Evil Unspeakable

In our world, unspeakable acts of evil take place everyday.  There are those who endure pain and suffering such that we may never fully know (or comprehend). 

This past weekend, I was honored to speak at First Baptist Church of Orange Park, Florida.  On Monday of last week, a 7 year-old little girl named Somer Thompson was walking home from school, when she was abducted and taken to an abandoned home nearby.  While the details have not yet been fully disclosed in the ongoing investigation, reports last Wednesday indicate that her body was found in a Georgia landfill, 2 days after her abduction. 

Last week, after I heard the news, I called Pastor David Tarkington, a man I barely know but profoundly respect.  I asked if he needed to preach Sunday instead of myself, his church body and the local community no doubt still reeling over the profound effect of a brutal crime so close to home.  David's reply:  "Nathan, don't you think that God knew you, an evangelist, would be on our Sunday schedule this weekend?" 

So I preached with as much as passion as I could muster after a full Disciple-Now Weekend with teenagers!  I preached to fight back for the ground that the Enemy had taken away.  My message was clear, I preached Psalm 56:  God is Closer than We Think.  Lives were rescued, and hearts-soil shaken, just as Jesus had planned from before the dawn of time.

Psalm 56 takes us back several thousand years to a time in King David's life where he called upon God.  He did not see God in the midst of his unspeakable suffering at the hands of the Philistines who had taken him captive.  En route to Gath, their capital city to face the king's justice, he cried out to God. 

"Remember my sorrow (oh God!).  Are my tears not already in your bottle."  Psalm 56:8 (KJV)

Psalms paints a beautiful picture of our heavenly daddy, bottling up our tears.  He will not forget our pain, but rather stores it away somewhere in the cosmos.  King David's words are intimate and profound about a God who loves more deeply in the midst of tragedy, heartache, and pain.

Today, David Tarkington preached Somer Thompson's funeral at First Baptist Church of Orange Park.  He preached to a family that is completely unchurched.  He shared an unfamiliar Gospel with them, a Gospel he lives out everyday as a pastor.  In the midst of an evil unspeakable, David and the men and women of their church shine a beacon of light to point others to a great God who is Closer Than We Think.