Satan is never more pervasive than when he uses someone to take innocent lives. Whether it’s airplanes crashing into skyscrapers or gunmen shooting in schools or malls, satan is there, hoping for the complete breakdown of society and people turning on each other.
The shootings at Fort Hood are a little more chilling. We’re certainly aware of all the security measures undertaken since 9/11 against outer forces. How do we deal with an enemy that comes from within. This shooter was an insider, a trained professional, yet, for reasons we don’t fully know yet, he took the lives of innocents.
We can marshal forces to battle outer enemies. We can lock doors, not walk alone after dark, go with that sixth sense that warns us about impending danger. We can recognize when people and things are attacking us. We can fight them. It’s when things start from within, diseases of the body like cancer or diabetes, or even more insipid, diseases of the spirit such as envy, hatred or pride. Do you, as I, find it more difficult to battle these forces? How do we do battle against ourselves? What I do know is that satan is behind both attacks. He wants tragedies like Fort Hood to foster hatred in our souls, to make us lash out about things we have no control over.
His goal is to turn us against each other, to isolate ourselves, to each ensure our own safety and well being. What he doesn’t count on and never sees coming is the outpouring of love and compassion that surrounds the victims and their families and friends, that insulates them from the evil that he meant to harm them. Compassion not just from friends but from complete strangers from the four corners of our nation. The isolation he meant to keep them from others turns instead to a warm insulation from his evil intents. My God is so good!
”So we say with confidence, "The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?" Hebrews 13:6.
My heart breaks for the people affected by this horrible thing. But for those who believe in Jesus, this is not the end, these loved ones have gone before, way too early and too abruptly, but they are eagerly waiting for the day when they will be reunited with the ones left behind yesterday. And what a glorious day that will be. While it does not make the present any easier to bear, it has eternal ramifications.
Esther 9:22 says “their sorrow was turned into joy and their mourning into a day of celebration.”
Let us lift up the victims, family and friends as they struggle through this difficult time.
God bless,
Stevie
Copyright Stevie Stevens 2009 Fort Worth, TX
Very well said!
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