By Now you have heard or read thousands of word and seen
countless replays and commentaries on the bombings in Boston this week. Yet with all of those words,
the one word we have read and heard most often is the word "Tragedy".
I'm sure that each of us as Americans has the greatest sympathy and pain in our
hearts for those involved in this tragic event, I know our house has sorrowed
for them and prayed for them.
The word "tragedy" simply means "a disastrous event"; how disastrous depends upon which side of
the tragedy you are on!
These bombings were a tragedy in several
ways. First, to those who were killed and injured. Almost nothing can affect
our lives more than the death of one we love or our own injury or the injury of
one we love. It has the ability to take away dreams for the future if we allow
it. It sometimes hardens our hearts and fills them with a sense of hate or
despair. For those of us who did not have someone we knew personally killed or
injured in the bombings it can instill anger and outrage against the ones who
did these terrible things.
Secondly, it is a tragedy that someone
thought so little of the lives of innocent people to plan and carry out such a
horrific attack. It is the sign of a mind that is sick and twisted with sin.
Satan has been extremely successful it causing hate in the heart of the ones
who planted those bombs and I'm afraid he is successful in getting hate to rise
in the hearts of many of God's people. I readily admit that I have no sympathy
for the ones who brought about this terrible attack. I desire justice to be
rendered upon them to the full extent of our laws!
That of course is the human side of me
speaking. I demand justice for others, those who steal, rob, car jack, sell
drugs, murder, injure others or any number of other things which break our laws
or the laws of God. At the same time I tend to avoid thinking of all of the
times that I break God's Law. I depend upon His Grace rather than justice.
The other side of me, the side that tries
to be more like God, remembers a murderer by the name of Paul that God chose to
use. This man turned his life around and became one of the greatest teachers
and evangelist in Christian history. He wrote of God's purpose and his life in 1 Timothy 1:15 where he said: "This
is a trustworthy saying, and everyone should accept it: Christ Jesus came into
the world to save sinners and I am the worst of them all".
At times I really don't know which side of
me is the strongest. Maybe it's like the old parable that says, "the side
that wins is the side you feed". How about you, which side are you feeding?
Russ Lawson, Messages From The Heart
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