50+ Dead, 400 Injured in Las Vegas
How do we respond to this breaking news this morning? Most of us are horrified as this information comes across the media. On second thought, I realized that it happens every day in our country, and even more around the world. Only it is in scattered events, or far from where we live, usually. We knew that there are deranged people in this world, or people with hurts and prejudices that motive various persons. to atrocities. What was specific here was that so much happened in one place, for reasons that are totally unknown as I write this.
We can have any of a variety of responses if we are moved by publicity. We may also be reminded as I am, that this is only one place where such violence has happened. The wider question is, how do we respond to the wider problem of violence around the world, which we may be oblivious to, because it is not "news"?
We listened to the news a while sitting where we have our morning devotions. Perhaps the news just strengthened our usual prayers, that God would be searched for his comforting love, to be found by a new reason to seek him. The needs of people anywhere, like also Puerto Rica and Houston came to our minds also as places people have extra reasons to turn to God for comfort. Bangladesh often comes to mind with weather tragedy much worse than in our own country. I often think of tragedy and desperation, even as famine which God tolerates as perhaps pains of travail of God, before persons are born to a new life in him. So we pray that God's Spirit would come and suggest to people that there is a God they can turn to for help and comfort.
Tragedy doesn't really make sense to us, yet we persist in seeking meaning. The Christian cannot in the Spirit of Christ be indifferent. Can we do more than pray? If and where we can find a way, certainly we want to. I am just responding off the cuff to all this as I am inclined to do. We cannot pass off the suffering in the world as just natural events beyond our feelings.
How do we respond to this breaking news this morning? Most of us are horrified as this information comes across the media. On second thought, I realized that it happens every day in our country, and even more around the world. Only it is in scattered events, or far from where we live, usually. We knew that there are deranged people in this world, or people with hurts and prejudices that motive various persons. to atrocities. What was specific here was that so much happened in one place, for reasons that are totally unknown as I write this.
We can have any of a variety of responses if we are moved by publicity. We may also be reminded as I am, that this is only one place where such violence has happened. The wider question is, how do we respond to the wider problem of violence around the world, which we may be oblivious to, because it is not "news"?
We listened to the news a while sitting where we have our morning devotions. Perhaps the news just strengthened our usual prayers, that God would be searched for his comforting love, to be found by a new reason to seek him. The needs of people anywhere, like also Puerto Rica and Houston came to our minds also as places people have extra reasons to turn to God for comfort. Bangladesh often comes to mind with weather tragedy much worse than in our own country. I often think of tragedy and desperation, even as famine which God tolerates as perhaps pains of travail of God, before persons are born to a new life in him. So we pray that God's Spirit would come and suggest to people that there is a God they can turn to for help and comfort.
Tragedy doesn't really make sense to us, yet we persist in seeking meaning. The Christian cannot in the Spirit of Christ be indifferent. Can we do more than pray? If and where we can find a way, certainly we want to. I am just responding off the cuff to all this as I am inclined to do. We cannot pass off the suffering in the world as just natural events beyond our feelings.
No comments:
Post a Comment