The Other Side of #Blacklivesmatter

While we are protesting, marching and declaring #blacklivesmatter we are still seeing self destrruction in every major city in this country. It is tragic that lives have been lost to over agressive policing, but it is inexcusable the way we continue to exterminate ourselves with gun violence. How can we believe anybody else should be outraged by loss of life in our community when we prove on a regular basis we don't rightly value our own lives? In a sleepy little town like Summerville, South Carolina we are experiencing death by gun slayings much too often. It was personally heart breaking to sit in the home of another mother that has lost her son to gun violence. This boy attended the church I serve from the time he was a baby and he is now dead. His mother tried so hard to rescue her son but she was not successful. He sat in our Sunday school, children's church and regularly attended our youth SHARE service. I know we can't save them all, but how did we miss it so badly? What didn't we do that we should have done? Why couldn't I get through to this young man? How is it that with so many churches in so many of our black neighborhoods our boys are choosing gangs over Christian fellowship? We have to find a way to change these hard realities. We have got to errect a plan that gets our youth to see their value and the opportunities they have to be great. Our great God has put greatness in every life and we must teach our kids how to tap into it. Our kids have got to know what it is to dream big again. There is obviously too much despair overtaking them. Too many of them don't believe they can make it without getting involved with crime. Crime leads to death. The strange quality of being young is the thought that death will always and only touch somebody else. They don't seem to believe that death can catch up to them. Well it is and way too often. Why is it so difficult for them to see life as a positive possibility? Apparently we are not representing life well when so many are by defalt choosing death. As frustrating and overwhelming as it may be something has to be done. We have got to have a step by step, long range, systematic strategy to address this crisis.  Instead of getting lost in the problem we have to start thinking from the middle of the solution. There is an answer. The answer is love. Jesus is love and we have to lift Him up in ways that they can truly see Him. After all, "love never fails."This is our challenge. We have to rise and fix this in His name. Let's work it out!