Brokenness cries out.
Injustices ramp up the internal fire being stoked.
Our nation is in crisis. Voices waiting to be heard turned to rioters tearing up cities.
Businesses destroyed. Historical buildings targeted and set on fire. Flagrant disregard for property all across our nation.
Our hearts are devastated because of violence, because of pain.
Unexpressed pain turns to anger and then bitter. Bitterness always searches for a place to manifest when wounded places are not healed.
Voices search for ears that will listen, hearts that will respond.
I sit in my house. It’s quiet except for the birds, peacefully singing and gliding around. However, at the click of my finger, I can pull up the brokenness of major cities all across this nation. The pain is insurmountable.
Peaceful protests turned violent. Some protests held onto self control and remained peaceful. Others did not.
People come flooding in demanding justice on the tail end of an unjust murder of a black man by a police officer.
3 other officers watched, doing nothing as the man said, I can’t breathe.
The officer had his knee on the man’s throat for nine minutes. Five-hundred-forty seconds.
Bystanders begging him to stop, the police officer nonchalantly kept his knee pressed on the man’s throat as He begged for him to stop.
It was the tipping point.
The agony of seeing that video was too much. The more viral it went the louder the cries for justice were heard. Rightly so.
The Compiling of Events That Broke a Nation
This was on the tail end of a young black man who was out jogging became hunted down because some men were suspicious of him. This was 3 weeks earlier.
Another incident recently was a black man being wrongly accused of threatening a woman’s life in Central Park while He bird-watched. He respectfully asked a white woman to put her dog on a leash because that was a park rule.
She called the police with the false accusation saying the man was threatening her life.
The black man recorded her and never approached the woman, not even raising his voice just simply asking her to leash her dog.
Another case was a twenty-six-year-old young black woman who was shot and killed while in bed.
The FBI raided the wrong house, looking for drugs. She was shot and died.
The pain was just too great. The rumbling and escalating voices of pain began to gain momentum. Enough is enough. The pain deserves to be heard and stopped.
No more stereotyping. No more profiling because of the color of someone’s skin.
When Good Becomes Bad
Crazed ideas get mixed in with the logical cries for justice. Good police officers get lumped in with the really bad ones which tarnishes the names of the good ones.
People who once were friends and ate together are now viciously attacking one another because of opinions and words spoken.
Racism, white privilege, riots, historical symbols being removed, buildings defaced, defunding police departments, shouting expletives at each other, black lives matter vs. all lives matter,
So much pain and division. We must confront injustices but evil cannot drive out evil. Hating and hurting one another will only continue tearing our nation apart.
True Repentance
Repentance is not saying, ‘They need to repent,’ it’s saying ‘we all need to repent.’ We have all been wrong in one way or another. We have all fallen short.
Look inside, inspect your own heart. Remove the beam from our own eyes before we start looking at the spec of dust in someone else’s eye.
It is not about “them” whoever they may be for you. It is about you, it’s about me, it’s about our lack of honor and respect for any human being.
The way we treat each other is a direct reflection on what we offer up to God.
It has always been this way. Scripture says, ‘whatever you have done unto the least of these you have done unto me.’
An Invitation to Love
The Golden rule is still the invitation to love thy neighbor as thyself. To embrace one another instead of disgrace one another.
Jeremiah cries out boldly to help us take an honest look at our personal paths.
Stand at the crossroads and look, ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls.
Jeremiah 6:16
May God heal our nation. Heal our broken hearts that are without repair unless God intervenes.
Bring unity, Lord. Help us to stop and listen to one another. To learn from one another.
Help us to forgive our wrongs towards one another and start the healing process. We know we can’t do it without you. Thank you for your mercy Lord, we need it and recognize our great need for you.