Spiritual Awakening

My writing on this blog has been sporadic at best over the past few weeks. I have been focusing on other social media outlets. I sensed that I needed to share some thoughts with you considering the events of this past week. 

This has been a week in which we have witnessed another horrific mass murder. I want to remind you of the importance of praying for the families of the victims as well as praying for the various individuals who are fighting for their lives and let us not forget those who have begun their road to recovery both physically as well as emotionally. We offer thanks to all of the first responders and the other "heroes" who worked to save the lives of their family, friends as well as complete strangers. The challenges of life does afford us the opportunity to also witness genuine care and concern for others rise to the surface. 

We also need to pray for ourselves!! How should we respond to this event? It normally does not take us long to "move on" with life once the event is replaced by another event in the news or another event in our lives. Many Americans are fixated or captured by numbers and by the breaking of records. The number of sport championships that are won; the record of our favorite sports teams; our score on a golf course; or the distance to our favorite place of recreation is just a few examples of my previous statement. There was another record broken this past Monday. Monday saw the record broken for the number of people killed in a mass murder in our nation. I will be honest when I say that I am saddened by that record. I heard this week that a "mass murder" is defined as a situation where four (4) or more individuals are killed. It was told that 272 of these type of murders have taken place in America this year.  That is almost one a day across our nation!!! These statistics should be very concerning to each of us!!

Proverbs 27:1, “Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring. (NIV)

Once again I ask, "What am I going to do?" This is certainly not the time to just be going through the "motions" of Christianity. This is not the time to be unsure of our relationship with God. This is not the time to ignore God and it is not the time to stop drawing closer to Him. But drawing closer to God has to be more than just the use of the right words. The atmosphere of this world is demanding that we take the appropriate actions in responding correctly to God. I fully realize that these are "plain" words but they are spoken in genuine love and concern. Nehemiah 1 tells us of a time in his life that his heart was "burdened" by the condition of his homeland. Let us notice what Nehemiah did when he heard this information. "And it came to pass, when I heard these words, that I sat down and wept, and mourned certain days, and fasted, and prayed before the God of heaven." (Nehemiah 1:4) We can find time to do all types of things that please and satisfy us. I believe that it is time for EACH OF US to examine our lives in times of serious introspection before God. We need to have a "burden" for our soul, the souls of our family, the souls of our friends, the souls of our nation and the souls of each human being on the face of this earth. I truly wish that I could report that ALL IS WELL BUT ALL IS NOT WELL. WE ARE IN DESPERATE NEED OF A MIGHTY AWAKENING IN THE CHURCH ACROSS AMERICA. Once again I offer this question, "What am I going to do?"