I haven’t been able to think about much else since we started to hear the news of the flash floods in Texas. My mind just keeps going back there. God, those kids.
The horror.
God … why? … help … please.
I must confess that it has shown me how much proximity inflames my compassion. I hate that it is so, but it is true. There are disasters all over the world every day and none have hit me recently like this one has. We live relatively close. The storm that was taking lives was drenching us but sparing our lives for some reason, and so it felt real time and tangible. Our family knows that part of the world and its’ beauty, and my wife and son were at a camp in that region just a couple of weeks ago! And … we know people impacted. Actual names and faces and stories that intersect with our own.
The horror.
God … why? … help … please.
How does one respond in some measure of integrous faith in the face of such calamity? I have been asked that a number of times over the last few days. I am actually on ministry sabbatical, but a number of hurting friends and congregants have broken through the self-imposed (and utterly permeable) pastoral comms blackout and asked for a word of help. This is an effort to provide that. To be clear, I actually have no idea on how you should do it. This will be what I am pressing into. And so, what follows will be more cathartic than didactic, but I pray it provides some handles for someone who doesn’t know what else to grab ahold of right now.
I have been trying to focus on four things.
Grieve. Pray. Help. Cling.
Grieve
The horror.
God … why? … help … please.
It is okay - and indeed right - to call this what it is. A horror. There isn’t a way to square it off or soften it down. It is horrific to think about. I sometimes wonder though, if we don’t have formed ways to just sit in that? We are optimistic and - at times - triumphalistic, and we are fooled by the mirages of our own control to the extent that we cannot just sit in the reality of things we cannot explain, or change, or fix. And so, to cope, we look for answers, for reasons, for someone to blame, for permission to move on, because we cannot stand the feeling of grief, of lament, of weakness, of pain.
I heard someone the other day (full confession … it was Dr Mike … a Youtuber) say that we should be careful about being too quick to treat grief as if it is something to be fixed, instead of something to be endured. Grief is an appropriate response to tragic loss. We shouldn’t try to push it away too quickly.
Here are three inappropriate responses to grief that I am tempted to lean into.
I try move away from it too quickly.
Life goes on. Well for us it does, and so me move on … too fast, because honestly, we can’t look at it anymore.
I try to make myself the center of it.
This is the other side of that coin. While some may read this who have been directly impacted by this (may we not fail you by moving on too quickly) most of us will feel close to this, but a couple of layers removed. Some, when faced with pain as deep as this, jump into the middle of it as it is entirely their own. I have done that, to my shame. Those in the pit need some who are standing compassionately on solid ground, ready to help.
I try to fight for resolution too readily.
This happens on two levels … the human, and the divine.
The human level looks quickly for who is to blame, and when we aren’t sure, we just make stuff up. It gives us some sense of agency back, and it keeps politicians gainfully employed. Make no mistake, there ought to be thorough investigations of all of it, and how we could have and should have done better, and if there is accountability to be had, may it come. But, those things are always longer and more complex than we pretend they are. Right now, we don’t know, and shouldn’t pretend to know.
The divine level looks for a neat theological argument to patch the wound, but again, we ought to be slow and humble when we are dealing with such mystery and profound loss.
Why did God allow this?
I don’t know.
How does His sovereignty play out in a scenario like this where some are spared and some were lost?
I don’t know.
Doesn’t He love all these people?
I believe He does. Very much.
Wasn’t He able to intervene?
I believe He was.
So again … why didn’t He, at least in a different way?
I don’t know.
And you still believe in Him?
I do.
You see, when looking for meaning in tragedy and disaster, you run out of road very quickly whether you have a sovereign and loving God or you don’t. Having no God makes it no easier to stomach, just infinitely more difficult to endure.
But, we cheapen God when we reduce Him to pithy and repeatable sayings and constructs that aren’t big or weighty enough to contain the reality of the mystery of His work and character.
Don’t rush to figure it all out. Not yet.
Pray
Don’t scroll just yet. I don’t mean the empty “thoughts and prayers” line. When faced with calamity, the people of God pray. We pray not as pious pronouncements of spiritual strength. We pray as the guttural wails of the spiritually weak, the defeated, the overwhelmed. We beat on heaven’s doors until we rouse the Lord in some sort of response to our desperate persistence.
We pray. We rant. We cry. We ask. We moan. We plead.
Then we do it again.
If you don’t know what to pray … start by telling Him that. Tell Him you’re frustrated, and confused, and hurt, and fighting for faith.
Pray a “God help …” prayer.
God help …
Help those families.
Help the helpers.
Help the hurting.
Help the homeless.
Help the traumatized survivors.
God help.
If you aren’t there yet, pray some of God’s words back to Him. Start with a section of a Psalm of lament. Here is one I prayed on repeat today. God is so comfortable with these sorts of words and questions that He put them in His book.
LORD, why do you stand so far away?
Why do you hide in times of trouble? - Ps 6:1
Rise up, LORD God! Lift up your hand.
Do not forget the oppressed. - Ps 6:12
Help
There are already so many doing so much to help. Help them however you can.
Our church has a small team on the ground, and we are actively partnering with Austin Disaster Relief Network.
You can support them below. They are doing the Lord’ work down there.
There are many others. Red cross, H-E-B and many like them. Texans are piling in to help. Help them.
Cling
I know that some might be shaken by what I said about divine mystery above and might well mistake my “I don’t know” with “I don’t believe.” Nothing could be farther from the truth.
When there is lots that I don’t know, then I am pressed back into what I do know.
I know Jesus.
I know that He is the ultimate revelation of the character and power of God (Hebrews 1:3). So … God is like His Son, and His Son is merciful, and compassionate, and gracious, and what we know from His life is that He leans in to suffering and calamity with compassion. He isn’t far off. He isn’t aloof. He purposely entered into the depths of human suffering and lived a life shaped by it.
So where is God right now in the aftermath of the Texas floods?
He is right there …. in the middle of it … weeping, comforting, helping, listening, mobilizing His people.
I don’t know much about much, but I do know that.
And so, I cling to Christ, and encourage you to do the same.
The horror.
God … why? … help … please.
Thank you, Ross. This is so helpful.
Ross, thank you so much.