Our world resides in a state of fear and confusion; amidst such emotion one often finds themselves seeking out an answer, or rather some form of solution, to this distress. If you’ve tuned into any form of news lately, you will have most likely heard all about our current world problems, some of which include: religious intolerance, racism, gender identification, poverty — the list goes on and on. To think that this is only a portion of the dreadful tally of issues leaves me truly at a loss for words. What causes a human to rationalize taking another’s life? When did the over pouring of love, run out? These are the questions that ran through my mind as I sat down in church on Sunday, shortly after the Dallas shootings, anxious to hear if and how my pastor would address this.
After welcoming the congregation, my pastor began to acknowledge the catastrophe that had happened just the night before. A few sentences in, he made this statement that completely rocked my world: “As a nation we do not have a racism problem, we have a curse problem that has affected our hearts in a way that has caused the races to hate each other. Our hearts have a sickness, and whether it’s killing someone, or hating someone, it is all symptoms of the same disease.” While his words were directed primarily at the devastation that had happened in Texas, it was through this that I decided to address all of the unfortunate events through this article.
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Speaking as an American, I am the first to admit that when tragedy strikes I find myself perplexed at the idea that my country and my home could be prone to such violence and hate. However, this very same thought process can create an attitude of pride, a mindset that truly believes that we as Americans have the answers to it all. I am in no way, shape, or form, trying to downplay the effects of what has happened the last few months throughout the United States, as well as in the rest of our world. Though, to think that we as a nation have gained enough knowledge, technology, and freedom to deserve a perfect earth is to forget an important factor; we were given perfection during Creation, and through our sin we have utterly destroyed it.
From the very first sin taking place in the Garden of Eden, we as a human race have obtained hearts that are cursed with jealousy, hypocrisy, selfishness, covetousness, perversion, hatred, and deception. Jeremiah 17:9 ESV illustrates this wickedness, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” We are desperately sick, as Scripture reads, and to choose to follow Christ is not an immediate escape from this illness, but rather a resource to our Great Physician, the ability to know that daily we can receive treatment to our ill-conditioned hearts through prayer and delving into His Word. This to say, to look at our country and/or our world, at all of its malicious behavior, is to see a world that is suffering from a cursed heart, a heart that so desperately needs Christ. We as a nation should be proud to be the land of the free, but as a nation under GOD we need to live under a constant reminder of how desperately we need Him. No matter what law is passed, no matter what an election result may be, the condition of our hearts remain the same, wretched. Be that as it may, to humble oneself to a point of recognizing our worthlessness apart from Christ, is to begin to see how glorious a life can be once choosing to reflect His grace daily. To find the root of the problems we are facing today is to point the finger at our inner beings, as we all carry the same disease, just perhaps displaying different symptoms. Pray for our nation, pray for our world, as the only medication for this ailment that we carry is Jesus Christ.
