Va Tech

Yesterday, just before I left the house to go to work, I checked cnn.com just to catch up on the news for the day, and I saw that there was a shooting at Virgina Tech. At that point the headlines read "SCHOOL SHOOTING - One dead and seven injured". All at once, I slouched down in my chair and mouth kinda fell open out of shock. My initial reaction was, "Dang. Man. This sucks. What is wrong with people." I was mostly upset. As I was driving to work I started to kinda get angry about the whole situation. What kind of disturbed human could do something like that? Go on to campus and shoot 8 innocent people, no matter what their excuse was.

As it usually goes in my life, I forgot about the whole situation as soon as I got to work and started only thinking about myself. Went throughout the day, had a pretty good day, sold a car, then about 7:00 after my customers left I got news that 32 people had died in the event and several more injured. I couldn't believe it. 32 people. What kind of person does that. I got even more angry, and I don't really know what I was angry about. Maybe that people are capable of doing something like that, maybe that no one had known this "loner" well enough to stop this, I don't know what exactly made me so angry.

We live in a jacked up world. Things are not as they should be. But one day, one day not to far away, we will be in perfect harmony and peace with God, nature, and others (please read Micah 4). This makes me want to "hasten The Day" and a main motivation for wanting to fulfill the Great Commission. This gets me excited like few things can.

But I am not about to say that the wickedness of my heart is somehow less than that of Cho Seung-Hui 's. I just have Jesus. I firmly believe that anyone of any position is capable of any sin at any time. But that is for another entry. However, I would like to hear a response on that from my two readers.

Anywho, to the point that caused me to write on this thing after six months. At the outset, I want to say I mean no sort of disrespect and would never try to lessen the horrible events at Virgina Tech. My prayers and sympathy go out to the students, families, friends, and and our nation, and I pray that God would be glorified and made much of because of these events.

I understand that these events hit close to home for us, and that is a large reason that this shock wave has been sent throughout our country. It was on our soil. That is why 9-11 changed the course of history when 2,392 people died in New York. It was here. It was our countrymen. These college students were innocent. It could have easily been one of us. But is one person's life worth more than another's? I think most people would say no, at least in theory. All men created equal, right? We don't live with the "life boat" mentality that Donald Miller talks about do we? Can we call ourselves followers of Jesus if we do? If you think that the middle to upper class people who live next to us (and who we are) are worth more in the sight of God than the crack addict living ten minutes from us in downtown and cant provide for their kids, even if it is their fault (the people we should also be ministering to, if not more so), then you can quit reading here. You wont be able to follow the rest of my logic. And you can also continue to live in your selfish world that you are shut up in, and if you are still going to "be a Christian" then read your Bible and tell me where I am wrong. And read Matthew 25:31-46 and be scared for your eternal state. It scares me about mine. (I just got really mad while I was typing that. It is probably conviction falling on me.) But I don't believe that there is any way to Biblically state that one person is worth more to God than the next, unless you want to talk about the Jews. If so, my Gentile friends, we are screwed.

So if we say people are people no matter what color, age, sex, orientation, race, or hair style, why does the fact that 34 people died in another Iraq bombing the day before the Va Tech massacre so easily roll out of our, my, mind? Problem. Why does current mass genocide get five minutes of air time a week, and Jesus people forget about it when a funny commercial comes on. Problem. I think I know why. In theory I believe people are equal, but I don't believe it in reality. AIDS in Africa, Darfur, Cambodia child sex slavery, The Congo, our own brothers being persecuted today (Voice of the Martyrs), and on and on. I can understand media playing Va Tech quite a bit and forgetting the rest of the world. They are mostly sinners who don't know better. But I cant understand Christian's being as distraught and tore up over this while being so ignorant and naive about the rest of the world. Have a global mindset. Get over yourself. Don't forget or neglect your country, but don't forget or neglect others.

So I am going to be upset and mourn the events of Monday, but not any more than I did the events of Sunday.

Needing a lesser view of myself and a higher view of others,

-colby