It's Here

As the words and sounds reach my ears I am trying to not believe.  I don’t want to even begin to comprehend.  Even as my soul cries out, I deny what is already around me.  Self indulgent behavior, self destruction, and self glory are hard to take.  It doesn’t matter how old, young, informed, or apparently uninformed the individual is.  It doesn’t matter if the expression is the result of an individual exercising their God given freedom of choice.  It doesn’t matter, and yet it does.  The human spirit cares when someone, anyone, puts his or her self in danger.  The human spirit cries out when a soul is at risk.  The human spirit is profoundly touched when evil plays itself out in someone’s life; the cause doesn’t matter. 
 
The scene still plays.  The young kid, similar in age to one of my nephews, running through and around the intersection of Avenue A, Essex Street, and Houston.  Even more is the cry of a stranger.  She recognized what was going on but felt helpless.  I see, feel helpless and didn’t even try – not even a emergency call from the cell phone charged in my pocket. The bouncers in the nearby clubs merely watch. 
 
The scene was out of a mythical movie.  It may be based on our choices yet it is ultimately God who is in control.  “Scavenging carrion birds will breed and brood, infestations of ominous evil.  Get and read God's book: none of this is going away, this breeding, brooding evil.  God has personally commanded it all.  His Spirit set it in motion.”  (Isaiah 34.15, 16)
 
I struggle to come to grips with God’s role.  Are some still unconvinced of evil’s intent and destruction played out in the lives of the community?  Does evil have pictures of God in a compromising situation?  Is evil stronger than good?
 
I don’t have hard proof, yet I see evidence – in my life and others – that God cares.  Compassion, mercy, and peace are stronger than evil.  God and these principles will respond to evil.  They already are.