The hate is real
On June 17th, 2015, inside Emanuel AME in Charleston, S.C. a frustrated angry white 21-year-old man sat and listened to members of a weekly prayer meeting gather and worship God.
I was raised in an AME church and if their church was anything like our church I’m sure somebody reached out to this young man, asked him his name and welcomed him with open arms.
The purpose of a prayer meeting is to gather in love. Prayer is powerful and I know that prayer changes things.
For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them." Matthew 18:20.
I can’t pretend to know how Dylann was feeling that evening, but I assume he was brewing with anger and hatred. Dylann Roof sat in that bible study for close to an hour and the love of God could not penetrate his heart. Hatred had steered him on a mission that evening and nothing would deter him from it.
The media leads us to believe that his heart is layered with years and years and years of racial hate. I’m sure there is a cross hanging somewhere in that church’s sanctuary. Dylann is a member of a Lutheran church. He is full aware of what the cross symbolizes. Why did he not say to himself? Not here. Not now.
God was there. God was in that church that night. He saw what was happening. So why didn’t he stop it?
I can’t answer that question.
"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD. Isaiah 55:8.
I feel like the devil is running rampant and God sits back on his throne and just watches. He does nothing but monitors the world. God can hear our cries, but still he responds with silence.
The LORD's anger burned against Israel and he made them wander in the wilderness forty years, until the whole generation of those who had done evil in his sight was gone. Numbers 32:13
When the Israelites were forced to wander in the wilderness. He never left them. Although they may have thought God had abandoned them. He was there he just didn’t direct them and without God’s direction they kept walking in circles.
Are we (residents of the United States) walking around in the wilderness? I feel like we, as a country, keep making the same mistakes over and over again. This country has a pattern. A shooting happens. People die. We wonder why and pledge to pass stricter gun laws. Then nothing changes. We mourn the lives that were lost but in a few months; after the media coverage has died down and the spotlight is no longer on Charleston, SC we forget. Then the clock resets itself and we are on another countdown of when and where the next tragedy will occur.
God is trying to tell us something, but we are lost, walking in circles in the wilderness.
I was raised in an AME church and if their church was anything like our church I’m sure somebody reached out to this young man, asked him his name and welcomed him with open arms.
The purpose of a prayer meeting is to gather in love. Prayer is powerful and I know that prayer changes things.
For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them." Matthew 18:20.
I can’t pretend to know how Dylann was feeling that evening, but I assume he was brewing with anger and hatred. Dylann Roof sat in that bible study for close to an hour and the love of God could not penetrate his heart. Hatred had steered him on a mission that evening and nothing would deter him from it.
The media leads us to believe that his heart is layered with years and years and years of racial hate. I’m sure there is a cross hanging somewhere in that church’s sanctuary. Dylann is a member of a Lutheran church. He is full aware of what the cross symbolizes. Why did he not say to himself? Not here. Not now.
God was there. God was in that church that night. He saw what was happening. So why didn’t he stop it?
I can’t answer that question.
"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD. Isaiah 55:8.
I feel like the devil is running rampant and God sits back on his throne and just watches. He does nothing but monitors the world. God can hear our cries, but still he responds with silence.
The LORD's anger burned against Israel and he made them wander in the wilderness forty years, until the whole generation of those who had done evil in his sight was gone. Numbers 32:13
When the Israelites were forced to wander in the wilderness. He never left them. Although they may have thought God had abandoned them. He was there he just didn’t direct them and without God’s direction they kept walking in circles.
Are we (residents of the United States) walking around in the wilderness? I feel like we, as a country, keep making the same mistakes over and over again. This country has a pattern. A shooting happens. People die. We wonder why and pledge to pass stricter gun laws. Then nothing changes. We mourn the lives that were lost but in a few months; after the media coverage has died down and the spotlight is no longer on Charleston, SC we forget. Then the clock resets itself and we are on another countdown of when and where the next tragedy will occur.
God is trying to tell us something, but we are lost, walking in circles in the wilderness.
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