One of the things I love about writing this blog is the ability to pick you up, so to speak, and take you for a little ride on this journey I’m on of changing the way I think. Hopefully, as you come along with me, you’ll choose to venture out into this new territory and recognize areas of your own thinking that must change.
God has a variety of means He uses to speak to people. With me, I see pictures and images most of the time. Sometimes it’s like a video playing in my mind. These seem unusual to me when I consider the fact that I love being a wordsmith. Nevertheless, this is the way it happens with me most of the time.
This past Sunday morning was no exception for me as we were engaged in an intimate time of worship. As I stood there I saw a movie playing in my mind of an atomic bomb exploding over a city, obliterating everything and everybody for miles. Mothers, fathers, children of all ages, people going about their day, gone in an instant and yet others dying a slow, agonizing death. Then I saw the name “Hiroshima” written across the top of the picture. I saw another movie again of an atomic bomb exploding over a city, this time the name “Nagasaki” was written across the top. Over 220,000 died in those two cities. It moved me to tears. As the tears flowed, I heard Jesus say “That’s how I feel about it.” Then it occurred to me that I had never really considered how Jesus might have felt or thought about those horrible events. I know how I felt about it most of my life. Thoughts like this:
Those Japs deserved it.
They started the war, we needed to finish it.
Sometimes innocent people die. That’s just the way it is.
Ask any Christian you meet and he or she can recite The Lord’s Prayer or at least most of it. It is one of the most quoted and recited passages in the entire bible. I’ve known it for most of my life, yet until recent years, I had never looked intently into what is being said. Especially those words, “Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
At this point, you’re probably asking, “What do atomic bombs have to do with The Lord’s Prayer?” Nothing. Absolutely nothing. That is my point. In heaven there are no atomic bombs. In fact, there are no weapons at all. Only love. Only peace. Only Jesus and His ways. When we say those words, “on earth as it is in heaven,” we are saying this: The way it is in heaven should be the way it is on earth. We Christians can be very good at compartmentalizing our theology. For example, if you asked any Christian if God condones the killing of innocent people, the answer would be “no, of course not”, and yet violence seems to be our default response to violence most of the time.
What if our default response would instead be to ask, “Father, how is heaven responding to this attack?” Or is it easier to just resort to violence? The “what if” questions always come when advocating for non-violent response, like “What if someone attacked you or your family?”, or “How else were we to end that war?” I wonder if Jesus thought about that before He said all that “love your enemies” and “turn the other cheek” stuff?
I’m pretty sure He did. He is God, you know.
What if there was a government that operated from a heavenly perspective and when faced with a violent attack, instead of responding violently, asked for God’s intervention in the matter? There is one. It’s called the kingdom of God. Her King is the Prince of Peace. I wonder how He got that name?
How different would our world look if we who believe in the Prince of Peace also believed that He is the better way?
Peace,
Kevin