There is perhaps no question more piercing, more gut-wrenching, more destabilizing to the soul of faith than this one: Why does God not stop school shootings?
It cuts to the marrow of theology, philosophy, and raw human existence. It confronts the faithful with a dilemma that cannot be shrugged off with a cheap platitude or a stitched-on slogan of Sunday simplicity. It demands a serious, sober reckoning with the God who is said to be both sovereign and good, omnipotent yet intimately compassionate, eternal and yet involved.
And it is here, in the cracked asphalt of the modern world, where children fall under the roar of gunfire in places that were meant to be safe, that the tension feels unbearable.
The Bible itself does not flinch from the weight of suffering. Job, sitting among the ashes, scraping his wounds with pottery shards, cries out for answers. The psalmists rage, lament, and howl like wolves at the silent moon of heaven. Habakkuk thunders, “How long, O Lord, must I call for help, but You do not listen? Or cry out to You, ‘Violence!’ but You do not save?” The text itself legitimizes our anguish. It tells us that our lament is not rebellion but relationship, not weakness but worship in its most honest, bloodied form.
And yet—if God is all-powerful, why not intervene? Why not send the weapon to misfire, the bullet to dissolve, the shooter to collapse in repentance before even lifting the gun? If He stilled the stormy sea for His disciples, why not still the chaos of a deranged soul? I cannot ask this without trembling, because I too have sat before news screens with my stomach twisted, my heart heavy, and my prayers choked by tears. I have wondered why heaven seems hidden when hell breaks loose in hallways lined with lockers and laughter turned to screams.
The problem of evil has always been the jagged thorn in the rose of faith. Augustine wrestled with it, Aquinas dissected it, C.S. Lewis agonized over it. The conclusion of Scripture is not that God is the author of evil, but that humanity has been granted the haunting dignity of free will. Love, to be authentic, cannot be programmed. To allow for genuine relationship, God granted real choice, and with choice comes the terrifying potential for unspeakable harm. The tree in Eden was not a trap but a test—an invitation into trust. When Adam and Eve grasped for autonomy, they opened the floodgates of sin, a river whose currents carry still into the twenty-first century with the carnage of classrooms.
This does not make it easier to accept. Free will as an explanation can feel like a sterile theological prescription to a hemorrhaging heart. And yet, it is necessary if we are to hold together both the reality of human wickedness and the reality of God’s goodness. The shooter is not a puppet; the victims are not chess pieces. To destroy free will would be to dismantle the possibility of love, and God, Scripture says, is love.
Still, one may ask, could not God intervene selectively, stopping school shootings but leaving intact our everyday decisions? Could He not build a moral firewall around children? I ask this too, late at night, when sleep is a stranger and silence is cruel. The truth is that if God constantly suspended the consequences of evil, the very fabric of creation would unravel into farce. Cause and effect would lose meaning. Justice would be nullified. We would no longer live in a real world but in a staged theater where the props of choice were illusions. Evil’s possibility is terrible, but it is also the dark backdrop against which redemption shines brightest.
The Scriptures are clear: this is not how the story ends. The present world, cracked and bloodied, is not the final chapter. The promise of Revelation is of a day when every tear will be wiped, every death undone, every cry silenced by the presence of the Lamb. But until then, we live in the “already, not yet”—a world where Christ has conquered sin at the cross but where the groaning of creation continues. Paul says creation groans like a woman in labor. And labor pains, as any mother knows, are not meaningless—they signal that new life is near.
I will confess here: when I hear of another shooting, I feel the groaning in my own chest. I want answers clean and sharp as glass. Instead, what I find in Scripture is a Savior who does not offer distant explanation but intimate incarnation. God Himself entered into the violence of our world. Jesus knew injustice, betrayal, mockery, torture. He was crucified—public execution, state-sanctioned violence, the ancient equivalent of a mass shooting. God did not remain aloof; He descended into our blood and dirt. He suffers with us, and by His wounds we are healed.
It is not that God cannot stop evil; it is that He has chosen to defeat it at its root rather than trim its branches endlessly. The cross was the cosmic intervention, the event through which evil is ultimately judged and overthrown. Every atrocity will one day be answered, every secret act of violence exposed, every tear redeemed. Justice delayed is not justice denied. The God of Scripture is not apathetic but patient, “not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.”
Patience, however, is agony for the grieving. Parents who bury children are not comforted by abstract timelines of eternity. I think often of Mary at the cross—watching her Son die before her eyes. God Himself knows what it means to be a grieving parent. The Father was not indifferent when the nails pierced the hands of His Son. He is not indifferent now when bullets pierce the bodies of His children. His heart breaks with ours.
Some will say, “But I prayed for protection, and still tragedy came.” I have whispered this myself. Faith is not a shield against all earthly harm; it is a furnace through which we pass, forged and scarred but not destroyed. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego declared before the fire, “Our God is able to deliver us, and He will deliver us. But even if He does not, we will not bow.” Even if He does not—those words are the hardest, yet they are the spine of true faith. To trust Him not only when He parts the sea but when the waves swallow.
And so, what of us? We who remain in this fractured in-between? We are not called to shrug at evil, but to resist it. To mourn with those who mourn. To fight for justice, to comfort the broken, to bear witness that evil does not have the last word. The Church must not be silent or sentimental—it must be present in the pain, gritty in its compassion, relentless in its hope.
In my own life, faith has never erased the questions, but it has anchored me in the storm. When I stare into the abyss of senseless tragedy, I see Christ staring back—scarred, wounded, yet radiant with a promise that what was meant for evil will one day be woven into good. I cling to that like a drowning man clings to driftwood. And I have found that the driftwood bears me, not because I understand, but because He has endured.
So why does God not stop school shootings? Because He has chosen to permit a world with free will, with consequence, with real love and real evil, so that one day He may usher in a world where evil is no more. Because He is not a magician manipulating outcomes but a Redeemer remaking creation from the ground up. Because His silence now is not absence but patience, His delay not apathy but mercy.
It is unsatisfying, raw, unresolved—just as the world is. But faith is not neat. It is a scar, not a bandage. It is blood, not varnish. It is standing before the grave and still saying, “I believe.” It is hearing the echo of gunfire in a school hallway and still whispering, through tears, “Come, Lord Jesus.”
And He will. That is the unshakable hope. The shooter does not write the final word. Neither do the headlines. The last word belongs to the Word made flesh, crucified and risen, returning to set the world right. Until then, we lament, we labor, we love fiercely in the face of evil, and we cling to the God who has not abandoned us, even when we cannot understand His ways.
For in the end, the blood of Christ speaks a better word than the blood spilled in classrooms. His voice thunders not with bullets but with resurrection. His answer is not an explanation but Himself. And that is enough.
When words fade and the ache of the world lingers, sometimes the only thing left is to wear what we believe, to carry conviction on our sleeves, to walk through the chaos clothed in symbols of faith and resilience. If this reflection stirred something in you—if you long to embody your belief in a way that is bold, authentic, and unashamed—I invite you to explore Faith Mode streetwear. Every piece is more than fabric; it’s a declaration, a quiet defiance against despair, a reminder that light still breaks through the darkest halls. Step into the culture of faith, style, and strength—step into Faith Mode.
