Murphy Gill - I Think About It

   Violence is always an incredibly tragic thing! But violence against the innocent is more than that ... it is heinous and horrific! Violence against the innocent drain compassion and hope from the life of a community of people. There is no justification for violence against the innocent!    It makes no difference whether the innocent are black men selling CD's in front of a store, a young black family driving their car which has a tail light out or whether the innocent are police officers, of any race, simply being a presence at a lawful demonstration in order to help keep peace.     Innocent are innocent. They are fathers and mothers, sisters and brothers, sons and daughters. They are innocent. They do not represent something larger and therefore become eligible to have violence done against them in the name of something larger. They are innocent! A PRAYER    Jesus, you said “Peace I leave with you. My peace I give you." Oh God, we desperately need Your peace ... not the

     I’m really sorry for this long post, but I am having a difficult time today. It's so hard for me to reconcile how so many of my friends and acquaintances who claim the citizenship of the Kingdom of God by virtue of belief in and forgiveness by God and who in most areas of their lives, strive to live as Christ followers, how they can add their "amen" to these very non-Christlike statements which call for the rejection and abandoning of those in greatest need.  This just doesn’t make sense.       Yes, there is danger in letting people into your life … danger that they might be broken and messed up and might cheat you, lie to you or even hurt you or those you love.  But I look at Jesus’ example and I find that there is nothing "safe" about being a representative of Christ, nor did He ever indicate that the Christlike life would ever be safe … I believe he said exactly the opposite would be true. One of the mandates of those who follow God is to care for t

I had just dropped my son, a first grader, off at school. It was an absolutely gorgeous September day in Nashville, TN. At the school they were excitedly herding the kids into the gym for a pep assembly to open the day. The kids had been  looking forward to this and everyone was very excited for the day. As I got back to the car I turned on the radio and heard the horrible news on the radio that an airliner had just slammed into one of the twin towers in New York City and that they didn't know if it was a horrible accident of if it was an act of terrorism. I sat there for a few seconds in stunned disbelief and then it struck me that this news was going to be one of those events that would change everything. My mind went back to where I was when President Reagan was shot and about the night gulf war began and knew that this was probably one of those moments. I got out of my car and went back into the school building and stopped at the office to tell the secretary what I had just hea

     On this last day of 2012 I have been reminiscing about all that has transpired this year. There have  been some very good things happen ... as well as some very bad things that have taken place during this last year.   In the year 2012 i’ve observed some people being nothing short of inspirational, but then I’ve also seen some people, with great potential, unfortunately act in very disappointing ways.        As I look to scripture, what does God’s word say about these observations, and about my reminiscing?  Philippians 3 tells us to “focus all our energies on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, we press on and strain toward the goal”.  In Isaiah 43 God goes further and says to us “Forget about what’s happened; don’t keep going over old history. Be alert, be present. I’m about to do something brand-new.  It’s bursting out! Don’t you see it? There it is!”.   I believe those words, don’t you!  2012 and all the years before it had great t