Little signs start appearing.  A “pet” fly buzzes by and is annoying, but barely noticeable.  But as time goes on the signs become more clear.  There is a problem.

Maybe it is a problem in your ministry or your organization or your home.  Maybe it is sin that you think is well-hidden and stuffed away.  Maybe it is guilt or shame that you have never truly processed.  Maybe it is a relationship that is in trouble.

It needs to be dealt with.  But that would take energy and effort, and it is quite honestly just easier to swat the flies.

But the flies get worse.  The signs reveal that the problem can’t be hidden any more.  The longer it is ignored the more obvious it becomes, to you and to everyone around you.  And what you end up with is a gross, black, rotten stinking mess of potatoes and flies that won’t go away.

You have to deal with the mess.  You have to deal with the problem itself. And then you have to deal with all the flies, or the consequences, that have come from it.  Ignoring it until it goes away only works for so long.  Because it won’t go away.  It will get worse and the flies will take over.

The leadership… and life… lesson here is this:  At the first sign of a problem, deal with it.  Don’t ignore it. Don’t hope it gets better on its own. Do the work to identify what is happening and fix it.  Be persistent.

And if you have a secret remedy for fruit flies, send it my way.

And every work that he undertook in the service of the house of God and in accordance with the law and the commandments, seeking his God, he did with all his heart, and prospered. (2 Chronicles 31:21 ESV)

I like the prosper part of that, don’t you?  We all want what we do to prosper.  We want our ministries to prosper. We want our jobs to prosper.  We want our families to prosper.  But often we are anxious for these things to prosper, yet we skip the two important keys this verse talks about.

-  Seek God – We want things to go well and go right, but too often those are OUR things done in OUR strength.  We get so busy we forget to seek the face of the One we serve.  We choose not to invest in our relationship with Him and choose to invest in Facebook or tv or other things that will have not have an impact on us that lasts beyond five minutes.  We must do the work of knowing and seeking God.

-  Work with all your heart – Sometimes we get lazy.  We want a great and strong ministry, but we don’t necessarily want to do the small day-to-day things that make that happen. We want to focus on the big and the fun.  We want big picture and dreams.  Working on systems or structures or details is not fun.  But they are examples of the hard work that needs to be done.  Are we willing to do the hard things that need to be done?  Are we willing to do the not fun tasks that success requires?  Are we willing to work with all our heart, give our very all, and give every bit of the energy we’ve got to the task at hand?

My husband taught my girls a Tim Tebow quote to apply to their softball practices (yes, they were only 6 and 4 at the time)…

Hard work beats talent when talent isn’t working very hard.

It doesn’t really matter your talent level.  That will only get you so far.  To truly prosper in God’s eyes, we must do the work of seeking Him and working with all our hearts.

She has two big sisters who kind of adore her.

And a daddy who is already in love with her.

We have a full backseat.

She even has a yankee bff who was born the day before her.  Much love and congratulations to Sam and Sandra Luce on the birth of their angel!

We are so blessed and grateful that God has a perfect plan for our family.  Hallie and I spent Easter morning alone in our hospital room, which is kind of strange for anyone on church staff on an Easter morning!  We watched Northpoints streamed service and they sang one of my all time favorite songs, “Because He Lives”.  They included the second verse which I had only heard one time.  As I held Hallie, I was overwhelmed by God’s providence, not just in bringing her into the world, but in every step of her little life.

How sweet to hold

A newborn baby

And feel the pride

And joy he gives

But greater still

The calm assurance

This child can face

Uncertain days

Because he lives

One morning last week I had quite a God moment with my three year old.  Just about every morning she gets up (most of the time a little earlier than I would like), crawls into bed with me and we snuggle for a few quiet moments before the madness of the day begins.  Well, I say quiet moments.  Usually she wakes up with lots of words and random questions.

So last week it was a morning when I knew we were going to be pushing it to get out of the house on time.  I had a thousand things running through my mind that I knew had to be done before the day was over.  I was impatient to get going when her sweet little voice said, “Mama, I don’t want to go to Heaven.”

I held her in my lap and asked what in the world she was talking about. “I don’t want to have my hands and feets nailed to the cross,” she explained.

