It’s a blue sky, late June afternoon and I’m living quiet and pondering.  Rarely one to be timid, I have been thinking and wondering.

Should I?  Shouldn’t I?  The answer is

with fear and trembling, Yes.  I’m going to write what I’ve been thinking and I may find myself in hot water.

I walked this morning.

A long way.  Well, a long way for me.  Seven or eight KM and my feet are sore.  More than my feet, my brain is sore and more than that

my heart.  My heart is So Sore.  Today more than yesterday or the day before, there is trouble in my deepest soul.

Oh My Fellow Humans.  Where are we and why did we choose this place?  Why would we want to be

Here?  Not Here, but HERE in this wicked place of our own creating.

On the journey I took earlier I saw so much and heard words and I guarded myself and I’m sure I was close to yelling, right there on the street.

We live in a beautiful city.  I love this city and what a privilege to walk almost any street I want to walk on and

sure, anything can happen and who knows when something bad will happen?  But I’m not afraid.  I’m not even nervous.  It could be that I’m naive but I’ve told you before

I know God numbers my days and I am alive now and I have no idea what’s coming.

Out there, the lights turned red and I stopped.  They turned green and when the little white walking man lit up I crossed and I was confident I would make it safely to the other side.  Once, a few years ago, my husband had business in a far off place.  I went along and one of the first things he told me was to keep both feet planted on the sidewalk until my eyes told me it was safe to cross the street.  A couple of times I almost stepped out and he grabbed me and it’s a good thing because the car about to turn, at high speed, was not about to stop.  Within a few minutes of walking in that city, I had a healthy fear of the possibilities.

Today

I had no fear of my physical safety but there began to well up in me a fear of

Sin.  Darkness.

I’m thinking, now that I’ve had time to sit a few minutes. that perhaps this is what Jesus meant in

John 16:33  I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”

I keep going back to

Galatians 6:7 Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap.

Right here, right now I’m jumping in!

Nine people died the other day.  They were gunned down by a young man, because he decided to kill people.  I watched a short video of people, both black and white, standing with arms around each other, weeping, praying, talking.  I don’t even know which words I’m allowed to use to speak about people of different colours.  Believe me, I mean no unkindness, belittling or prejudice.

In Sunday School we used to sing a song

Jesus loves the little children.  All the children of the world.  Red and yellow black and white all are precious in His sight.  Jesus loves the little children of the World.

I think we aren’t allowed to sing that song anymore.  I think it is is racially unfit, unacceptable to sing.

I don’t know the motivation of the person who wrote the song but I can assure you that when we sang it, those years ago, it was a reminder that Jesus loves and so,

we are to love

Everybody.

Jesus wants everybody He created to know who He is and love Him first and then love each other.  He wants everybody He created to know that He is the only way to a life with

Hope.

He is the one who provides a future for us and that future is not here.  It’s with Him.

Those people who were gunned down that terrible day, were praying.  They were gathered to pray.  They were spending time talking to God and He was there with them.  He knows that there is evil all around and sadly

we know it too.  it’s a horrible medicine to swallow, to acknowledge and we are mired in it.  It’s getting worse.

It’s going to get worse.  And More Worse and then More.

We, the ones who know that He is the only purpose worth living for because He is the only Hope we have, are to live in peace.  We are to love and encourage

Everyone.

That troubled young man with the gun, killed because,

well I don’t know why except that for some reason he was full of hate.  The reason is beside the point.  He killed people because…

That crime was not worse than that of a young man going into a school and killing 26

Babies.

It is not worse than that of two young men who planted bombs at the finish line of a marathon, hoping to kill many many many.

It is not worse than a young mother drowning her three children in a bathtub.

It’s not worse than the hundreds and thousands of Christ followers that are being killed and have been killed by hateful, wicked people.

Yes, there is racial injustice in this World.  There is wickedness towards

People

of every colour and religious affiliation.

It. Is. All. Wrong.

It’s going to get worse, whether or not we tell people they can’t have guns.

All over the media today is a video of a talk show host.

A smirking, irreverent, disrespectful, rude, anti God

T.V. personality who gets paid to

make fun of anything and everything.

Not today though.  Today he “has nothin”.

He has only a few words to say about how awful the issue of hate crimes is.

As I listened to him I wanted to ask, “Isn’t any and every sort of murder hateful?”

People all over the place are hailing him as some sort of a king of justice and they are commending him for his willingness to set aside his crudeness and speak words of reproach to his countrymen for a crime committed by a wicked boy.  I know I am not to judge and I know that my words may be offensive but I am

disgusted and ANGRY.  It may be righteous anger.  I don’t know.  But we need to stop putting people on pedestals.  Stop giving credibility to sinful created beings instead of turning to the one who

did the creating.  It is He who has been offended.  He will not be mocked friends.  His justice will be swift and strong, at such a time as He decides.

We are all wicked.  We are all, each one, sin filled.  This crime is terrible.  This boy man needs to face the consequences.

But the real remedy for all that is going on out there,  is for each and all of us

to

fall on our knees before our Holy God, with broken and contrite hearts

and BEG for forgiveness.  

We have turned, EVERY, ONE, to his own way.

We need to stop looking at colour and look at Sin for what it is.  Causing pain to the created and offending our loving, gracious, righteous,

Holy God.

Psalm 51:17  My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise.

And even now, just hours later, the families of the slain are offering

forgiveness, in Jesus name.

That same Jesus weeps over the sin and loves the sinner and to those left behind to mourn He has already told us

He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”  Rev. 21:4