Monday, July 11, 2016
Arise, O Lord,
in anger!
Stand up against the fury of my
Stand up against the fury of my
enemies!
Wake up, my God, and bring
Wake up, my God, and bring
justice!
End the evil of those who are
End the evil of those who are
wicked,
and defend the righteous.
For you look deep within the mind
and defend the righteous.
For you look deep within the mind
and heart, O righteous God.
Psalm 7:6, 9(NLT)
When human anger gets out of hand I can barely
think.
And it’s not just my anger; it’s anyone’s
anger!
Anger is as paralyzing as fear or first love.
With the emphasis in recent years on media coverage of
crowds
in an uproar over the most recent shooting of a citizen by a police
officer, it has become a routine of mine, when confronted with a new incident to
immediately pray for the family of the one who was shot, the officer and his/her
family, and their community.
And then I pray: peace…be still!
I know I do not control the winds of any storm, but when
my mind is reeling from seeing and hearing the anger, I always have that
picture in my mind’s-eye of Jesus standing in the boat with his disciples,
after having walked on those stormy waters, holding-up his hands, and
commanding, peace, be still![ii]
I’m not commanding; I’m asking Jesus to do it again
for our human family, that officer, that family and their community.
To say that we have an anger problem in our culture
would be to understate it by as far as east is from west!
· You see protest upon protest reflecting
our
culture’s boiling temperature, and
beating us black and blue
over police
shootings
· Sit-ins, occupying this and that…
· Political debate turning into character
massacre
· Rage on the roads
· Facebook face-offs and melt-downs.
So, where does it stop? Will there ever be a renewal of peace in the
community?
Will Andy Taylor, Barney Fife, Opie, and Miss Bea ever
be heard from again?
And what would or could bring it about?
I fear I have no answers for any of that; only the
image of a man…more accurately, a man-god, walking calmly on tempestuous
waters, and then speaking the words that change everything: peace…be still!
And I have hope.
For You Today
There cannot be peace in the community that isn’t in
the heart first.
So, perhaps this is a good start for this
morning: let Jesus speak to your heart
those words, peace…be still!
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