Post Presidential election, America is still a very divided nation where people — not happy — with the results of the election have resorted to violent protests. The lives of people living in these areas have been turned upside down, police officers are being threatened, protestors have been shot, many others have been arrested and property is being destroyed. There are some that have been able to keep their protest of the 2016 election civil, but unfortunately many others have spiraled out of control with very few voices calling for peace.

With almost every major urban area in chaos, the divisive rioting is heading towards civil war. The atmosphere is so negatively charged, people need only the slightest “justification” to mark another person an enemy creating “lines” between us and them. Whether its black, white, Christian, Muslim, secularist, atheist, Republican, Democrat, LGBT, fill in the blank ______, we’re extraordinarily adept at creating a framework that allows us to “justify” making another person our target of violence.

Looking out our windows, hearing the violence on social media or watching it on TV, I want you to hear this: You are not powerless in the midst of this chaos, you do not have to be afraid and you don’t need to feel as if you’re a victim waiting to happen!

Please hear this! No matter what side of this protest you are on, we as American’s don’t need to lower ourselves to the standards of others committing this unrest and violence. As American’s, we don’t need to allow hatred towards others to enter into our hearts or to allow any narrative, media or other, to justify racism and violence.

Sometimes when the world seems out of control and life doesn’t make sense, it makes us more aware of how much we can’t control in our own lives. Sometimes what happens on a larger scale only exposes what’s going on in our own hearts. When we collide with these moments, the big dilemma is that we feel powerless. When we see the problem as too big, we become paralyzed and end up doing nothing but look the other way. You may not be able to completely solve the problem on your own, but the problems we face as American’s can’t be solved without you.

God has already devised the most amazing strategy for reclaiming our humanity and it’s in a person named Jesus Christ!

We’ve all bought into the lie that the only way to win is to defeat everyone else and Jesus is teaching us to sacrifice and serve others. Jesus knew all along that the victory would be found in the defeat. One of the cool things that Jesus reveals to us is that God is not a God who tries to power and rule over us with force and violence, but a God who has come to serve and give us life through His suffering and death. It was on the cross that would bring God to His most powerful moment where He would be crucified, buried and raised from the dead!

Even though our resume for being “human” is incredibly lacking, I do think there are more good moments than bad ones. If anything, these events should shake you at your very core to rise up and be that good in the world. Those who are motivated by evil, darkness and violence are not waiting for permission to act…they just do it with a recklessness. Those of us who are committed to making America a better place have to rise up and not live a life of apathy. We need to be a light in a world that so desperately needs it today.

As Americans, united we stand or divided we fall!

We need to stop drawing lines, because it’s not us against them or them against us…it’s just us. The “us” is not just those who call themselves followers of Jesus Christ, the “us” is every human being living on this plant. The “us” is all of us sorting this out together and I encourage all of us to stop the hate and the rioting…and take a stand for “us”.

Here is my battle cry to you: Every line someone draws to divide, erase it to unite!

 
Dear Heavenly Father,

I stand here today knowing that there is no heart more grieved than Yours. We have lost our way and are losing our hearts in the process. I pray for a peace to the unrest and violence. I pray for an attitude of forgiveness and that we would somehow our humanity again. I thank You Jesus, that you traded Heaven for earth to step into our mess called “humanity” considering Yourself as nothing to be made in human likeness that we may find our way back to You. I pray for those paralyzed by fear. I pray for those who are angry at injustice, that it would not justify more injustice. I pray for those who have been wounded by the senseless violence, that they would not become the violence. I pray that You would call us to take a higher road and that You alone would bring about the needed justice to our lands. I pray in the name of Jesus, our everlasting hope!

Amen.

Put your hope in the LORD both now and forevermore! —Psalm 131:3