When Children Die

My heart hurts today. Indeed, it is breaking. Two precious children of God – two-year-old Ramiya “TinkerBell” Reed and three-year-old Acen King – have died from gunfire in recent days in my city of Little Rock. One from a drive-by shooting and the other from ‘road-rage’. While these events are part of a growing crisis in Little Rock, they are also another tragic example of how an epidemic of violence is impacting virtually every nook and cranny of the world. So what do we do? We must understand this grieves God’s heart more than we can ever imagine and is first and foremost a spiritual issue. We must be outraged, filled with holy anger and declare with everything that is in us that this is not acceptable. We must step forward as people who follow Jesus because we know this is not just someone else’s problem deal with, but also ours. We must pray and seek God’s guidance, and then do what God tells us. We must address all the issues that have led us to this place and be willing to make long-term needed changes. We must come together because it’s going to take all of us getting involved, praying and caring for each other. And, finally, we must understand that ‘must’ is the operative word because doing this is not an option, but a necessity. Not merely because it impacts us. But because God calls us to live our faith.