Yesterday I hear the tragic news that a nineteen-year old
girl was killed in a drive by during a house party. I discover that a few of my
teens happened to have been at this party. This wasn’t supposed to happen but
it did. It was around midnight when two cars drove by and shot randomly into a
crowd of mostly teens that were outside of this house. I heard this first via
Facebook through a few of the teens living with us and then discover when my
Anne comes home after being at the ER all night with her job that she actually
had talked with a few of these teens that had been shot.
I know that the typical reaction is to find a gun and go
after these gang bangers and return evil for evil. Just as I am made aware of
this horrible incident another one of my teens shares his story of being scared
out of his mind by another similar situation. As he is walking from Circle K
someone follows him with his friend and then shows them a gun and clearly puts
my friend in his place. It is the following day that I hear that this craziness
continues as my friend next shares about these same guys coming back and this
time shoot his friend in his leg. WHAT IS GOING ON?
It is just a matter of time before one of my teens or 20
somethings are shot by being in the wrong place at the wrong time. What is the
solution? I know that for some it is better gun control for others it is the
freedom to have your own weapon that you know will protect you from being
attacked. I go back and forth from rage and wanting real revenge to shaking my
head in a state of confusion. What has to happen in order for this to stop?
History shows many different paths from radicals like Gandhi literally starving
to death to stop the world. I also know that World Wars happen that require the
bomb that stops the world for a few minutes. Yet, today there are dictators and
tyrants who care little about life and you see the headlines of 1000’s being
gassed, mass graves and the world continues.
This becomes a matter of the heart. What pushes someone to
go against their inner sense of morality? Yes, video games and movies make it
so much easier to pull the trigger and assume that you can always continue to
play and those that you have mutilated come back to life. Yet, this is real
life when a bullet is more than capable of erasing a life in a second. I know
that the most difficult action to see happen is to have righteousness stand up
against blatant evil taking the risk that the sacrifice of a life can bring
ultimate change. I have seen the power of God transform a life and salvage what
was a hardened thug or gangbanger and put back together a life that is broken
and confused.
The challenge for me is that it is too easy to be like
others who intentionally move out of the neighborhood believing that this
solves the problem for them. Yet, this only means that those with the guns are
left. I love my wife who now has the guts to scream out of her window to the
car next to us with loud music that is demeaning to women and foul to shut it
off as I’m telling her maybe you shouldn’t be challenging this guy? Pleas stop! Yet, it takes the determination
and guts, like my Anne, to scream out to the world around you it’s TIME TO STOP
THE KILLING!
I know that between my favorite quote and movie that evil
isn’t going to be overcome unless the righteous stands up against it. The
difficulty is that everyone assumes that someone else will do this but nothing
happens. It’s time to stand up against the deceptive life style choices around
us that end up seeing good being called evil and evil now becomes the new good.
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