an evil heart and a powerful weapon.
Yesterday I got on my computer and saw a headline about a school shooting so I turned on my TV. There I listened to parents talking who were waiting for a text from their child to find out if they were okay. I listened to parents who were texting with their teen who was hiding in the school. As a parent and a youth leader and a fellow human being my heart broke. I envisioned each one of the kids in the church youth group in a similar situation. I flashed back to holding my son for the first time. I remember him looking up at me with wide eyes as I fell madly in love with him. Then I thought about waiting for a text from Joshua to see if he was still alive after a school shooting.
As I watched the all too familiar drama play out on my TV screen I desperately desired the New Heaven and New Earth. As I played the sounds of the gun shots and screaming this morning on our show I begged for a New Heaven and New Earth full of love and devoid of fear and death and hate and bloodshed and tears.
The heartaches of this life must give us Christians a deep homesickness. We are citizens of Jesus' Kingdom and we should want to be home.
But at no point should this holy homesickness make us less likely to make peace happen here on earth.
"If you read history you will find that the Christians who did the most for the present world were just those who thought the most about the next. ... It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this. Aim at Heaven and you will get earth 'thrown in': aim at earth and you will get neither." C. S. Lewis Mere Christianity
When Italian immigrants were homesick for Italy they formed Little Italy in New York. Cuban immigrants missing the beautiful parts of Cuba gave us Little Havana. Christians, our homesickness must make us desire to make our current homes a little more like our future home.
"Our Father in Heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in Heaven." Matthew 6:9b-10
When Jesus taught us to pray He taught us to pray for earth to look more like Heaven. Jesus taught us to desire that the Kingdom of Heaven would come.
Many say they are sick of "thoughts and prayers". Well, thoughts don't do a whole lot but prayer does. But prayer should motivate us to act when we are able. Pray aligns our loves with God's. As our interim pastor Scott says, "to love what God loves, to hate what God hates and to do what God says".
I'm heartbroken over this new normal. I'm homesick for a world where people aren't killed.
"Turn from evil and do good;
seek peace and pursue it." Psalm 34:14
When we get on our knees are we seeking peace and pursuing it? When we pray for wisdom on how to help get peace do we act when God answers our prayers? Do we want His Kingdom to come so much that we want it to come, in part, now? Are we homesick enough to try and make this place feel more like home or are we content to sit with our chairs facing east waiting for Christ to come back? Will our Lord find His servants busy pursuing peace (shalom) and justice or burying their talents in the ground?
I'm sick of covering stories of mass killings. I'm tired of my heart aching for those who had loved ones stolen from them by murder.
Our Father in Heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your Kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in Heaven today.
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