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Monday, February 4, 2013

2.3.13 Evil in Midland City, Alabama


February 3, 2013

            I wake up on this cold morning not wanting to crawl out from under my warm covers. I just want to burrow back in, close my eyes and think of warm, fuzzy thoughts. Wouldn’t it be nice? But I know, I know. Get up. Once you get moving, you will warm up. Things to do. Cant spend your life lying in bed. Yea. Yea. But sometimes the weight of the world has you wanting to hide your head, doesn’t it? Each day we have been getting up and turning on the radio to hear if the boy in Midland City has made it back to his family. We pray for his safety and for comfort for his family. We may even pray for Mr Dykes, for clearly this man has problems that we may not understand this side of Heaven. Is he “evil”? I don’t have your answer. A lot of talk about banning guns has been tossed around lately. Would a ban on guns have prevented this tragedy? (I do not want to get political here but…. The answer is most likely no. Criminals and “crazy” people seem to have a way around the law). We ask God why. We hug our children and family members closer. We try to understand. But sometimes understanding is simply not meant to be. We cannot understand why a man would hold a young autistic child hostage… or a man who would beat his wife and children. We cannot understand a man who would rape a child… or an elderly woman. We cannot understand why you would hurt someone to enter a gang… or kill someone to get out of one. What we do understand is that if we had just a few minutes in a room with Mr. Dykes…..mmm, sorry, never mind, maybe that’s just me thinking out loud.

            I have been giving this some thought and yes, I know that I am neither a preacher nor a Biblical scholar. I am just me. Ok, so, my thought…. People are stupid. You can trace our stupidity throughout the Bible. God gave us EVERYTHING. Everything. And WE, yes, I am broadly encompassing everyone here, we screwed it up. Eve and that apple. Cain and Abel. We are just getting started. Samson and Delilah. David and Bathsheba. The tower of Babel. Sodom and Gomorrah. Denying Jesus. He was RIGHT THERE, people. You were given the ultimate gift. You got to know Jesus in the flesh. The son of God stood before you and you still didn’t believe. We have been making bad decisions for centuries. Decisions that we knew took us away from God. Oh yea, the reasons varied. Greed has always played a big factor. Jealousy. Power and control. But slipping through there was that nasty ol’ Satan. A word here. A slight action here. He plays upon our natural desires, our sins. He knows how to take what is there and exaggerate it. Have you ever been a little tiffed at someone and then later when you were alone, you thought about it some more and it grew and grew into this ugly, ranting steam coming out the ears, who do they think they are anger? Ummm, maybe the phrase “I want to punch them in the face” comes to mind. The devil didn’t cause it. It was there in you. He may have just poked the bear a little. But on the other side of the coin, bad people. Were they born with a little bad in them? See. I confuse myself. So why not confuse others around me? Misery loves company. J Anywho. That is what I think. I think that we are responsible for our own actions. We allow our “bad selves” to well, to copy the words from a song - “Yall gone make me lost my mind  - up in here, up in here”.

            So…. What is my point? Not sure that I have one. You know me. I ramble. Sometimes there is a nugget in there and sometimes it is just rambling. But I would like to think that we all take a better look at what drives us and what “pokes” us. Oh, I don’t know anyone whom I would deem “evil”. No one who does anything seriously wrong. But we do something wrong. It is our sinful nature. And you know how hard it is to overcome. So pray for those who have a hard time overcoming the bad stuff. They may not even know what they are doing or they may chose not to stop. All we can do is pray for them. Pray for God to handle it. It is beyond our control. But God? Nothing is beyond his control.

Prayer for the week:

Dear Lord,

We know that you are with the young boy in Midland. We know that you have not left his side. We hurt for the boy and for his family and wish there was something we could do. It is beyond our comprehension how someone could do something like this but we put our trust in you, Lord. We know that you have the situation under control. Whatever the outcome, you are there and you are with him. You will never forsake us. Lord, please hear our prayer for the boy, his family, the other children on the bus, the police and the man who took him hostage. We may not understand but you do, Lord. May he open his eyes to see that he is also a child of the Lord. I cannot lie, sir, I hope his time here on Earth is short but I pray that he will see the way and meet you in his Heavenly home. In Jesus’s name, Amen.

Bible Verse for the week:

For the Lord is a God of justice. Isaiah 30:18

Bible Fun for the week:

Who cisuorag eh liwl eb nehw you ycr ofr pleh! Sa snoo sa eh shear, eh lliw seanwr ouy. Isaiah 30:19

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