So I'm finally writing again. It seems like life around here is crazy all the time with one thing or another. I've been watching the news recently about the shootings in Westroads in Omaha and at the church and Youth with a Mission in Colorado. The violence is so sad and senseless. At least in Colorado, the man targeted people for a specific reason. In Omaha, the killer seemed to choose a location completely randomly and people for no reason at all. Neither of these men knew whose lives they were destroying. They simply felt such hatred for life - even their own - that they were determined to end as much life as possible. I grieve not only for the victims but for the shoooters. How much sorrow, turmoil, and despair led up to that end moment? What did they feel when they realized the pain hadn't ended as they'd thought it would?
As I was pondering these things, I read John 14:27 one day. "Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful." Peace. Our world is in desperate need of peace. How many people watched the news this last week and were troubled and fearful? If it can happen in Omaha just an hour away in a store I've shopped in multiple times, why not here in my mall with my kids? If it can happen at a church in Colorado Springs, why not my church on Sunday morning? Realism forces us to accept that our church, our mall, our faces could be plastered all over the news as victims of the latest in senseless crime. We should not be surprised that the world is not peaceful - true peace only comes through Jesus. Jesus said He gives us peace that the world cannot understand. Because it's Christmas, I think of the angels singing to the shepherds on the night of Christ's birth, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men with whome He is pleased." Luke 2:14 His birth, life, death, and ressurection have given us peace that is beyond human ability to understand or explain. I hope that in spite of the busyness of Christmas and the chaos of the world around us, we will all take the chance to relax in the peace that only Jesus can give.
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