We have far deeper issues than guns – what people have been
doing with guns recently is just an extreme and tragic microcosm of the real issues.
Our real issues are these:
-we don’t
know how to treat one another with dignity and respect
-we don’t
know how to raise our children to be sane and reasonable adults
-we don’t know how to value each
individual equally regardless of their social standing or opinions (so kids and
adults who are “weird” fall through the social cracks and no one cares because
they don’t “contribute”)
-we don't know how to have real friendships (though we think we do), where we can ask someone "How are you doing?" or "How are things going?" and really be interested in the answer to the question, more than just niceties and civility
-we don’t
know how to teach or practice self-control
-we don’t know how to stay married
and work through our problems, modeling longsuffering, patience, and humility
-we don’t know how to maintain
sexual purity (because sexual purity is relative to each person’s experience; that is, until they commit some kind of heinous act that objectifies and victimizes
another individual, at which point we’re finally concerned and in a justified
outrage – but why does it take getting to that point for us to be outraged?)
-we don’t know how to discriminate
between what’s fun and what’s potentially harmful (ie that shoot-em-up video
game is harmless because my kids know it’s just a game, and they’re not being
subliminally taught that how you handle your problems is by removing people who
are in your way)
-we don’t know how to have a real
conversation about what’s right or wrong without getting angry and insulting
(because the ages-old narrative of corruption in positions of power blinds us from the fact that the same corruption is actually
inside of each of us, seen in that we are now empowered by being able to state our opinions on social media for
all to see, and we turn into jerks with anyone who disagrees with us, proving
we’re not different than any corrupt leader throughout world history)
-we don’t know how to have a real
conversation, period; the communication age has backfired so that we actually are less able now to communicate
than before
-we don’t know how to judge what’s truly right or wrong (because we act like truth is relative, though we don't really think so)
-we don’t
know how to love well and make people feel loved
-we don’t know how to regulate our
depressed mental and emotional moments without victimizing ourselves and making
everyone else who has ever wronged us “the problem”
-we don’t know how to see where we
ourselves have contributed to the world’s problems, because “every way of a man
is right in his own eyes” (Proverbs 21:2)
-we don’t know how to truly measure
our self-worth and have a strong sense of identity, even with our warts, instead fluctuating anywhere between overvalue
(I’m proud of myself, true to myself, and my party is the savior of society)
and undervalue (I hate myself and
want to be someone else)
But there’s good news.
If Jesus is alive, then we can come to Him, and
He can help. If recent events have laid
your heart in the dust so that you can be described as “poor in spirit,” (and
aren’t you by now?) Jesus calls you “blessed” (Matt. 5:3), because you’re right
in the place where He can move in make things new. The problem is far greater than what everyone
else is doing or what you yourself are doing - there is something wrong with us.
But Jesus came to make you and me into the real you and me, and if we come to Him, we'll find truth, and with it, peace.
Why must we be in the driver’s seat when we repeatedly drive
ourselves off the cliff?
