Many hearts remain as stone because they cannot yet reach into their grief. May God be merciful to them and envelop them with the strength and tenderness of His love. What an affront has befallen this nation! Yet Christians must take care not to confuse the kingdom of God with earthly kingdoms. Reasonable patriotism is natural. It is the guarding of our fruits. But the inclination to view the perpetrators as the “bad guys” while we, the “Christian nation” must be the good ones, appointed by God to “rid the world of evildoers”, is a snare. In this mentality we vow that “we will not be cowed”; we will demonstrate the true heart of America. It is hard to discern that these seemingly noble sentiments are of “the flesh”. With the same spirit, the British Empire, confusing government with God, resisted the founding of this country with blood. Now, millions of American evangelicals are embracing the same spirit. What is the proper response to this monumental disaster?
Our anger is a part of our God-given humanity. We rightly expect our government to defend its people and to inflict punishment on those who harm them. For this, governments are appointed (1 Peter 2:13, 14). But the greater part of our response lies elsewhere. It is not that bad people have attacked a good country, but that God in His Sovereignty has stirred up the spirit of the invader—whether they are evil or good—to enter our land, for He has a message for us. Through trial and disaster, God seeks to draw us to Himself, not push us away. It is we who push ourselves away from Him through independent spirits that seek comfort from pain in our addictions instead of His great Heart. We build our towers to the clouds to testify of our ingenuity and brilliance when we have failed to exalt to the heavens the God of all mankind who has loved us to the Death. Let us, then, humble ourselves before God and receive with gratitude Christ’s righteousness in place of our bankruptcy of spirit. Let us mourn for those who died as if they were ourselves; let us pray for the comfort of the bereaved as if we were needing the comfort ourselves; let us love them as if we ourselves needed to be dug from the rubble.
—Colin