We will pursue?

I stopped writing not too long ago for several reasons.  I didn't have a writing project to work on, I lacked consistent inspiration, a lot of the things I was thinking were just too vulnerable, I'm just too much of a perfectionist and lacked enough time, and a number of other worthless excuses.  At the end of the day, I gave into excuses and let my voice fall silent.

This morning I woke up to something many of you saw on last night's news broadcast and I couldn't imagine the heartbreak so many are going through in Connecticut.  That was until I opened Facebook and scrolled through my newsfeed to see "good" people answering hate with hate and I thought, "This is exactly what Satan wants."  My heart broke.  And shockingly, it had nothing to do with the death innocent children.  Let me explain...

Satan doesn't just come to kill, he comes to destroy.  The one thing he wants to destroy more than anything is the testimony and voice of the children of God.  When we call for the death or endless eternal torture of Ryan Lanza, James Eagan Holmes, Dylan Klebold, Seung Hui Cho, or any of the other gunman over the last couple of decades, we encourage the destruction of our own testimony.  We can call it justice all we want, but God already told us to leave that to Him, so do we really think we're better at that than He is?  So the world sees us as objects of wrath and hate.  Just like them.

I was thinking this morning about how we respond to tragedy.  The truth is, is that many of those families will either run to the church to make sense of this atrocity or run from it because a good God would never allow something like this to happen.  For the first group of families, it's not enough to offer condolences to help them through, even the most evil people on the planet can offer a shoulder to cry on.  We have to protect them from bitterness, rage, and revenge and lead them to forgiveness, peace, and true joy.  For the second group, we need to pursue them and not allow them to justify their hatred for Ryan Lanza and God.  Bitterness and hatred are seeds planted that need to be ripped out of the soil of our hearts immediately before the roots dig in.  Even though this goes against common sense, now, hours removed from the shooting, is the easiest time to rid the families affected of their bitter hearts and desire for revenge.  

In the next few days, these families will weep, yell, break things, overeat, not eat, not get out of bed, or mourn in various ways, but despite the emotions of the moment, now is our time to act.  Now, we need to point people to Jesus, not just invite them to church.  We need to help them focus on God's love, not Ryan Lanza's hate... or even their own.  We can't justify their evil thoughts because of the tragedy, we have to help them renew their mind and focus on life rather than death.

Sure, this is easy for me to say right now because I'm thousands of miles away and don't know anyone for Connecticut.  But unfortunately, I know that because of the world we live in, tragedy will strike me as well.  I can't convince myself I'm immune to any of this or any of these thoughts, but I pray daily that should tragedy strike me, I would have people around me to point me to what's important and remind me of these very words.  No one should ever face tragedy alone, but because of how we're raised, we're told that a strong person gets them self through these situations, rather than honestly facing the situation and letting someone come alongside them.  The flip side is that we let people get through it themselves rather than pursue them with genuine love.

Pursuit is a funny word.  Did you know you can't pursue something sitting down?  Or that you can't say you pursued something that fell in your lap?  You also can't pursue something by thinking about it without giving it your time or energy.  I read one time (I'm 90% sure it's true and 10% sure I didn't just make up the last stat) that a tiger has a pursuit trigger in its brain that when it's set off, the tiger will die of exhaustion before it gives up.  With that in mind, can I really say I'm pursuing the encouragement of these families, or pursuing God, or really pursuing anything other than apathy and laziness?  

If it were easy to help people through tragedy or pain, antidepressants, suicides, and mass shootings would affect our daily lives about as much as Bigfoot or aliens.  Sadly for us, that's not the case.  It's not about people with the gift for encouragement writing letters or making phone calls.  It's about all of us actually caring enough for people to pursue them despite our personalities or selfish desires.  We must think of others more highly than ourselves, and whether or not we do that decides whether or not we actually are a united country.  Or even beyond that, a united Body... 

So is this just a few words on a screen or a call to action?  I guess you decide that one...