The Answer

I was watching the news today and saw a shocking story about 3 teens who shot to death, a young man who was visiting the US from Australia. The story said the young man was out jogging and the teens drove up from behind and shot him for the 'fun' of it and they just wanted to see someone die...

This story is just about as senseless an event as there could ever be. Senseless in terms of the reason these teens committed this act. And it occurred to me that our country and its youth have reached a new low. We have degraded to the point where innocent people cannot walk out the door with out concern for some unstable idiot with a vendetta against society who has access to a gun.

This brings up the whole issue of guns and their proliferation in America. I have no problem with guns because in the right hands, a gun is a tool for keeping the peace and for providing protection. Its when they fall into the wrong hands that we see the countless number of tragedies.

I'm sure there will be arguments about what the right measures need to be to ensure guns do not fall into the wrong hands...but I am concerned about another precipitating factor: the psyche of those who feel they must use a gun against society or the public for personal or private reasons.

Regardless of how a gun gets into the wrong hands...there seems to be an emergence of crazies who feel no sense of moral regard for innocent people or lives. Doesn't matter if the victims are senior citizens or elementary grade school children. The crazies seem to feel that everyone is fair game and the only thing that seems to matter is they have unleashed their vengeance on the public.

I don't ever recall a time in my life time where there was so much blatant disregard for human life or such callous attitudes for those who commit such actions. Its like we are living in 'Thunderdome' and I fully expect 'Mad Max' to appear out on the streets.

I am reminded of a scripture in the book of Matthew (24:12) that says "Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold." And I think about this generation. I think about how cold  some have become and how devoid of love their hearts have to be take out their rage on innocent lives.

More stringent gun control legislation may help but it is not the real answer. Love is the answer. Love your neighbor as your self is part of the real answer. Embracing the love of Christ with the understanding He gave His life to be a ransom for you and I, to redeem us; that is the real answer.

We will see real change when hearts and minds are won over to Christ. The forgiveness and grace of God, that says He knows how depraved we are... yet He still loves, forgives and accepts us as His own, that is what changes lives.

So when we see another story on TV that horrifies us...just know that there are many people who need to know that God cares about them...that we have a responsibility to communicate this to our world and that if they only realized this before they became so desperate...perhaps we could have saved some lives.