A Nation in Profound Crisis….but, there’s hope…

In the midst of today’s tragedy and mass shooting at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, resulting in the death of 26 people, I refuse to believe that we are a hopeless nation and a people without a promising future. Although we continue to experience major crisis at a frequent rate, which has both divided and united us as a people, and that which could potentially lead to a life of pessimism about our future, the Savior-God can still heal this land and restore us if we turn to him in repentance and practice justice.

Nonetheless, before we can pray for national healing and hope for spiritual restoration from the God of all Comfort and Peace, we have to first acknowledge the peck in our own eyes and that we have inflicted suffering and pain upon one another. We are not an innocent people. Collectively, we have turned away from justice and compassion. We refuse to believe we are in crisis, and live in a time of tremendous human insanity and national turmoil. Also, we refuse to believe that we need help from God. We have said to ourselves everything will be okay, and that there’s ongoing human flourishing in our society.

The problem is that we are a sick people who need emergency rescue and divine intervention. We have defiled God’s name and glorious fame in our society whenever we fail to love one another and treat one another with justice, dignity, and love as those who are also created in the Image of God. We have a broken system. We attain success through oppression and exploitation of one another. We must acknowledge our collective sins and wrongdoings, and that indeed, we are a broken people who are in desperate need of the Savior-GOD.

The brutal world we have created could be transformed. The broken society we have made and maintained could be renewed. The broken lives we have crafted and sustained could be redeemed.

We all could be artisans of hope in the midst of despair, and candles of light in the labyinth of human darkness and death. You followers of Christ are the light of the world and must shine in the spheres of darkness and hopelessness. That is what followers of Christ do and the goal of the Christian life.

Finally, the American people were never and are not God’s chosen people, but God is raising up a distinctive people in America and a new race for Himself who will be the Hope and Healing of this nation.

Lamentations 3:22-24:

“22 The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;

his mercies never come to an end;

23 they are new every morning;

great is your faithfulness.

24 “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,

“therefore I will hope in him.”