Listening

 

Well, I’ve been gathering information long enough … I must write the next post I promised you, my readers, two weeks ago. As I’ve continued to wipe the ‘sleepys’ from my eyes I’ve also been hearing whispers from the Spirit of Jesus Christ, reminding me that He came “to proclaim good news to the poor … to proclaim freedom for the prisoners … to set the oppressed free” Luke 4:18.

I’ve also continued to watch the nightly news. The protesters are still marching in the streets, they are still carrying signs saying “Black Lives Matter,” and I saw that they are also destroying statues of Robert E. Lee, commander of the Confederate army during America’s great Civil War. It continues to appear that they are protesting the oppression of black people in America, going all the way back to the time of chattel slavery … But wait a minute, they are also defacing statues of Abraham Lincoln, wasn’t he the one who set the slaves free?

Yes, the Emancipation Proclamation officially set the slaves free as of January 1, 1863 but the Civil War was still raging. On November 19, 1863, Lincoln in his Gettysburg address at the site of the bloodiest battle of the war, said that this nation, born in 1776, was “conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. … Now we are engaged in a great civil war testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure … we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain – that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” 

I believe we are being tested once again to see whether our nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all people are created equal can survive. The peaceful protesters seem to be for  equality under our Creator, and they want justice for all, but the violence that erupts in the streets shows that hate still abounds. The slaves were set free, but racism never goes away, it just adapts. I confess I have been complicit in racism because of my silence over the years. I do plan to vote on Nov. 3^rd, but government is not my Savior. The love of Jesus Christ is changing my heart, and that is the only cure for racism or any other sin, whether it be a dysfunction of the heart of an individual, a family, or a nation.

“If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land” 2 Chronicles 7:14.        

A Great Awakening

I’m watching the nightly news a lot more now than ever before. I’ve been surprised and shocked to see angry mobs taking to the streets in cities all across America. I learned that all this unrest started as peaceful protests declaring “Black Lives Matter,” but “peaceful protests” erupted into violence after dark when new characters came out of the woodwork with piles of bricks and molatov cocktails to hurl at the police who were trying to keep the peace. I felt empathy for the peaceful protesters because I feel strongly that black lives do matter – all lives matter. My heart goes out to the poor and oppressed and I know a little of the history of black people in America. However, I was bewildered because these “peaceful protesters” were also carrying signs saying “Defund the Police” and were often injuring black policemen as well as white, even black children were sometimes caught in the crossfire. Small mom and pop stores in black neighborhoods were being destroyed as well as giants such as the Macys department store in downtown Manhattan, not far from the side street where I once lived as a struggling graduate student.

Why was I so shocked when, at the suggestion of a friend, I tuned in to the nightly news and became aware of all this? I confess it’s because I’ve always been an introvert more interested in learning about the world from books than by watching the “boob tube,” and more interested in studying God from afar than by actually living in the fallen world He created and is redeeming. When I saw that Macys store I remembered so well, being looted and burned, I began to wake up, wiped the ”sleepys”  out of my eyes, and began listening to God as He is speaking to me today.

Come back soon and I will tell you what I’ve been hearing.

Written by

May Leavenworth