September 7, 2004
My soul is troubled, angered, and mostly saddened by mankind’s continued inhumanity toward mankind. The death of hundreds of children at a school in Russia last week proves mankind is capable of the most brutal, senseless acts of violence that make it impossible to see any semblance of some men being created “in the image of God”.
I struggle to find reason in that which is totally unreasonable. Do those who do such things believe they attract others to their “god”? (If so, your god looks a lot like my devil.) Do they think they will change the minds of their victims? Or perhaps they are seeking new recruits, those misguided souls who are willing, able and ready to blow themselves up and take as many others with them as possible. But, I have already admitted, this totally defies reason.
We are at war, not with flesh and blood, but with principalities and powers in high places: spiritual warfare between good and evil. More than ever, we must be prepared by putting on “the whole armor of God”.
The best models for us are those people who have been subjected to violence, and refuse to stoop to the levels of their offenders. Booker T. Washington showed us a more excellent way when he said, “I will permit no man to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him.” When I think of those who perpetrate violence and death upon innocent children, a part of me, I must confess, longs to see them tormented in an especially hot section of hell. Then I remember what Jesus said upon the cross, as he was suffering the ultimate undeserved violence: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
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