A few days ago, one of my very best friends posed a question to me that he had been asked to answer. Why didn’t the Lord protect him [Charlie Kirk] from being shot? I am not sure exactly why he passed that question along to me. I didn’t ask him. But I imagine it was probably because we’ve been friends for decades, we worked together at church for many years, and we have a high level of trust in each other. Maybe more than that, he values my opinion, especially when it comes to serious matter of life.
The man is a real friend. Why do I call him a real friend? A real friend is there to challenge your thinking, build you up in your faith, and listen to your position without judgement even if they disagree. I have no idea how he answered the question. He didn’t volunteer it and I didn’t press him. I simply answered the question the best I could.
The answer is easy and it is understandable if a person is in the word and accepts God as sovereign. This is no trick answer, but it is my answer. “You are asking the wrong question.” The right question is, “What was God’s purpose in allowing Charlie to be killed?”
Perspective matters. We who are believers, persons who have actually accepted Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and walk with him daily, know in our hearts that God is in complete control of every deed, thought, and action of every human being in the world, those alive, those dead, and those not born yet. As far as God is concerned, there are no accidents. God’s plan is the one and only plan, no plan B, on surprises in heaven.
Knowing that, by faith and faith alone, we are able to comprehend everything has purpose. Understanding God’s purpose is not always easy, but he always has one. He who created the universe with nothing but a word, complex, very small things like DNA and very large things like stars, has plainly shown us that the whole of the universe works exactly as it should, exactly as he planned long before any of us were here.
So, God has purpose. But what about “allowing?” Does God just randomly allow things to happen apart from his plan, his will? Does he just tolerate bad things happening, does he acquiesce to the will of man, does he condone sinful action? No, no, and no. This is where the question and answer gets a little “sticky,” especially if you are a self-willed fatalist, a person who does not recognize God as the final authority in life. You see, some people want to sort of believe God exists. It is OK with them that he hangs around in our conversations, shows up at weddings and funerals, gets celebrated a couple of times a year for Easter and Christmas. That’s OK, but not him being in charge and us being accountable to him.
Anyway, all that begs the question, “Why did he allow it?” Ultimately, he didn’t just allow it, he planned for it. If God is absolutely sovereign, and he is, and there are no accidents with God, and there are not, he had to know in advance it was going to happen. And he did. Even saying that is very unsettling to me. I’ve known God personally in the free pardon of sin more than four decades. I trust him—completely. But I still do not like it when something like this happens, I can’t figure it out, it makes me angry, and all the while I know God knew it was coming and didn’t stop it. I suppose that is one of the gazillion reasons he is God and I am not.
So, on to purpose. By now, after all the tears, anger, disagreements, and lies told in the media, it has become very apparent to everyone with the least bit of common sense that Charlie Kirk’s death happened to draw people to Jesus. Charlie loved the Lord. His wife does. Turning Point USA exists to get the message of the gospel out to everyone, especially young, college age adults. He had no fear proclaiming Christ as Lord, and I pray now that Erika is the face of TPUSA, the testimony and influence will grow even more to show the power of God in the face of evil. His passion for the truth is going to be hard to match. But I bet the organization he founded is up to the task of supporting the work and continuing to challenge the thinking of young Americans.
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