Anger

One thing that hurts my heart so much about the school shooting in Connecticut is all the anger it has created.  

Anger towards the boy who went in and hurt so many families. Anger at gun control laws.  Anger with the system. Anger with not being able to do anything.

But what really does anger lead to?  Nothing good has ever come out of blind anger.  Very few times has anger lead to something good, and usually it's a righteous, justified anger.  I'm not saying that some don't have righteous anger for what happened.  But we can't be angry at the shooter.  We can't be angry at the government and our legal system.  We can't even be mad at ourselves.  

This is all because our world is broken.  On our own, we are hopeless.  Left to our own moral judgments and selfish intentions, this will keep happening and happening over and over again.  We as people are not intrinsically good, because we have poisoned ourselves.    

I know that sounds harsh, but that is what God tells us.  We were created for good.  But sin has polluted our world.  And now we are left with the consequences   Now, every human is born with the internal drive to disobey our Father.  We are selfish, and we think for ourselves.  

But that's the beauty of our Creator.  He sees us in our grime and loves us anyway.  Even as we run in the opposite direction, He pursues us.  He loves us.  He has always loved us.  He will always love us.  

And He loves all of us.  He loves you, and me.  He loves those 20 young children who died.  He loves the teachers who stood in the way of the bullets to protect their students.  He loves the young man who did all of this.  

He has loved the worst of us, and the best of us.  But even through all that He knows that we can never measure up with Him on our own.  So He gave us a way to get to Him, by dying in our place.  You see, the most powerful force on this earth is love, but not the love we have for our families, the love we have for our friends.  But the love a Father has for His children. Enough to die for us.  

So all this anger?  It just feeds into the cycle we as humans are cursed with.  

I don't claim to know everything.  I don't claim to know what good could possibly come out of this.  But I do claim the truth of God's Word in my life, in this world.  And  I know that He holds all things.  I am His, and He holds me in the palm of His hand.   I know He is orchestrating all of this in accordance to His plan.  His plans are there to give us a hope and a future.  

And I know my future is going to be with Him.  If you don't, do not hesitate to talk to me.  Because I would love to introduce you to a love that is more amazing and powerful than all the hate, violence, and pain in this world.  

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Edit: 

I wrote all of this late last night before I went to bed, trying to get my thoughts out so I could sleep.  

Today in Bible Fellowship Groups (AKA Sunday School), we talked about the wise men.  It struck me that Herod, who got the same evidence as the wise men did, responded to the Christmas message of hope, peace, and love in anger, fear, and jealousy.  How dare another king be born to take his place?

But don't we sometimes react the same?  God, how could you do this thing? How could you allow my life to be affected, altered, in such a negative way?

But the thing about us, in our humanity, we can't see the ultimate outcome.  We don't know how things will work out in the end, but God does.  He knows how it will all work out in the end. 

None of us will have all the answers.  But we can trust and rely on the Lord of the Universe, that he has all things under his control.  

Thoughts on 12/14/12

I am numb outside, but a ball of pain on the inside.

To look around me on an average day, it hurts to see the pain of those around me.  Their loneliness.  Their heartache.  Their pain.

But today?  It hurts even more.  Families totally torn apart.  Small children who are gone in a second. So many questions. Not nearly enough answers. Confusion that may never go away.  

Our world is broken.  It is totally dark, dying, infected and decayed.  There's no one who can deny that.  

What people seem so keen to deny is our world's need for a Savior.  Someone not of us, so not tainted by our infection, yet one of us who completely understands and identifies with us.  

I don't understand why this happened, so close to the holiday season.  I don't know why someone my own age would ever think the answer to his own problems would be to kill 20 young children.  I don't know why so many have to deal with the ramifications of this for their lives.  I don't know why the most innocent, the most precious of people in our world had to go so soon.  

I do know that it hurts God a million times more than it hurts me.  He hates that His precious children have to go through such disease and muck in this world.  He created a world that He called good, but now it is tainted by a curse we ourselves brought upon us.

But He loved us enough to give us a way out.  He came to earth Himself to take on all the muck, the mire, the grime, even though He didn't have to. And finally, He died in atonement for our sin.  He took our place and died for us, so we didn't have to suffer eternally.  

I will be in prayer for the families affected today. If I could, I would hug each and every one of them.  But I know God is with them, even if they choose to turn away from Him.  He loves us enough to stick with us through everything.

I just pray, in this Christmas season, through their heartache they can see the arms of Him who came, 2,000 years ago as a baby Himself, waiting to surround them in comfort and peace.  

The Burden of Prayer

I've always been people oriented.  I have always wanted to do the best for other people.  I have a tendency to feel empathy for others that I hardly know.  My heart aches with other people. When someone is greatly troubled, I am greatly troubled too.  

If it were up to me, I would take all the bad things away from the world, just so everyone else didn't have to deal with them. I couldn't even begin to count how many times I wished I could take a horrible situation away from someone else so they could be happy and a peace.  Even if that meant that I would have to deal with that situation myself.  

So prayer for others comes sort of easy for me.  I tend to pray for others far more than I pray for myself.  Because I've seen the power of prayer from an honest, genuine, broken heart.  And my heart is most often broken for others.  

But constant intersession for others can start to wear on a girl.  If I'm not careful, burden upon burden can start to pile on.  

For the girl in my class who looked teary eyed.  For my friend whom I've drifted from, but can still tell she's hurting.  For my friend who is stoic, but still letting on that he's bothered.  For the man, sitting on the street, waiting for a stranger's kindness. For a girl in an orphanage miles and miles away, wanting to be loved.  For the anonymous guy online, commenting in hatred to boost his own esteem.  For my father when he's sick.  For my mother as she's weary. For my sister as she's stressed out.  For my roommate as we talk about our lives.  For my unsaved friends who are lost in the darkness.  For a school campus full of students searching through the dark, trying to convince themselves they know what's going on, but knowing they're floundering.  

The list can go on and on and on and on.  

Sometimes, I get so caught up in praying for other's burdens, that I don't realize I'm taking them on myself.  But that is not what God calls us to do.  He calls us not to take the weight off of others' shoulders ourselves, but to show them how to exchange their burden for His:

"Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." - Matthew 11:28-30

It's something I'm still learning, something God still has to remind me of.  Old habits die hard, they say.