Perry Noble: Pastor Davey Blackburn, Whose 28-Y-O Pregnant Wife Was Murdered, to Share Life 6 Months Later
Megachurch pastor Perry Noble has announced that he will be sitting down with Pastor Davey Blackburn of Resonate Church in Indiana to discuss what he has learned six months after his young wife was murdered in their home.
Noble, who oversees NewSpring Church in Anderson, South Carolina, announced on his blog this week that Blackburn will be joining him on stage this Sunday to "share how God has come to show him that he (and you and I) really do have what it takes to make it through this."
The South Carolina pastor details his friendship with Davey, who was employed at NewSpring before he and his then newlywed wife, Amanda, chose to move to Indianapolis, Indiana, to plant their new church, Resonate, in 2012.
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"'We've got to go to Indianapolis. We've got to plant this church. We're going to do this. We want to see Jesus make a difference in Indianapolis,'" Noble quotes the couple as telling him, saying that NewSpring sponsored the new Resonate Church and Noble has "gotten to watch God do remarkable things in them and through them over the last 3 years."
Noble adds that when he learned Amanda had been killed during a home invasion last November, his first response was "No, God, not her."
"I would love to tell you that in that moment, my faith was rock solid. But when I heard the news I, just like you, thought, 'No, God. No. Not her. This isn't her time, God. She's 28-years-old and she's got a little boy. They're expecting a little girl, God. No.' I was crying, complaining, confused and shaken," the pastor writes.
Despite the hearteache he's watched Davey endure after losing his wife, who was 12 weeks pregnant at the time of her death, Noble writes that over the past several months, "I've watched Davey follow Jesus through this storm. His world has been shaken. His faith has not."
Romans 8:28 is a great example for Davey's life, Noble continues, as it says that "[…] in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose."
"Amanda Blackburn loved Jesus. She was called according to His purpose. The same is true for Davey, and because of what the Bible tells us in Romans 8:28, I KNOW that God is working for their good. The cross is proof that when we think God has lost control, He is still in control and can use all things for good," Noble writes.
Amanda, 28, was beaten and shot three times in the early morning hours of Nov. 10 after Davey went to the gym. The pastor and church planter returned to find his wife unconscious from multiple gunshot wounds and their 15-month-old son, who was left unharmed.
Larry Jo Taylor Jr., 18, and Jalen Watson, 21, have been charged with murder. The two young suspects, who have pled not guilty to the crime, have been accused of partaking in a string of home break-ins during the month of November in the Indianapolis area.
Speaking at his late wife's father's church last December, Davey suggested that he believes God has asked him to endure such suffering so he may better glorify Him.
The pastor detailed a conversation he had with God in which God asked: "'Davey, I want my church, I want my bride to come alive. And if I had asked you, Davey, before this if you were willing to give up your bride so that my bride can come alive, what would you have said?'"
"Of course, like anybody else I said 'absolutely not. There is no way.' I'm good with being married and having two little kids, pastoring a church of 120 for the rest of my life. I am good with comfort. And the Lord said, 'That's why I didn't ask you the question beforehand.' Because sometimes when you say, I surrender all, you mean I surrender some. So you are put in a situation where you have to surrender all," he added.