My eyes filled up with tears as I got to explain to her, for perhaps the first time that she would remember, that she wouldn’t have to have her hands and feets nailed to the cross.  Jesus did that for us.  He was nailed to the cross to be punished for our sins.  He was nailed to the cross so that we wouldn’t have to be.  We can go to Heaven because He was nailed to the cross instead of us.

“Ok, I’ll go watch Mickey Mouse now.”

Here were my reminders:

-  For some reason, God chooses some of those random moments to be the most valuable.  I need to have my ears open for them.

-  Even a three year old can begin to understand the gospel.  Does she get it all, of course not. (Do we?)  Is she ready to make a confession of Christ as Lord.  No.  But she can understand a lot more than we usually give her credit for, and she is beginning to build a foundation that will affect her for the rest of her life.

Thank  you, Lord, for your hands and feets.

Why do so many leaders look so grumpy?  Yes, we bear alot of responsibility and yes, we have a whole lot on our plates.  But some of us have allowed all of that to steal our joy and make us pretty much no fun to be around.

Here are some things to remember to up your fun level:›

•   Don’t take yourself too seriously.  You are the leader and you are important.  But, come on, you are a normal person too.  You may be kind of a big deal, but let everyone else think that, not you!
• ›  Talk to people.  Don’t be too busy or too whatever to not talk to people.  Build relationships.  Sometimes as leaders we kind of hide.  Get out there and make some friends.
• ›  Take people to lunch.  Make someone’s day and buy lunch for them.  You don’t even have to talk about your ministry or your job.  Talk about life. Be a normal person.
• ›  Throw some parties.  Have people over to your house.  Make it a big to-do or don’t, whatever fits your family’s personality.  There’s always a reason not to.  Do it anyway.
• ›  Smile a lot.
• ›  Laugh a ton. 

Serve the LORD with gladness!  Psalm 100:2

› Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.  Philippians 2:3

› It is easy to become consumed with…

•  MY ministry needs
• › MY volunteers
• › MY many hours per week
• › MY underappreciated ministry

When “MY” and “I” become the focus, Jesus is not.  We would not admit out loud that we think this way.  But pay attention to your thoughts and reactions today.

-  How many times did you feel under-appreciated?

-  How many times did you feel a twinge of jealousy when someone else got recognition?

-  Did you feel like no one cared about what you do?

-  Did you spend more time thinking about making your ministry great or making Jesus great?

A real leader will first focus on making much of Jesus, and then much of other people.  A real leader looks out for the good of the church, or the organization, and not just his or her own feelings.

›

Leadership is filled with stressful and challenging situations.  They can be small or they can be intense.  Whatever the situation, leaders must remain level-headed.

› “For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.”

2 Timothy 1:7

When pressure is high, how do you respond?  It is important to remember that those we lead will mimic and multiply our reactions.  People look to us to know how to respond.  If we freak out, we will encourage chaos.

In high stress, we lead out of power, love, and self-control.

-  We seek God’s power.  We lead from His authority.  We take control of the situation as much as the situation demands.  We evaluate the situation and are not afraid to respond appropriately.

-  We remember to lead out of love for all of those involved.  Fear causes us to lead out of self-protection.  Leading out of love forces us to put others’ needs first.  Even in times of stress and times we might need to lead a little more strongly, we still lead with kindness and love for others.

-  We show self-control by keeping our own emotions in check in stressful situations.  We control our feelings and reactions enough to be able to evaluate the situation and develop a plan to respond.

› Bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.” Colossians 3:13       

Here are three eternal truths in ministry:

1. › Volunteers will mess up.

2. › You will be disappointed.

3. › Your true leadership shows in your reaction.

I had a very wise friend share the importance of this trait many years ago.  If we are not quick to forgive those we lead and serve, we are going to be full of a whole lot of bitterness.  We must learn how to ›hold people accountable without holding grudges.

It is not forgiveness to not address issues or broken commitments with people. These things must be addressed.  Where we get into trouble is when we are hurt or upset by something and we don’t address it.  Or we choose not to forgive and we walk wounded.