I've had the personally disheartening yet historically fascinating opportunity to be present in two major cities that have become central or foundational to the issues fueling the Black Lives Matter movement in America. I was in St. Louis when Michael Brown was shot, and again when citizens from Ferguson and other neighborhoods nearby rioted and burned their city to the ground. This past summer, I was in Dallas, just a short 10-minute drive from downtown when Micah Johnson attacked a number of DPD officers and ultimately took the lives of 5 officers while injuring another 9. During investigation of Johnson and his belongings, police discovered that he had expressed a desire to "kill white people, especially white officers." He was upset about the recent shootings around the nation that were spotlighted in the coverage of Black Lives Matter, and decided to take action through this shooting in Dallas.

I sit with family members, friends, coworkers, and other people that I interact with regularly, all the while reading articles and Facebook posts on the topic, and I can't help but notice--many white, Christian people in this country seem to think that racism is gone and that this movement is utter garbage. "Why should we only focus on black lives? As if they're any better than any other. No, all lives matter," they say. To which I would reply, "Yeah, you're not 100% wrong."

All lives do matter. That is true. What is also true is that while we are not the bloody, brutal society culturally that we used to be even as close to us in history as the 1960s and 70s, black people in America feel oppressed. This article is not about whether they are or not (although I strongly believe they still are). This article is not about what exactly constitutes oppression and what doesn't. This article is to show you, if you love Jesus and proclaim His name, how to react when someone you know says "Black lives matter."

I don't want to see you fight back. I don't want to hear that you said they were wrong, and that all lives matter. I don't want you to get angsty and wonder if they live in the same country you do (because they absolutely do, you just don't live their lives so you haven't seen what they've seen).

Y'all, whether you believe the black community in America is oppressed enough to fight back violently or not, the brutal reality is that this whole situation is a massive problem, and it is very real. My roommate and I were walking through Target a few months ago, going about our business and getting things we needed for our house, when a black woman and her daughter, who was maybe 6-8 years old, were walking the opposite direction down the aisle. As I reached into the cooler to grab my pizza Lunchables (because I am in fact a 12-year-old at heart), I heard the mother say to her daughter, "Do you know what it means to be street smart? Like to know what to do in a dangerous situation? It's okay if you don't, Sweetheart. Daddy and I will teach you." And they went on in their own direction and we went ours.

How messed up is that??? That we live in a country where mothers feel the need to have a conversation like that with their children is straight up wrong. We have created a terrible mess, and it's time to start cleaning it up.

How do we start that, though? Some Christians have said that the Black Lives Matter movement has grown akin to the Black Panthers in its violence and hatred of white people, and has therefore led the group to massively criminal action that deserves incarceration. Others have said it just needs to be dropped and ignored. I say it needs to be tackled head-on in one of the most difficult (maybe the most difficult) ways we can do. My pastor, Todd Wagner, explained it best this way:

"When I was a young man and I was married, okay, and-and my wife, she would just go, 'Man, I just don't feel like you love me,' I didn't just go, "Of courseI love you! We got married, what, ten year ago now? I told you I love you at the altar. I haven't dated anybody else since then, I ain't slept with anybody else since then, I haven't told you I hated you, and so until further notice, I obviously love you.' Right? She would look at me and go, 'Are you crazy?' When she says, 'I matter-do I matter to you?' I'm not supposed to look at her and go, 'Every wife matters to her husband!' What she's telling me is, 'Bro, there's a disconnect here. I don't feel like right now you value me.' And I can ask her forgiveness, I can seek understanding, I can explain to here where she's clearly wrong--no. What I do is I listen, I, it's not an intellectual problem often, it's an emotional issue. And so with tenderness and kindness I love her the way I would want to be loved when I feel the same way....And so what I've learned to do, over the last several months is when someone, when one of my friends go, "Man, black lives matter!' I go, 'Man, what do you mean by that? A-are you telling me you think I don't believe that? Is there something I've done personally to make you feel that way? Because, man, I wanna ask your forgiveness I've ever made you think that your life doesn't matter. Your life matters a lot. Jesus died for you and cares for you and if I make you feel like He doesn't love you, I wanna repent. Now if you think that because there's been some injustice done to you that you think you can incur injustice on others, I wanna call you to repent from that. And I'm gonna do everything I can to limit that kind of rebellion against God. Because as Martin Luther King Jr. said, man, the only way "Darkness doesn't dispel darkness. only light gets rid of darkness. Hate doesn't get rid of hate. Only love gets rid of hate." http://wordsfromwags.com/black-lives-matter-response/

I think the most foundational problem out of all of this isn't even how we view the Black Lives Matter movement. There is a great problem still underlying in all of it. Those who call themselves Christians in America today don't have a true Biblical worldview, and aren't motivated by a love for His name and furthering His Kingdom. They are in love with the idea of a "Christian" America in decades past more than they are with Christ Himself. If they were, their knee-jerk reaction wouldn't be to dump more hate onto the pile of hate that's already suffocating our nation with its weight. They would start chipping away at it with the love of Jesus and getting to know the ones who feel the need to remind people that black lives do matter, and would find out just what it is in those people's lives that have led them to feel like they need to restate something so profoundly and obviously true.