Todd and I were vacationing in Florida on Valentine’s Day when we received a call from our youngest, turning twenty in two months, back home in Wisconsin.

“Mom, there’s been another school shooting in Florida.”

“What?  When?” I asked both one-word questions in nervous shock.

“It just happened. It’s still going on. Turn on the news.”

I did.

Suddenly, I shivered. Even 85 and sunny couldn’t comfort me. I saw the chaos, the terror, the tennis shoes of a dead teen on the floor of his classroom. I felt the grief happening right before my eyes.

God, have mercy! 

How long will such horrors take place?  How long will we wonder if such tragedy will strike in our own hometowns and take our most loved?

I look at my kids. Every day they were in school, I prayed. Never for one moment did I think that what happened in Florida couldn’t/wouldn’t happen here.

I’m so sick of the mass murders and every single murder.

Are you?

I hear the news here in Milwaukee where our family does youth ministry in the worst neighborhoods of the inner-city. The programs and services offered are based on well-researched, proven tactics that raise people up and give them hope–the opportunities to get out of poverty and live in safety with intact families.

Yet, these days there seems to be an insatiable desire for quick and simple answers to our greatest social ills.  There’s band-standing and emoting with no critical thinking.  There are politicians and interest groups preying on the suffering.

We the people need to set aside our political preferences and take the time to search for truth that might differ drastically from what we think is true. I’m talking about we the people—we CHRISTIAN people, especially—being willing to consider that even our most thorough study of God’s word may not give us a complete understanding of God’s heart or God’s mind.

Isaiah 55:8-9.

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord.  As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

There’s profound and mysterious peace to be found in embracing this truth:

God is God and I am not.

photo courtesy of my talented, good friend Bob Anderson.

 

As much as I love God, I need to realize that I can come nowhere near knowing all God’s thoughts or ways.  God alone is absolute Truth.

Can’t we all use our God-given minds to read, study and determine what’s fact and what’s not? Can’t we put our biases, opinions, our emotions aside long enough for that?

I’ve been immersed in Romans 11:25-36 this past week. What has struck me most?

God’s heart.  Always loving.  Always just.

God’s mind. Always all-knowing.  Always right.

My heart.  Easily led away from God’s heart.

My mind.  Easily seduced into believing I know best, that my “tribe” knows best.

God has impressed upon me this past week, this past year, this past decade that there’s so much going on in this world I don’t understand. It’s hard to get past the fast dissemination of opinion shrouded as fact. It’s hard to be the brunt of emotionally charged, violent words because someone is hurt and wants to wound in order to stop the wounding, the killing. How does that even make sense?

God has given us brains and hearts. We are to be good stewards of both, prayerfully expanding His kingdom on Earth. To accomplish this, humility is key. We all have to stop thinking we know the right answers, the right solutions. We all need to realize that no one person, no one political persuasion has the monopoly on truth. We all need one another to listen respectfully, to disagree agreeably, to base our opinions more on documented facts rather than high-charged emotion. Feelings are important but feelings are fleeting. Feelings are important, but feelings can deceive.

What we all need, more than ever, is humility.  What we all need is to realize none of us are God.  None of us have a monopoly on answers.  Our “tribes” where we feel most comfortable—where everyone agrees—isn’t the best for humanity. Differing viewpoints about ways to solve social ills based on facts and not poor research is needed now more than ever.

Humility.

The ability to hear another, to consider another’s point of view, to consider changing our own point of view when new information based on good research is presented—this is what we can do as humans. This is what God calls us to do. We are to work together rather than fight for power. We are to realize that all of us hold parts of the answer—parts of God’s mind and heart. We all need one another.  We’re not here to just tolerate one another.  We’re not here to annihilate one another in word and deed.

Humility.

Consider each other as important as yourself.  Love your neighbor as yourself.

 

No matter our gifts, no matter our intellects, no matter what we have that we think sets us apart or above any other human being, there’s this one thing we all need to remember. 

We are not God.

Only God is God.

For now, we see in a mirror dimly but then face to face.  Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.  1 Corinthians 13:12

And the next verse?

So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.  1 Corinthians 13:13 

Let’s seek to love one another, especially the others with differing viewpoints and opinions. Let’s seek to work for one another instead of against one another.

 

By seeking God first and loving one another as we love ourselves, we might just find the the true answers to the questions we’re all asking.

Visit this site to learn about the people our family serves here on our farm and in their own neighborhood.  One person at a time.  Let’s be a force for postive change.