What to Do About These Dark Days

The days we are living in are hard! We all want the answers to be easy, too. As the challenges grind more difficult and frequent, we can agree this world is spinning faster into brokenness.

But there is hope, you guys. We are not without hope.

We All Want Answers

Roman’s 8:20-23, NLT says, “Against its will, all creation was subjected to God’s curse. But with eager hope, the creation looks forward to the day when it will join God’s children in glorious freedom from death and decay. For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. And we believers also groan, even though we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, for we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering. We, too, wait with eager hope for the day when God will give us our full rights as his adopted children, including the new bodies he has promised us.”

Soon, interest groups and lobbyists will want to use this time of national tragedy to advance their causes. Whether that is for more gun control legislation, mental health education, law enforcement support, or what have you.

We want answers into the motives, and we forget the answers why it happened are not hidden. We also forget the answers, as in, solutions, are already available.

Some will say it’s only the sickness of a mentally unhealthy person. Some will argue the guilty were full of a sort of hate and label it racism. Some will call it both.

Whatever the cause, darkness will want to push back against the light and do everything it can to gain a foothold. There will be obscurity, blame, conclusions drawn through expert analysis, eye witness stories revealed, and because those looking on want answers. Yet, I think we can draw inferences from the many times past why these things happen…

And in the meantime, Christ calls to us, His children.

“Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called sons of God.” Matthew 5:9

If the light of the world does not shine through darkness, what can the world see, except to remain blind and lead the blind into a pit?

Where has the light gone? We, who have the Light Source, have we perhaps hidden it under a bushel and denied the Source when the world grows dark?

“You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden.”
Matthew 5:14 ESV

How then are we in this mess? Well, does it not fall back onto the light-bearers, truth-witnesses, the church, to bear the burdens of our neighbors? To carry the torch of Light?

Analyze, criticize, condemn, blame. We can do these things easily, naturally, second naturedly, and yet forget the most important thing.

To shine.

So, What Do We “Do” to Fix It?

It’s as if we fret to dismay. We cannot afford to lose hope, however.

Pray. Not because “prayer” makes things better, because anyone can pray and believe in “prayer”. And not because it’s up to the candle to burn. But let’s face it: because despite every good we do, any solution to this can’t be done in our own power.

No bootstraps will be pulled strong enough to get back on our feet. No conjecturing, observing, lobbying, legalizing, enforcing, mourning, blaming, hating, ignoring, talking, writing, staining, arguing, will turn the night back to day.

“See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil.”
Ephesians 5:15-16 NKJV

Instead of our minds traveling down the path of self-awareness to “enlightenment”, only the hand of God and His power cloaking the nations with His Spirit will warrant a collective change. Only the Light Source can give light. Only the flame can burn the candle wick.

The harvest is ready. The wick is dry. The pump is primed.

We can ask, understandably, “How many more senseless tragedies do we allow until we reach the point of desparation and subsequent, (miraculous) change?”

Is that the ultimate question, though?

Let’s scratch beneath the surface, and rephrase it to:

How much poorer in spirit do we need to be, in order to recognize our insufficiency to fix this broken world in our own strength?

The Solution

Would you like to know what I think it’s going to take?

It’s going to take many men and women of God to step into the peacemaker role.

It’s going to take all of God’s children to cry out on our knees day and night.

It’s going to take living in this world and talking to our neighbors about Jesus.

It’s going to take loving the least, the enemy, the shooter, the victims, the families, the unhealthy, the deranged, the perverse, the hateful…

It’s going to take everything we’ve been taught of the simple truth of the Good News, no more and no less.

The answers aren’t elusive.
The answers must start in the earnestness of heart.
The answers are The Great I Am.

Wisdom Calls

“Wisdom calls aloud outside; She raises her voice in the open squares.”
Proverbs 1:20 NKJV

God is trying to get our attention. Are we paying attention? Are we listening? Are we answering, following, obeying?

Lest we the church remain in darkness, I pray we choose freely with our own individual and collective wills, and that we choose to ask God for the wisdom to work toward change. Change of minds, change of hearts, all through the power of the blood Jesus shed on the cross.

Nothing can stop the tragic bleeding of our sin-sick world except the blood that was spilt for it. God’s son’s precious blood for our guilty hearts.

He’s given us the answers. The solutions. The call, the commission, the charge. Now let’s go forward and manifest that peace our Commander imparts.

In His strength, light, and hope.

Invocation

Heavenly Father,

Oh God, how far we are from You! How mad our world has gone! As it’s been said, the way the pulpit goes the way the world follows….

We need You. “Full stop.”

These grave, evil, decrepit consequences of our light being compromised… the darkened days we have allowed to encroach upon us, distracted from our single mission: the ministry of reconciliation.

Jesus, stop the bloodshed. Please, forgive us as we turn to You to heal us by Your blood. Our nations, our world is crying out as in childbirth.

Hear our cries, and have mercy on us. Keep close eyes on Your sheep, ward the wolves off, and lead us through this valley of shadows.

We are here for You and accept Your charge to be peacemakers. Give us wisdom and courage to be the children of the Living God, to shine Your light.

Father, Your will be done here in every town, community, state, country, today, as it is done every day in the courts of glory above.

Help us, of little faith. May we rise again, the church, out of the darkness of these days, and shine Your light to redeem the time.

In Jesus’s perfect, capable, matchless name, amen.