As my wife and I rode a shuttle back to LAX yesterday afternoon, another snowstorm settled into Denver, delaying our already late-night flight(s) home to Wisconsin by at least five hours. We and other passengers strived to be patient as we stood in lines for (literally) hours and ended up boarding a bus to a terminal on the desert outskirts of LAX. Denver's airport had basically become a chaotic zoo of stranded passengers. After all this, we pulled into our driveway after 4am. As a consolation for our inconvenience, the airline gave us free television on each flight. And that's where we learned about the explosion in the fertilizer plant of West, Texas.
At the conference, we had already learned about and had been praying about the bombings in the Boston Marathon. Along with the extended day at the airport, I was feeling both physically and emotionally exhausted. It was two too many deadly explosions for one week in our country. I felt things were falling apart, and I was tempted to feel more fearful about even bringing myself and my family into the public square. And I doubt I'm alone with this feeling.
Hence, I was very thankful to find this helpful article from Ben Witherington III, a renowned seminary professor who has run the Boston Marathon, who said, "the best answer to senseless violence is to go on living a normal life with normal precautions, not allowing the wicked plans of evil persons to alter what is good, and true, and beautiful. For if you allow acts like this to put an end to good and godly activities, then the wicked have won a brief victory. And they must never be allowed to think they have won— because in the end, they will not." Whether it's purposeful violence, a humanly accident or even a force of nature that causes tragedy, fear can be a crippling and self-imprisoning option that those who trust in a sovereign and just God would do well not to choose.
You can read the rest of Witherington's thoughts here.
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