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Divine Intervention In Nichols Recapture?
by Doug Payton
Originally posted to BNN 3/14/2005
I called Bill Bennett's "Morning in America" this morning to note that it appeared that Ashley Smith may have been the perfect person in Atlanta that Nichols could randomly run into, and she was able to reach him and convince him to stop running and killing. You can click here to listen. The previous caller to the show also made a point about this, so the beginning of the clip has the tail end of his call. Bill and his staff also discussed this a bit after my call, so I have some of that discussion as well. (Hence, the clip is rather large; 512K.)
Bill brings up, briefly, the problem of evil in the world. A legitimate question is that if God does directly intervene in human affairs, what about the seven Christians in Wisconsin that were gunned down yesterday while worshipping? Bill's associate Seth agreed with me that the events between Nichols and Ashley Smith were a case of divine intervention, but when Bill asked him about the Wisconsin Christians, Seth's response is just "Well, we can't question these things." Now, in his defense, Seth was trying to answer a deep, philosophical question at the spur of the moment on live radio, but the quick answer for me is that it's not that we can't question, but that we really can't know the big picture because we see things solely from our own, time-limited perspective.
Consider this event:
"My husband died four years ago, and I told him if he hurt me my little girl wouldn't have a mommy or daddy," Smith said.
Smith's attorney, Josh Archer, said her husband died in her arms after being stabbed.
At that moment in time, how easy would it be to take that event and say, "This is God's divine intervention"? Humanly, it would be nigh well impossible. But Christians have this assurance:
And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. - Romans 8:28
I like the way the translation "The Message" puts it:
That's why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good. - Romans 8:28
The main thing to note is that there is no guarantee that all things that happen to us will be good; only that God can use everything that happens to us for good, if we let Him ("...to them that love God, to them who are called according to his purpose.") Bad things may happen, but God's promise is that it will be a greater good that the good we would have chosen for ourselves.
Ashley Smith had a life experience that prepared her to face Brian Nichols, and to possibly spare the lives of others he might have killed. We don't know what might have happened, and we don't know how God can bring good from the deaths of those Nichols did kill or those who were killed in Wisconsin. However, we've been given a glimpse of the big picture in the life of Ashley Smith. God doesn't promise us all the answers--the big picture--because we're finite and really wouldn't be able to understand it. God just asks us to trust Him, and He gives us these little glimpses into the big picture occasionally so that we can see how things, as tragic as they may be, can and do "work together for good" for those who've given control of their lives to God.
Doug Payton blogs at Considerettes.
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