Pray for Charleston and then some

There is a song that plays in my head as I think about the shooting  in Charleston, it goes…….                                             

I’ll give you peace, when the storm is raging, I’ll be your light when the road ahead seems dim ......... I have the power, just put your trust in me, anything you need have faith indeed……….just ask, just ask in my name….

As I think about the shooting, my mind reflects to a question I first asked back when I heard the story of the church bombing of, “the four little girls” and later in life when I heard of other churches being burned down.  “How can people do this, it’s a church?”  I never understood the logic behind this.  No more than when I read books about slavery and the Bible was used as justification to demean, destroy and humiliate other, “human Beings”.  This made NO more sense than burning crosses in front of homes, then stating that God doesn’t like a particular ethnic group. #Really?

I consider myself a very level headed individual (because if see more than just one side of a situation)which often people do not agree with  but that’s ok, but this situation angers me.  It’s hard to be a Christian and listen to all the hate motivated  acts being committed against my people and not feel  that something a little more in the here and now then prayer is needed.  People are getting tired; we are in the midst of a time when people don’t even look at a church, the building that historically has represented a gathering place of believers in God, as a sacred place that should never be touched.  People have come into funerals shooting people. I am saddened by the lack of respect for the building and what it represents.  I would be just as saddened if it were a Cathedral, Mosque or Synagogue.  In my grandmother’s voice, Church ain’t the place for foolishness”.   

I can be truly honest with myself today, back in my younger years I struggled with how I felt about other ethnic groups (primarily based on my experiences, backed up by reading my history).  What I felt never made me want to take a life.  No matter how I felt about people, places and things (I visited the prison that held Byron Delay Beckwith, murderer of Medgar Evans) and the thoughts that ran through my mind (pure unadulterated hatred), the anger that pulsated through my veins, didn’t make me want to take the life of this man. The God in me even then, convicted me.  We are in the midst of something bigger then we think right now.  Be it spiritual war, the brink of racial uprising or the destruction that comes before the calm and rebuild.  But we are in the midst of something. Don’t believe me look at the news, look at the world, look at the youth of today, look at the homes, look at the churches (mega churches in the midst of poor neighborhoods or have congregations where members are barely surviving) and look within your own (family, self, kids, community).  This is not meant to make you paranoid but to tell you to arm yourself with the word of God (whoever you pray to) because it’s going to take heavenly intervention to undo this earthly unrest.  What’s going on will take, “somebody bigger then you and I”.

Be blessed, be safe, and pray often