AMERICA: WAKE UP
Two more shootings this week
Gun violence
Gun control
We need to do something
Thoughts and prayers
Statistics
March for our lives
Arm yourselves
Ban all the guns
Background checks
Mental health
End it end it end it
ENOUGH.
Enough with arbitrary "thoughts and prayers". Enough with using every shooting as an excuse to scream hysterically about gun control. Enough with political slogans and bashing the president and bashing the presidential candidates and screaming and mass hysteria that encompasses this entire nation and filling up my social media feeds with things that can't help and
ENOUGH.
NO MORE.
It's time to stop this.
In a nation that has forgotten God, there can be no solution without God.
Our video games drip violence. It's not just the bad guys, either--the good guys shoot people down and the characters we play as commit murder and it's cool and the objective is to see how many people you can kill sometimes.
Our movies are full of blood and gore and it's okay that the superhero punched his best friend in the face because at least they're fighting over a cause, right? He was brainwashed...he doesn't know what he's doing. We cheer for both of them. Which one is the hero? Does it matter? The fight is amazing, that's all I care about, Mom.
We see displays of true violence--movies featuring children forced to kill each other to survive, mothers doing whatever it takes to feed their families, soldiers at war and the brutality of it--and we've become so desensitized to the violence that it's just another movie. "What about the love triangle?" we ask as we watch the little girl die on screen. "Oh, I wonder what her boyfriend is thinking right now."
Shock value. Let's have our women strip down and submit to horrific displays of perversity on television! It's okay, they stopped being quite that bad after the first season. They realized it was too much. It's all good now. Besides, the storytelling! I bet you couldn't tell a story that compelling.
The lines of good and evil blur together in our storytelling and in our lives. Everyone could be a villain. Everyone could be a threat. And we arm ourselves and we scream about removing their arms and in the end W E S O L V E N O T H I N G
Because we've forgotten God.
We have embraced violence and perversity. Watch our movies. Read our books. And wonder where the gun violence and the #MeToo movement and the numbers and the statistics come from.
We kill our smallest and throw our elderly to the wolves. We don't punish crimes, we're too busy watching them happen on the news. We wail about the fact that the government doesn't help people, but we don't help them. THE PRESIDENT DOES NOTHING BUT SEND THOUGHTS AND PRAYERS!!!!!! we cry.
What are you doing?
Are you even praying?
Why aren't our churches organizing massive prayer efforts?
Why aren't our communities banding together to help the families of those who have been killed?
What about the survivors of the shootings and the PTSD that they surely grapple with? Where's the help?
What if we forgot the guns for a minute--stopped the "narrative", stopped our need to M A K E A S T A T E M E NT and just helped people?
The people being shot ARE PEOPLE.
The people doing the shooting ARE PEOPLE.
The issue is not the guns.
The issue is that we have forgotten the God we claim to have built our nation on.
Don't delete the past. Stop doing that. Don't villify our founders--do that and we risk forgetting everything we came from.
If you don't remember where you've come from, you repeat the past. And that's the problem here.
We have forgotten God.
Over and over and over this world forgets God and who even cares anymore???? The bywords don't include God. He's not trending on Twitter. He's not an issue that can help you win at the polls. You'll lose followers if you're unapologetic about your faith.
ENOUGH.
Stop the violence. Stop zoning it out, buying tickets to every action movie and making excuses for why it's okay. We romanticize the violence--let's have fun and chop off people's limbs because, hey, they can grow back painlessly! "Heroism"? What's that? Everyone knows that I'm a fan of antiheroes...but what do we do when antiheroes turn into villains and that becomes the new standard for the protagonist? Someone who doesn't care about doing the right thing--someone who does whatever it takes and feels no remorse?
We forget our children. We expose them to greater and greater levels of evil, but we don't let them read the Old Testament, because "that God is too violent for my taste". The evil displayed by men in the Bible is bad for our children. It's too much to deal with. Instead of letting my kid read Judges and talking to him about how it's important that people don't do what's right in their own eyes, I'll plug him into a screen and let him watch WHATEVER THE HECK HE WANTS. After all, that's what all the other parents are doing, right?
This is how we breed violence. Make it less and less and less shocking. Make it the byword. Make it everyday life. And soon, we'll all become zombies, and the shootings won't even register as shock anymore. Irritation, maybe? But what more? Do we even care anymore? Or is there just a vague fear that we'll be next?
NO MORE.
Wake up
Wake up
WAKE UP
Tell me you can sit still through all of this. Tell me the guns are the issue and we should leave this to the politicians--because we all know how much they genuinely care. They want your vote. They do not care about YOU.
Restrictions aren't the answer. Laws aren't the answer. Even retaining our guns and defending ourselves isn't the answer.
As long as we consume violence, we will let it out.
