Can't Take It Anymore!
I’m sorry, but I can’t stand this anymore.
I wasn’t going to write anything about what happened in Connecticut last Friday – there are more than enough opinions and forums for people to express them. Actually, that in itself becomes ridiculous in that everyone can voice and opinion – no matter their understanding or no matter what little information or conviction they might have.
I just don’t have to listen to it or read it anymore.
Just like you don’t have to read this if you’d rather not.
Is this the tipping point? No, we have been deceived for the last 40 or 50 years and like a frog in a pot of tepid water that is gradually heated to boiling, it’s now too late to jump out.
Are we really so ignorant to believe that gun control will stop this? Really? Or are people are just looking for a quick remedy, a fast fix, a “let-somebody-else-do-something” so they can get back to their reality tv shows, $1 Big Macs and video games and not have to be bothered with the surgery-like pain of real change.
Common sense doesn’t play a part in our daily lives anymore and it’s insulting to be led around by the nose as if we’re all so very stupid.
Somewhere, almost a half decade ago, things really did begin to change. And listen, I don’t claim to be a social analyst or historian. I’m just thinking back over the changes of the last few decades.
There is little real reverence. It’s irrelevant.
There is little awe because we’re so very intelligent and “aware”.
There is little regard for others because, when we exist in a virtual world of play or voyeurism (watching other people’s problems and concluding “Well, at least I’m not as screwed up as them!).
Pain and heartache are suspect because people are so prone to manipulation for their own gain, we’re reluctant to give ourselves to serve them.
Isolation works. I can entertain myself. I can teach myself. I can satisfy myself. I don’t need anybody.
Someone said, “God has been invited to step away from our government, our schools and much of our lives, and being the gentleman that He is, He has obliged.”
I was startled into a disbelieving silence last Friday. There was no tearful reaction – just a whisper . . . “What?” When I saw names on the front page of a paper on Sunday, that’s what did it for me.
But if people’s hearts are not made more tender, more compassionate, more loving and all the things that happen to a heart when God in Christ lives and breathes in us, nothing, and I mean nothing (in my opinion) will change.
Terrorists, foreign and domestic, will find a way to access buildings, institutions and all public place and wreak havoc on innocents with guns, explosives in car trunks, vests filled with nails or steel ball bearings, poisons . . . the list is endless.
We have to confront this stupidity and raise the question around you. And by the grace of God respectfully confront the sheep with this truth.
This is a heart problem!
I have no idea how the parents and families of those dear children can even get out of bed today. So we pray . . .
-for peace that passes understanding, peace that is, in keeping with the situation, illogical and completely unimaginable. But peace none-the-less.
_ for compassion and tenderness of heart to surround them. That they will be overwhelmed with expressions of big love.
-And for us all, while we embrace reverence and respect, awe and wonder at things we cannot understand, faith to allow God to be God. But still, God help us to NOT be ignorant and not be silent.
Wayne Watson
December 17, 2012