GOD ALONE CAN BRING PEACE

My religion is my understanding of God and my response to that understanding.  It helps me make sense of my life; it helps me make sense of the world I live in.  It gives me an anchor of hope so I can look beyond the darkness of the storm and see the light of day. 

Terrorism is not a new tactic.  Terrorists are human beings that require love and care just as all human beings do.  Violence has corrupted them and damaged their souls.  That doesn’t excuse their behavior but it helps to understand why they respond to life the way they do.

Jesus came into a troubled and violent world.  He did not come with the mission of setting up an army of good to defeat the bad.  He did not come to overthrow the Roman Empire, as some people of the day were expecting him to.  He did not come to overthrow the religious system, as some people thought he was doing.  He sis not come to the systems; he came to the people, to the individuals who needed to be healed and needed to restore their relationship with God that had somehow become broken.  He came to invite people into the kingdom of God, where they were meant to be from the beginning of time, to restore the wholeness of creation as his Father meant it to be.  He came to give light and life to all who were seeking it and to those who would receive and believe in it and in him.

Religion is the foundation and the fuel for most of the violence in the world today, especially in the Middle East.  The solution is not at the mind level.  Only a transformation of the heart will bring lasting change.  Only God can change hearts.  My response to the world situation is to acknowledge that God is certainly in control of this world and He alone can bring lasting peace, and pray that all will come to see this as the only Truth.