The Bible is the polar opposite of a fairy tale, and it peddles no easy answers. It promises persecution and hardship for those who zealously believe and proclaim it, and assures us that evil lies in the hearts of humanity, as our race chooses every day to disavow and disobey the loving and merciful Christ through whom we were formed. I've seen people do hideous things even in His name, blaspheming their Creator who despises such violence and corruption.
On TV, I've seen President Kennedy shot down in Dallas by a confused, aspiring revolutionary. I've seen men fight in Vietnam and be spat upon by their countrymen upon returning home, called "babykillers" by those who claimed to love peace. I've seen masked men kill hostages in Munich during the Olympics. I've seen politicians and trusted public servants lie under deposition when accused of wrongdoing. I've seen a twisted man bent on revenge for what went down at the compound in Waco blow up a building and kill children in Oklahoma City. I've seen planes flown into the World Trade Center towers by suicidal maniacs. I've seen a deranged twenty-year-old man enter a school in Connecticut and slaughter teachers and children; I then saw other mad men deny the first mad man ever existed. I saw one hundred twenty people robbed of their lives in Paris by men who gave themselves the right with bullets and hatred.
And, on TV, I've seen a child called Genie raised in isolation for thirteen years, a child developmentally disabled by abuse, who could not speak, delight in laughter and joy at the sight of helium balloons; I saw her use her hands to communicate, sign language that opened her heart to those around her.
On TV, I saw men and women in New York City risk their lives and abandon their own safety to rescue others in the midst of raining rubble as towers collapsed behind them. I saw a Holocaust victim named Eva Kor forgive and embrace a former SS bookkeeper, Oskar Gröning, at his trial, encouraging him to continue to tell the truth about an atrocity that many deny ever took place. I saw Amish men and women extend forgiveness to a deviant who entered their schoolhouse and executed their daughters; I saw one Amish man embrace the gunman's father. I saw men, victims of prejudice, released from prison for murders they did not commit, freed by DNA, by truth, and by faith, against all odds, against all hope.
On TV, I've seen human beings do the evil that only comes from hating and rejecting the love of God, the love He instills even in those who don't believe He could do so. And I've seen the good that can only come from Him, in the midst of the ugliness in this world, good and mercy so alien to us fleshly, greedy, angry, creatures who desperately need our Savior. You don't have to take my word for it, but I tell you, I've seen it in person, right before my very eyes. And what I wasn't there to see, I saw it on TV.
OHMS,
Cpt. Bud Sturguess
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it." -John 1:1-5
"The heart is deceitful above all things,
and desperately wicked;
Who can know it?
I, the LORD, search the heart,
I test the mind,
even to give every man according to his ways,
according to the fruit of his doings."
-Jeremiah 17:9-10
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