Like you, I've been stunned since hearing the news from Newtown, Connecticut. How?
Why?
Uncertain of how to feel or think, I turned to an unusual devotional book I've used and shared with others since my college days, Come Away My Beloved, by Frances J. Roberts. The book is written like Jesus Calling, by Sarah Young, as it provides a first-person voice for God backed by Scripture.
Asking God to direct me, I let the book open where it would and shuddered as I read a "random" selection titled "Lie Not Dormant."
"My child, I have need of thee. . . Thou canst not lie idle without hindering the ministry of the Church as a corporate body . . . . For we know that the whole world lieth in a sleep of death in the lap of the wicked one, as a child napping unsuspecting in a death-trap."
People are looking for explanations and for someone to blame for Adam Lanza, a 20-year-old with no violent record, forcing his way into a school and taking human lives, shooting kindergarten children. Ironically, when tragedy strikes, people who once showed God the door then blame Him for the evil seeping and creeping in where He was once at home.
Do we blame the schools for lack of security?
The government for lack of help for the mentally ill?
The media for giving so much attention to criminals who commit heinous crimes?
Peers who may have mocked, bullied or ostracized Lanza?
Parents who underestimated the seriousness of Lanza's remoteness?
Could believers, you and I, be to blame for hindering love?
"But be thou watchful and diligent and alert, for the time is at hand. . . keep thyself free for the guidance and use of the Spirit of God, even as He directeth thee moment by moment."
"Be not overcome of evil but squeeze out the unprofitable things with an abundance of good."
Blame abounds, but I wonder if we understand Jesus taught us how to stem the tide of these types of scenarios from playing out in our towns, in our schools, theaters and churches. What if, instead of huddling with our own and keeping the "bad kids" out we worked to create a New Town as:
Parents teach our children by example to reach out to the kids on the fringes?
Believers open our homes - to the problem children, to the unloved and unloveable, to the rejected, and the least likely to succeed - to show them Christ?
Christian young people insist on youth programs to emphasize activities for anyone and everyone instead of focusing on expensive entertainment?
Churches spend more time, resources, and hospitality building relationships with unreached people in our own neighborhoods and communities, even as we place an offering in the plate for international missions?
"Be not overcome of evil but squeeze out the unprofitable things with an abundance of good."
“Here’s another way to put it: You’re here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. We’re going public with this, as public as a city on a hill. If I make you light-bearers, you don’t think I’m going to hide you under a bucket, do you? I’m putting you on a light stand. Now that I’ve put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand—shine! Keep open house; be generous with your lives. By opening up to others, you’ll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven. " Matthew 5:14-16 (The Message)
Lord, God, help us. Your children have slept through so many negative, anti-You cultural changes without responding. Please, don't let Satan trick us into withdrawing even further into our "safe zones." Use the horror and loss of this tragedy to compel us into action, into lighting the places You've placed us with Your Light. Father, wake us up and keep us alert to how You want to use us - for the time is at hand. Don't let evil overcome us, but help us overcome evil with abundance on abundance of good.
In the Name of Jesus, Who holds the children in His loving, safe Arms
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