Shootings and other violence caused by shutting out God

To the editor:

The recent Florida School shooting was horrific on so many levels. Now we all begin to be barraged with multiple voices and sources contributing their own particular take on everything that has happened. There will be those who will politicize it for their own agendas. There will be multitudes of opinions on the “whys” and “how to” understand and deal with such tragedies. In the end, it all goes deeper than what seems so apparent on the surface.

We live in a world where goodness and evil exist, where love and hate struggle together. Jesus, in one verse of scripture, revealed this as a truth for all when He said in John 10:10 “The enemy comes to steal, kill and destroy, but I have come that you might have life, life in its fullest measure.” I can’t help but see the correlation between our readiness to discredit and ban a loving God from increasing arenas of society and the rising tide of evil all around us.

Nature by its very essence will always seek to fill anything vacated and void with something else. As in the natural, so too spiritually; remove the recognition of a loving God from any arena of life and the opposite — evil — will seek to fill the void. In addition to that, evil will always seek to discredit God and everything associated with Him.

David Wilkerson, in his book, “The Cross and the Switchblade” tells of a gang leader named Nicky Cruz, who was turned from evil to the Lord. Nicky Cruz became a mighty evangelist helping to set multitudes free from horrible lifestyles. Point: the enemy of all goodness so hates what Jesus stands for and wants so badly to discredit Him at every level, he’ll even smear a good name with an evil reference. How many people, when they hear the name Nicky Cruz, will automatically think of a righteous and good evangelist, given to helping people, or will their thoughts turn instead to a crazed high school assassin bearing the same name? This is the ploy of the enemy to pervert everything right and good.

It’s time for us to recognize the Pandora Box we open for everything evil when we shut the love and goodness of God out. What has been said here in no way diminishes the incredible heartbreak of those who have suffered such losses as we have experienced, but let it be a voice of truth and hope that we might return to He who cares and loves so deeply, and such tragedies be avoided in the future.

—Pastor Charlie Moody,

Bridge of Hope Fellowship

Libby