No Way Out

Love the enemy? Love him when he wiped out thirty innocent people in a horrifying slaughter, blaming those he murdered for pushing him to this action? You won't find me volunteering for the job, and I haven't even been personally touched by this incident. This kid was psychotic and wicked. He compared himself to Jesus!

Love the enemy? If I suggested this I would probably be lynched by the families and loved ones who are mourning untimely, gruesome, traumatic losses.

And it doesn't even seem prudent to try to extend grace. First of all, he's dead—thank God. How will forgiveness benefit anyone? Second, the last thing we need to do is heap attention on the killer and thereby create copycats.

So what do we do with Jesus' words, telling us to love our enemies? What do we do with the biblical mandate to forgive those who hurt us?

I don't know. It seems like we could find something in the Bible that would justify righteous anger over this situation ... but if we stuck our noses there we'd keep bumping up against words like, "it is mine to avenge," and "forgive, and you will be forgiven."

Is there no way out?

Note: I can't bear to bring this blog entry to conclusion. If you want a deeper discussion on this topic, hang in there for a few months. Larry's book, A Different Kind of Crazy, will stun and delight you with better answers than I can give on how to really live out Jesus' words.

It's a Small World, After All

"For God so loved the world..."

I think I had this verse memorized before I was born, and yet yesterday I heard it for the first time.

Imagine this: you build your dream house in the perfect location and decorate it with beautiful and personally meaningful art and furniture; you fill it with the people you love, creating memories and relationships. But then you notice that something is wrong: an army of carpenter ants has also moved in and is tearing your dream house apart. "It's got to be condemned," an inspector says. What do you do?

I'd fight. I'd do whatever I could to save it.

And it's just a house.

God created the earth and he loved it. Not just the people, but the trees and the weather patterns and the colors and the minerals and the slimy worms. Everything worked together intricately. Can't you just see him admiring his handiwork—so tiny and precious and elaborately designed. And then can't you feel his sorrow when his creatures chose to hurt themselves and the precious little habitat he made for them. Why didn't he just crumple up his project and toss it in the trash?

Because he loved it.

"God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him."

I'm just one little person looking up into the vastness toward God, but I want to do my part to show him how much I love his world, his people, and him.

How about you?