How do we respond to the attacks we have seen in Paris? Or Lebanon? Israel? Nigeria? Seemingly all over the place. Radical Islam has brainwashed humans into doing very non-human things. It is beyond me how a person, a living, breathing human, could stare down the barrel of a gun and end the life of an innocent person. How could they walk into a crowded place and blow themselves up just to kill people?
It is inhuman.
But we cannot forget something that is very hard to comprehend in these moments. You almost want to say, “People like that don’t deserve the eternity they think they are going to.” I know I couldn’t be God. Could you? I think I would have thrown a few lightning bolts by now. But here’s that thing we cannot forget:
Jesus died for them too.
A friend of mine in Jerusalem, Greg, has posted a lot on social media about the atrocities the Palestinians have been committing against Israelites. Stabbings, bombs, the works. I watched one video he posted and inboxed him, simply saying, “These people aren’t human.” It is a natural response to what I had watched. What he sent back was great.
“It’s not that they’re not human, but that they’ve given themselves over to a culture and a system of hate so much with the idolatry of Islam that it manifests itself in this way.”
It breaks my heart. I think it breaks God’s heart too.
So what do we do then? Pray? Of course. We have a responsibility to pray. What about refugees? Do we show kindness to those who are fleeing the hate, even though we may be letting the same type terrorists in with them that attacked Paris? It isn’t a simple yes an no, is it? There are men and women sitting in Washington D.C. who are going to make decisions about that. So one of the things we can do in the future is vote for politicians that represent a biblical worldview. Like, actually get up, register, and vote.
But in the meantime, terrorists are being arrested on the border of Texas. They are being detained in Turkish airports with fake passports. How does all of this play out? What comes of the world my kids will grow up in? These attacks have left many questions, and answered very few. But here’s the one thing I know:
God is still on his throne.
Perhaps that is easy to say sitting here in America. My neighborhood hasn’t been under a terrorist attack this week. I’ll give you that. But if I trust God with my salvation and eternity then I need to trust him with my security and today as well. He is still God. He is not absent. He is not missing. And if we really think about it, if we really understand how deeply he loves us, we will see that, while he is not absent, he is heart-broken, both for the lives lost, and over the ones who took them.
2 Peter 3:9 The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.
Be blessed.
J