I had fully intended to post something else today, but the events of the past 24 hours have prompted me to change my plans. I’m sure you all have heard of the tragic events in Connecticut with 26 people including 20 small children killed in a senseless act of violence. It was just that—senseless. How can anyone discern or explain why this happened?

People will continue to ask just that question however. Why? Many will redirect the question. Why did God allow this? Doubt may creep in. How could God allow this? If God is all powerful and all good and loving, how did this horrible tragedy occur? Some will conclude that either He is not all powerful, or He is not always loving and always good.

Maybe He’s not all powerful. Maybe He was just too busy preventing a typhoon in the South Pacific or an earthquake in Turkey. Maybe He didn’t notice. Maybe He did notice but He just didn’t care. Maybe He’s a capricious deity who sometimes likes watching people do terrible things.

I don’t believe this. I believe that God is all powerful. “No one is like you, O Lord; you are great and your name is mighty.”-Jeremiah 10:6. “Great is our Lord and mighty in power.”-Psalm 147:5. I also believe He is all loving and all good. “The Lord appeared to us . . . saying, I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving kindness.”-Jeremiah 31:3.

So why did the shooting in Connecticut and so many other terrible things happen? Just as there is good in the world, there is evil. From the beginning, God gave us the gift of free will asking us to “Choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve.”-Joshua 24:15. We chose sin. We chose our own selfish desires and impulses over what is good and just. We chose evil and that evil has grown.

As a nation, we have demanded that God get out of our courts, our governments, our schools. We have given Him no place in our businesses, our work places or our lives. We want Him to step back and take His hands off. Then we act surprised when He seems to do just that.

A lot of our problem is perspective. We cannot help but grieve for those children and for their families. From all appearances, their lives have been snuffed out, lost forever. But appearances are deceiving. I truly believe that those little children are not lost. They have gone on before us. And God is with them. “For the Lamb will be their shepherd; He will lead them to springs of living water. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”-Revelations 7:17.

I cannot understand it all. None of us can. But I am assured of this. God is good. God is mighty. And above all, God is Sovereign.