MONDAY MORNING REFLECTIONS - IT'S TIME TO DO SOMETHING

  BY STEVE DUNN

   Valentine’s Day saw another horrific event in our nation.  Seventeen people were killed in a high school in Florida by a gunman with an alarmingly troubled past.  After that the debate over gun control was once again pushed to the forefront, the cries for better mental health were amped up, and predictably the recriminations and accusations over responsibility began to flow.  All the responses were predictable (including some of mine).  Unfortunately, more and more people are throwing up their hands, saying that there is nothing we can do.

     Dear Church, throwing up our hands is not an option.  If we do so, the spiral of violence will continue and the collateral damage inflicted on innocent human beings will multiply.  Someone posted this week on Facebook that expecting Washington to do something is lunacy. Actually, I pray Washington WILL do something, but I suspect given the division in this nation and its extremes, what Washington will do will not begin to be enough.

    More and more I am convicted that only Jesus is the answer. Not the politicized or trivialized Jesus that too many embrace; but the real Jesus.  The Jesus that transforms peoples’ hearts and minds.  The Jesus that challenges the church to stop its inward focus where it is only concerned with maintenance of its traditions and satisfying its own members consumeristic desires.  The Jesus that bids us to look to our own hearts and see where the culture of violence has infected us, the followers of the Prince of Peace.  To honestly and courageously be willing to change the things in our lives that contribute to this culture.

      The Jesus who commands, “Go!” being salt and light and making disciples.  The Jesus who calls us to welcome the least, the last, and the lost into our midst where they can find the love of Christ that can heal hearts and minds.

     I truly wish we would stop being so automatically demanding of our rights that we are not prepared to do the right thing as God reveals it to us.

     For God calls us to DO SOMETHING.  And it starts with prayer for the wisdom to know what that something is.

© 2018  by Stephen L. Dunn.  You have permission to reprint this provided it is unchanged, proper authorship is cited, it is in a publication not for sale, and a link is provided to this site or to www.drstevedunn.com. For all other uses, contact Steve at sdunnpastor@gmail.com