By Richard Prow

When tragedy strikes, as it did in Newtown Connecticut this past week, we are drawn to churches and ministers. We are looking for consolation and we are looking for answers. We need help getting through it and we need help understanding it. We want to know why something like this happened, or rather, and more to the point, why it was allowed to happen. Simply put, we want to know how God plays into this whole thing.
We in the ministry can offer up the proper Christian responses. You’ve heard them before. Of how men abuse the gift of free will. Or how justice isn’t always served in this life. Or how one day God will do away with all kinds of evil. But frankly, and with all due respect, that isn’t enough.
Those answers can’t help a mother understand why her prayers for her children’s protection seemed to go unnoticed. They can’t help a father reconcile the promises of God for His children with the massacre of his own child. They can’t help some of us to at times question our faith.
Maybe, and this could be the point of this article, we don’t always need to come up with a solid theological answer. Maybe we need to set aside our ecclesiastical egos long enough to say, “I don’t know.” Maybe, just maybe, we need to stop speaking Christianese long enough to be real.
I have found over the years that real ministry can’t be found in a biblical commentary. It’s location is in the streets. It is crying with people. Holding people. Grieving with people. And yes, at times questioning with people.
God doesn’t always give us all the answers and we shouldn’t others.  What God has given us however is Himself. And sometimes that’s all that’s required of us.
 “When He saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd” (Matthew 9:36).