When the media reported the tragic news that Camp Mystic director Dick Eastland died trying to save kids amid catastrophic Guadalupe River flooding, Dr. Jim Denison was heartbroken but unsurprised.
“Dick Eastland was a friend,” he said. “He and [his wife] Tweety have been with me to Israel twice. I don’t know a more gracious, humble, servant-hearted person.”
Denison detailed the ways Eastland served others on their Israel expeditions, stating he was the first to arrive at the bus to ensure everyone’s luggage was loaded on and would often be waiting after to be certain people safely made it to their rooms.
“That’s just who he was,” Denison said. “He was known to be kind of the grandfather of the camp. I mean, generations. … They took over Camp Mystic in 1974, and he and Tweety just gave their lives to it.”
He continued, “So, in one sense, I wasn’t surprised when the news said that he had died trying to save some of the campers. That was just who he was.”
Denison said Eastland was simply the type of person to “run to the flood” or to a fire to try and rescue others, noting, “That’s just how he was wired.” He said it’s the very same passion that led Eastland and his wife to take over the beloved Texas-based camp decades ago.
“You want to live in such a way that when you act heroically, people aren’t surprised — that when you act in faith, people say that’s just who you are,” Denison said. “That’s, I think, a lesson that Dick can teach us even today … to be the kind of people that other people expect to rise to the crisis, and to step out in faith, and to demonstrate the grace of Christ.”
In the wake of a natural disaster in which at least 27 Camp Mystic campers and counselors have died — and at least 100 in the area are deceased or missing overall — Denison, like many, has been forced to ask some of the difficult theological questions surrounding such a tragic horror.
Mainly: why did a good and loving God allow this to happen – and why did He not stop it?
“This is so close to me,” Denison said. “This is personal for me. … My background’s in philosophy. I spend a lot of time thinking about evil and suffering from an academic point of view.”
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He continued, “For me, it’s not just an intellectual, even professional issue. It becomes a very personal issue.”
But, while questions and doubts are natural in difficult times, Denison urged people to remember what C.S. Lewis said after his own wife died from cancer.
“He said his fear wasn’t that he would stop believing in God,” Denison said. “His fear was that he would come to say, ‘OK, so this is what God’s really like.’”
This posture can lead people to attribute negative qualities to God and hold misguided understandings.
“We all ask the question and we should,” Denison said of the “why.” “The wrong approach is to take the off ramp that says, ‘OK, He’s not all loving. He’s not all powerful. He’s not all knowing.’”
He added, “First of all, I can’t understand God. My mind is finite and fallen. A first-grader can’t understand calculus. … It’s Isaiah 55: His ways are higher than mine, His thoughts are higher than mine. I can’t expect to understand the nature of God Himself, and I have to keep that in mind.”
Denison said it’s also important to remember the Lord has the “bigger picture in mind” and that He redeems everything that unfolds. Rather than running from God in times of crisis, he encouraged people to run to the Lord.
“We bring our questions to Him,” he said. “We ask our hard questions of Him, and we ask Him to redeem this in our lives and through our lives.”
Denison said it’s also important to look for ways to help ourselves, which is often sparked by being the hands and feet of Jesus — something that helps us rediscover His peace.
“One of the best ways to experience the peace of God is to share the peace of God,” Denison said. “One of the best ways to experience His presence is to … manifest His presence. And, so, even in my hurting, I can say, ‘Lord, direct me to someone else that’s hurting like me.’”
Ultimately, though, it all boils down to asking difficult questions and realizing that these situations — and the mourning and pain — aren’t simple issues; they’re complex dynamics that should be treated as such.
Denison recalled speaking at a series of university chapel events years ago. Just days before he arrived, four students were killed and the community was in mourning.
“The person who was the campus minister who was up introducing me in the midst of this horrific crisis … said something I’ve never forgotten,” Denison said. “He said, ‘If anyone offers easy answers today, run fast. Run fast. Pay no attention. Don’t hear it. There are no easy answers to this.’”
Dealing with the complexities is key, he argued.
Denison also offered advice for those struggling amid pain to make sense of the seemingly nonsensical, pointing back to Christ’s own proclamation on the cross: “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me” (Matthew 27:46)?
“First thing to do is to admit it, to know that it’s there,” he said of struggle and doubt. “It’s not a lack of faith to have doubts and questions. If Jesus … could cry from the cross, we can ask that as well. It’s an expression of faith.”
Expressing, through prayer, that one doesn’t understand why something has happened can be helpful and turning to Scripture is essential, he added. Watch above for his full theological discussion on the matter.
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