Fifth grader survived shooting when his friend protected him

The attack at a Catholic school in Minneapolis on Wednesday morning was the fourth deadly shooting the city saw in roughly twenty-four hours. Around 2 p.m. Tuesday, a shooter killed one person and wounded six others. At around 8 p.m. at another location, a shooter killed a man and injured another. Around 2 p.m. on Wednesday, a shooter approached a group on the sidewalk and started shooting, killing one person and wounding another.

A fifth grader who survived the Catholic school attack said his friend saved him from bullets by lying on top of him. “I was like two seats away from the stained glass window,” he said. “My friend, Victor, saved me, though, because he laid on top of me, but he got hit.”

He continued, “My friend got hit in the back, he went to the hospital . . . I was super scared for him, but I think now he’s okay.”

“These kids were literally praying”

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said he had no words for the “gravity, tragedy, or absolute pain of this situation.” He did, however, state: “Don’t just say this is about ‘thoughts and prayers’ right now. These kids were literally praying.”

I understand the mayor’s anger and skepticism. There have been times in my life (and I’m sure in yours as well) when God did not do what we prayed he would do.

So, let me state bluntly that I do not know why God did not prevent this tragedy. He freed Peter from Herod’s prison, but only after he allowed Herod to behead James (Acts 12). But as I said in my Daily Article today, I choose to measure what I do not know by what I do know, viewing my circumstances through the prism of biblical truth.

And one truth God’s word consistently declares is that God gives us his strength, help, and hope in the moment they are needed most.

“Dying grace for dying day”

This fact was impressed on me today when I read this statement by David: “Blessed be the Lord, who daily bears us up; God is our salvation” (Psalm 68:19).

• “Blessed” means “praised, adored.”
• “The Lord” translates Adonai, meaning “master, owner, sovereign.”
• “Daily” translates yom, referring to the present day and moment.
• “Bears us up” can be translated as “carries a heavy load.”

As a result, David declares that God “is our salvation,” meaning our “deliverer.” Note the present tense.

Jesus similarly taught us to pray for our “daily bread” (Matthew 6:11). The biblical precursor is the manna God gave his people in the wilderness, which was to be gathered each day for that day’s needs (Exodus 16:4–12). In addition, the bread of Jesus’ time had no preservatives and thus was typically baked daily.

Like their bread, our needs are experienced in the moment. “Yesterday” and “tomorrow” do not exist except as concepts. We feel hunger, thirst, anger, fear, and pain today and thus need God’s help with them today. And such help is just what he promises: “My God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19). “Needs,” not “wants,” given in the moment as the moment requires.

Dr. Oscar Thompson, a longtime evangelism professor at the seminary where I taught, told his students and friends as he faced terminal cancer that God would give him “dying grace for dying day.” Those who were with him when he died said God did just that.

“Into your hands I commit my spirit!”

The boy who protected his friend during the Wednesday shooting is an example. He could not have done this ahead of the attack or after it happened. It was in the moment that his help was needed. This is an obvious fact of life, but one we easily overlook in our relationship with God.

One reason is that when a crisis strikes, we can focus more on why God allowed it than on what he will do in responding to it. We can turn from him in anger when we need to turn to him in prayer. This reaction is understandable, but it distances us from our Father and thus keeps us from receiving what his grace intends to give.

Jesus cried from the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46), but he then turned from his anguished question to committed trust by praying, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” (Luke 23:46). We can ask our hardest questions, but we can then turn back to our Father in faith that trusts him beyond what we understand of him.

The alternative is to view our faith through the prism of our doubts, refusing to trust God until we understand him. We don’t do this in other dimensions of our lives: we take medicine we don’t understand, sit in chairs we did not first test for structural integrity, and breathe air we did not analyze.

However, the “will to power” and drive to be our own God is ever with us (Genesis 3:5). If doubts about God can motivate self-reliance, our fallen nature will be tempted in this direction. And as Oswald Chambers noted in today’s My Utmost for His Highest entry, “As long as you are self-sufficient, you do not need to ask God for anything.”

“No man has power to retain the spirit”

None of this is logical, of course. As Solomon observed, “No man has power to retain the spirit, or power over the day of death” (Ecclesiastes 8:8). If the recent shootings in Minneapolis illustrate nothing else, they prove our mortality and inability to guarantee even one more day of life.

So our best response to tragedy is to turn immediately to the God whose help and hope we need most. As Annie Hawks’s familiar hymn prays,

I need Thee, oh, I need Thee;

Every hour I need Thee;

Oh, bless me now, my Savior!

I come to Thee.

Why do you need your Savior this hour?