Rebekah Hawk shared devotional thoughts with us this week! You can learn more about her on the contributor’s page.
We could all agree that we are living in dark days. One could argue that everyone since Adam and Eve’s Fall has been living in dark days—ours only seem so much darker because we are the ones living right now.
From the moment I glimpsed the horrific headline, my mind has been dwelling on tragedy and what my response to it should be. What is a godly response to tragedy? What I hear the Holy Spirit whispering to me today makes up the rest of this post.
We must pray. Let’s all allow our righteous anger to drive us to our knees for ourselves, the victims’ families, their community, and yes, the responding officers.
I cannot imagine the anguish these people feel. Clearly, there are massive amounts of forgiveness and healing needed – healing that only Christ can provide.
We who study our Bibles know that the spiritual darkness in our world will only get worse. Not for one second do I suggest that we sit back and wait the inevitable. I suggest doing the truly hard things:
We must be kind to the bully.
We must make friends with the outcast–at school, at work, in our social circles at ALL ages and stages of our lives.
We must look after those who can give us nothing back.
We must not wait for tragedy to remind our people of the sanctity and inestimable value of all human life.
We must look for ways to enlarge the borders of who we love in word and action.
We must vote our convictions and voice our love and concern to individuals–it is easy to demand action from others–it is far more difficult to demand action of ourselves.
The scope of evil in this world is far greater than humans can defeat. If humans could beat their own wickedness, the Son of God would not have needed to die. We will not be able to legislate our society into goodness.
The religious leaders of Jesus’s day failed, and so will we. The power of Christ’s redemption, however, reforms liars, creates self-control in zealots, turned murderers into missionaries, and compelled fishermen to give their lives to spread the Light throughout the whole world.
They believed, and I do too, that humanity’s sin earns us the wrath of the Perfect, Righteous God, that Jesus’s perfect obedience made Him the perfect sacrifice to redeem us from that wrath, and that by trusting Jesus, we have forgiveness and reconciliation with the God Who created us.
Jesus’ incredible love does not stop there: if we will submit to it, we have the divine power to love humans, not just as we love ourselves, but as the King of Forgiveness loves humans.
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” –Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
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