When Hurricane Katrina struck Louisiana, America was gripped by its severity, but an accurate death toll has not been reported yet. While attending Seminary, I was dumbfounded to hear a fellow student say that when the abortionist doctor was shot down, he had been murdered just like he had murdered others and she felt his death was just. DEATH at the hands of another is never just (baby or man). We should be thankful God does not justly kill us for our deeds. On any given day when we 'slip' he would be justified in killing us immediately, before we had the option of repentance. Sometimes in our godliness we forget we are far from perfect and sin free. We may not be murderers, or homosexuals, or adulterers, or theives, or drug dealers for the world to view and judge, but as Jesus said, it is what is in our hearts, what others do not see, that will be our undoing.
I said all of this to say: during Katrina, many people incarcerated in the jails drowned. Here is a first hand testimony. From Prisoners abandoned and drowned in New Orleans: “Where Have All the Prisoners Gone? More Than 500 From New Orleans Jail Still Unaccounted For.”
“We were strictly abandoned. They just left us. When we realized what was going on, it was too late. It was total chaos. The water was up to our chest. You had guys laying in the water trying to climb to the top of their bunks. You had older guys who didn't have any medicine who we were trying to help. And the way we got out was we had to kick the cell door for maybe like an hour or two. And the cell doors, they sits on this hinge. You have to kick it off the hinge. And when you kicked it off the hinge you have to slide out the door. And Templeman III is -- I'm trying to explain it as best I could. It's two levels. You had an upper level and bottom level. The guys on the bottom level was totally stuck in this water. Lights was out. So we had to get out on the top level and come down and help those guys. And the police, they had left.”
These lives were lost and there are many that would say "so what." In the same vein, today, the news is reporting that a prison collapsed in Haiti but those prisoners escaped and are running free. HOW CAN PEOPLE IN LOCKED JAIL CELLS ESCAPE A COLLAPSED BUILDING? All of the other people in houses and office buildings who were free to move to a doorway for safety are injured and are going to be dug free from rubble; more dead than alive (sorry to say), but prisoners escaped and are running free? Come on!
How long will the masses be fed news instead of using news as a beginning to question the world around them? We are spoon fed information and believe it more than the gospels. When did we decide to become mindless parrots repeating everything said to us?
America is on a decline and the sin is ignorance. I hear Rush Limbaugh and Glen Beck being repeated more than God, Jesus, and Paul and I wonder WHY do we give our selves over more to Alpha male figures than God? I have my own political leanings and I can not describe myself as fully Republican or fully Democrat but I am fully Christian and will never follow any man blindly. I will give no human more loyalty than God. So that's why I am not fully behind one political party. No one walking on earth deserves that much loyalty. My family understands, no matter how hard it may be, I will not lose my soul for them, my life yes, my soul, NO.
I am not angry at the media, they must make a buck. But, we as a people must not lose our humanity. To be human is to use the one thing that separates us from all other creatures, our ability to think and to act rationally on those thoughts.
I hope today we mourn the loss of all life including those incarcerated. Believe it or not, God loved those lives or he would not have created them. The wrong they have done will be judged no differently than the wrong we have done. We will all answer to God for our lives. We plead for mercy and forgiveness and believed it should be given on demand. Me, as a flawed human, could never begrudge a person a chance to live, to have a chance to hopefully have time to come to the realization that they need forgiveness. If this chance had been denied me when I was in my early twenties, I'm sure there would have been those saying if I was murdered, I had been dealt equal judgment as in the abortion doctor's case. I have never killed anyone physically, but definitely with words. Now I am a light for God, just as he intended for me to be with my creation. My name actually means "Gift of God" It meant that even when I wasn't a gift of God. I now try to live up to my name.
The Bible says the angels in heaven rejoice every time one soul is saved. If one of those prisoners would have found salvation, there would have been rejoicing in heaven. On earth we do not rejoice over one saved soul. We seem to find joy in pointing at the unsaved (in our own knowledge of who is or who is not saved).
The righteous have enough of people who care about them, almost their own fan club. What about the unsaved, who cares about them?
1 comment:
I applaud your article!! Too often we do not hear this side of the picture (the "Christ-like side...). Thanks for stepping forward and bravely making it known!
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