More Powerful than We Imagine

This is a time to weep.

More violence.

More questions.

More injured.

More dead.

I don’t have answers. I wish I did, but I suspect that if I did, they wouldn’t comfort the way we think they would. Even if I had the exact answers to the questions raised when innocent people die, it wouldn’t end the weeping.

Humans, we always think that if we just knew why, we could cope, but answers don’t raise the dead. Answers don’t resurrect. Answers aren’t the source of life.

I do know some things.

Politicians can’t control what’s coming.

Earthly powers, presidents, and kings can’t order men and women to stop thinking violent thoughts that fester and give birth to fingers on triggers, fists on jaws, palms on bombs, or swords on throats.

The Supreme Court can’t effectively rule a cure for the evil residing in hearts closed off from their Creator.

We are complex, creative, inventive, and powerful beings so when we go dark, the result is unfathomable. Talking heads on the evening news will not untangle the threads to the magic carpet on which these demons ride.

And us, the ones who weep, we need to watch our own hearts. There’s a market for this madness. We consume these headlines, these photos, each detail, every report with an insatiable appetite for more details, faster graphics, if it bleeds it leads because that’s what we demand, and that should drive us to our knees asking God to search our hearts and purify us of every mustard seed of evil that might take root in our own minds.

God has warned us that our love can grow cold because of these days. These are the times when we need to draw near to Him, the Consuming Fire, to reignite our hearts.

We want to call them monsters. Disturbed. Crazy. Mentally ill. Misdirected. Terrorists. Anti-social. Delusional. Demonic. Possessed.

We don’t want to recognize their humanity because the most frightening truth is that yesterday they sat beside us at the concert, stood behind us in line for coffee, sold us a car, wrote a prescription for our uncle, or delivered us safely to our door and we didn’t recognize how close they were to mass homicide.

That is a fear that could paralyze if it weren’t for the Perfect Love that casts out fear.

This is a time for weeping. Lives have been stolen. Others changed forever. We should weep with those who weep.

And remember when the talkers talk, that the God who warned us of these days, tells us sin is so destructive, so poisonous, so much at the root of our perversion, He sent His Son to die to save us from it. He is the Answer if people will avail themselves of the remedy. He, alone, can cure every evil, every malice, every sickness that festers within us.

Paul warns us of this in Romans 1:28-31: “And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.”

If you need to understand why, that is why.

If you need to know what to do, read Psalm 37:7-9 “Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him;    fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way, over the man who carries out evil devices! Refrain from anger, and forsake wrath! Fret not yourself; it tends only to evil. For the evildoers shall be cut off, but those who wait for the Lord shall inherit the land.”

This is a time to weep but it is also a time to act. If we are not to be overcome by evil, we must tether ourselves to His goodness. We are kingdom builders and every place our light shines, darkness flees. In Christ, we are more powerful than we imagine. Don’t wait for the world to appreciate that. Everyone takes the light for granted until it goes out. The light, however, should never neglect to shine.

The answers today are the same place they were yesterday – the darkness tries to hide them so we must light the way to God’s great heart where the only remedy to evil resides in Jesus.