Everyone knows Revelation 3:20 ("Behold, I stand at the door and knock...") The part that less people know is the context within this letter. It's written to the church of Laodicea. It's Jesus, talking directly to a church that once loved him and has now grown cold. Here's the context of that verse.
15 “‘I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! 16 So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. 17 For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. 18 I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see. 19 Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent.'"
What if this is the state of the American church?
Neither hot nor cold???
Will we be spat out of Jesus' mouth?
Wake up, friends. Wake up, church.
Stop sitting around crying. Stop leaving it to the politicians. Stop tweeting "thoughts and prayers".
START PRAYING.
START DOING.
Don't let yourself be taken by the violence of this culture that is so blood-soaked.
We are soaked in blood too--the blood of Jesus. And that is why we have to remember not to shed any more innocent blood. Without God, our culture cannot change.
We need to LIVE FOR GOD.
Here's the rest of that letter to Laodicea:
20 Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.21 The one who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I also conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne. 22 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’”
To the one who conquers, he says this.
Let's conquer, friends. Return to God.
And urge others to return to God.
22 comments
*standing ovation* *whoops and cheers*
ReplyDeleteThat’s really the only way I know how to respond to this post. XD THIS WAS AMAZING AND PROBABLY MY FAVORITE POST OF YOURS EVER.
Thanks so much, Nicole. This was just something that I felt I HAD to say. <3
DeleteAMEN!!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteOH MY GOODNESS, YES!!! WE AS CHRISTIANS NEED TO STAND UP FOR WHAT IS IMPORTANT OR ONE OF THESE DAYS THE IMPORTANT IS GOING TO GO DOWN THE DRAIN AND WE'RE ALL GOING TO WONDER WHY WE DIDN'T MAKE A STAND WHEN WE WERE ABLE.
THANK YOU FOR THIS POST, FAITH!! THANK YOU FOR STANDING UP FOR YOUR BELIEFS!!
~ Lily Cat (Boots) | lilycatscountrygirlconfessions.blogspot.com
<3 <3 <3 You're welcome. Thank YOU for reading.
Delete*joins Nicole in the standing ovation*
ReplyDeleteAMEN. YES. THIS THIS THIS.
We talk and argue and go round and round and rooound. But the problem? We've taken God out of the equation. As long as we're not including God in the issues, nothing will EVER be resolved. God is EVERYTHING and should be our foundation for, well, EVERYTHING. Sadly, that is not how the world works... BUT. That's why we Christians have to step up! We can't keep hiding in our safe little bubbles. The world NEEDS us. It needs God! God is the key to it ALL and we must, must, must spread that word. Like you have done today!
So, sooo beautifully said! <333
Thank you, Christine. And I agree with all of this YES YES YES. <3 Thank you. THANK YOU. <3
DeleteAMEN. Love the power & passion in your writing, and this message is so needed.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Maria <3
DeleteWHOA. <<<all I can say rn, speechless.
ReplyDeleteThanks for reading <3
DeleteAMEN, SISTER. ONE BIG AMEN. This post got my heart pounding. So much truth here!
ReplyDelete<3 <3 <3 Thank you <3
DeleteOof, I'm feeling fired up now. THIS WAS A VERY ROUSING POST, AND DANG, I'M FEELING THAT PASSION.
ReplyDeleteYAY I AM GLAD <3
DeleteAMEN SISTER.
ReplyDelete<3 <3
DeleteYou, my friend, are amazing.
ReplyDelete(also someone just told me that yours and my blogs are very similar. That makes me proud in this moment).
I believe that modern Christians have lost all sense of righteous anger, and are mostly contrived up of a bunch of cowards. We need to wake up and we need to fear God, and we need to be brave and start doing something. And more than just quoting scripture and saying, "Here are my prayers." We need to love and we need to have works that prove that love.
I hate video games and most movies, but Steven Crowder put out a thirteen minute video about how neither video games nor guns are the issue. People keep blaming inanimate objects (though video games are kinda animated objects lol). But the real issue has to do with the actual people. Millions of people own guns, and millions play video games. While I might not approve, most of those people aren't actually dreaming of becoming shooters.
But the ideas displaying can still desensitize us and lead us on a path of bad ideas and bad morals, which makes us fall asleep into inactivity. So yeah, they can still have a huge affect on the sleeping, lukewarm church.
AMAZING POST.
MB: keturahskorner.blogspot.com
PB: thegirlwhodoesntexist.com
Thank you so much, Keturah <3 I agree with you wholeheartedly. The objects aren't the issues. The people are the issue and the fact that the church is sleeping is the biggest issue. Thank you for reading <3
Delete*claps* Wow, this gave me chills.
ReplyDeleteThank you, love <3
DeleteI'm super late to reading this but it was amazing.
ReplyDeleteThank you <3
DeleteHello, friends! Do make yourselves comfortable and stay for a while--I'd love to chat with you! I simply ask that you keep it clean. :)