How to Stop School Shootings by Valuing People
I was talking to my wife the other day about the most recent school shooting from last week. I was telling her it’s crazy to think how shocked everyone was when Columbine happened in 1999. It was something so far away from the ordinary. A shooting? At a school? It’s horrific. Fast forward almost 2 decades, and now our response is: Another school shooting? How many is that already this year?
What Has Happened to Us?
Time, perspective, and patience are all changing. If you still don’t understand how our nation really treats these events, look at the most recent video from Childish Gambino and be challenged on our natural reaction to be shocked and still entertained immediately after. (I will caution, the video "This is America" is shocking and not recommended for children)The question everyone wants to know is: what are we willing to give up to ensure this doesn’t happen again?The party lines are drawn. Citizens are prepared to make their battle-cries. Everyone wants their opinion heard, but no one wants to have a conversation. This isn’t an obvious Christian post saying “We need God back in schools” to fix the problem.
We Have All Become Wrestling Fans
We love to pay our ticket (taxes), watch the product (the news), while they cut a promo (where each side argues why it should and is going to win), and we talk with our friends about our favorite wrestlers (party), and speculate what will happen next week. Rarely do we care enough to make changes where we are. We simply speculate on what change will happen and then complain when it doesn’t go in our favor, or when the other side complains they didn’t get what they wanted. I think we can all agree, we want a safe place where children can go be kids. We want a place where they can be free to question, dream, believe, doubt, love, and move.How do we accomplish this? Start at home. Start in your community, in your neighborhood or on your street.
Tell People What God Thinks of Them
There is a whole generation of kids being brought up who want so desperately to know who they are. They turn to music, tv, and video games to find out. Make no mistake, the devil wants your kids too. If you won’t tell your kids or the kids in your neighborhood what God thinks about them, the devil has no issue making sure they know what he thinks.People say all the time, the value of life is going away. It’s not simply going away just because of crime. Crime is a symptom of the root cause of the issue. People don’t value life because we don’t value each other. When we don't value one another, we become entitled, jealous, and dangerous.
Related Post: Party at God's House
We would rather watch another meme, YouTube video, or the local news than walk out the door, smile, believe, encourage, and love. Even though we are among the richest people in the world, we complain, because we don’t steward our money properly, that we don’t have enough. We have become self-centered. God doesn’t need to show up in our schools. He doesn’t need to show up to our homes or in our lives. He’s already there. We’ve become so focused on everything else, we simply forget to ask him what he wants to do. We expect Jesus to follow us as though he is our assistant. We ask him for his advice and rarely for him to lead the way.
Get Involved--It Starts With You
If you really want to stop school shootings, get involved in the lives of your community not the politics of it. Learn your neighbors' name and not their party line. Find out what they believe and not who they’re voting for. Love above all. Love isn’t the first thing you should do, it’s the only thing. Start small. Ensure everyone in your home is loved and knows they are, then move outside. Let the community know that even if the world doesn’t love or believe in them, you do. Have someone over for dinner or throw a block party. And, for goodness sake, love on someone who doesn't look or act like you. Start there.We need to treat the disease and not the symptom. There can always be many symptoms while one disease exists. We can then confuse the symptoms for the wrong disease and prolong a cure. The cure is loving one another as Christ loved us. If we fail to love others, this is only a sign we have yet to allow Christ to love us. Love covers a multitude of lives and a nation of broken homes. If we can fix our homes and our neighborhoods, we will fix our schools.