03.28.05

Monday (03.21.05), in Red Lake, Minnesota there was another school shooting killing one teacher, a school security guard, five students and wounding 7 others before the gunman took his own life. Before arriving at the school Jeff Wiese also apparently killed his grandfather and his grandfather‘s companion.

This week I will be continuing to resend devotionals written in response to previous school shootings and similar tragedies in the hope that other such tragedies might be prevented. The devotional today was written after the Columbine school tragedy.

The Unthinkable

(Originally sent 9-16-99)

Pray without ceasing. - 1 Thessalonians 5:17.

The unthinkable has become reality for America and for so many other places. We now have shootings at schools and churches. (The shooting at Wedgewood Baptist Church of Ft. Worth, Texas had just occurred on September 15, 1999. Eight people were killed, including the shooter, and seven injured in this tragedy.) We have seen the bombing of public buildings and now random bombings of apartment buildings in Moscow. Who would even think of doing such things? We keep thinking this one will be the last one. But each shooting, each bombing seems to fuel the lust for more violence and bloodshed. Will the shooting at the church in Ft. Worth, Texas be the last? Not if we look at how things have progressed over the last couple of years. The shooting at the church only means that not only can people be shot while they work, at schools, daycares, and restaurants but now churches as well.

We seem to be rapidly progressing toward a point where there will be no area of life safe from violence. We do not want to think about it. We do not want to talk about it. We don’t want to read about it. We would like for it all to just go away. But the fact is that it is not going away. We are in the midst of a violent spiritual war which is manifesting itself in the physical. We can take away the guns, bomb making materials, and everything else associated with violence and it will not stop. It will not stop as long as we are losing the spiritual war. We talk about prayer. We sing about prayer. We read about prayer. We hear sermons on prayer. But do we really pray?

We prayed at the flagpoles across this country and many other countries yesterday morning. We prayed for the protection of students across the world. But it was not enough. One morning a year for a few minutes of prayer will never be enough. This war is going on 24 hours a day every day. We must be in continual prayer. Every day must be a day of prayer. If we seriously want the violence to stop then we must have a revival like this earth has never seen before. Revival will only come as each of us take seriously our responsibility in prayer each hour of the day. We must pray harder and more than any have prayed before. Why? Because next time it could be where we work, it could be our church, our school, our home.... Let us pray before it is too late.