Are we safe amid the senslessness?

I’ve written and re-written a blog and each time refrained from posting it because it sounded hollow and unreal to my own ears. That’s the nature of experience I guess. Some things, as real as they are, just don’t ring as true in the retelling as they reverberated within a particular heart. This has been my experience of evil. Particularly I think of crime, which has been brought closer to my heart than it has ever been.

Originally I’d written my thoughts on two incidents: the xenophobic attacks that have arisen across my country in the last month or so; and the shooting of a very dear friend. But my commentary on those events seemed so disconnected. As if another person were reading a poorly written news article.

But that’s exactly the problem with crime… In my country you grow up hearing about how prevalent it is from an early age, and if you’re fortunate – as I was – you can go most of your life without ever being confronted by the pure violence of it. It becomes something that you grow oblivious to. It’s there. You know it’s there. You read it in the news, you see it on tv, yet in a very strange sense it doesn’t carry that sense of reality to it. Your mind tells you it’s real. But really, as far as it touches your life, it may as well all be fiction. Perhaps this is why it’s so easy for us to turn aside from the suffering of strangers, because it doesn’t quite feel real until something strikes you personally. Only then are most people stirred to act.

This has been my experience. Crime has always been a part of the world we live in. And every now and then you’d be given a glimpse, just enough to keep you on your toes long enough to build up more defences. A few burglaries of your home and soon you’ll invest that extra money in a higher fence and that high cost alarm system. A few stories of armed robberies in your neighbourhood and you learn what areas not to frequent at particular times of night. A few stories of hijackings and vigilance at intersections becomes habit. Similarly, a few friends lose their cars and you will learn to check all doors when parking and to use every security device available, immobiliser, gear lock and steering lock, simultaneously.

But when my friend was shot about a month ago, my safe little bubble crumbled. At least, initially. Suddenly all the questions began crowding in. Why? How could someone have so little regard for another human life? Where was God? What was he trying to do through this? To me it all seemed so senseless.

The questions about God were easier to answer. Largely because I didn’t need to do much thinking on them. Just watching events unravel over those first few days he answered the question quite well for himself. Where was God when the mugger held the gun to my friend’s stomach and pulled the trigger? He was right there with her, guiding the bullet as it were along the unlikely path of the least destruction. It didn’t go straight through her as it should have, but missed her spine and only grazed her kidney, liver and intestines. Only the spleen had to be removed, while no essential organs were damaged. It was, to say the least, a miracle. And in case I doubted and considered it likely for bullets to ricochet in such a manner, my friend assured me later that the doctor himself was baffled.

As for what God was trying to do through all of this, well, he put a very vivacious girl with a passion for people that is second only to her passion for Jesus in a position where she could witness to stunned surgeons, nurses and physiotherapists about this glorious hope that she held. I almost cried tears of joy hearing her recount the responses of doctors she ministered to. She was blessed to see people changed, because she used every opportunity to rejoice in her saviour and to share the reason for her joy with the people around her. In many ways I completely understand why it had to be her. Oh that I could have that same perspective when the world would understand, even expect, self-pity and sorrow!

As for how someone could have so little regard for human life? That was harder to comprehend. I believe it all comes down to recognising in that other person the image of God. When a person thinks they are above another they are ignorant of the fact of that person’s heritage… as a masterpiece of the living God. When I consider this I shudder at the thought that so often I commit the same crime. No, I haven’t shot anyone. But didn’t Jesus say that hating a brother was equivalent? So each time I shun the homeless man on the street, or look scornfully at the rough looking kids on the corner, I commit the same horrendous act as that man did against my friend.

So how are we as the body of Christ to respond? The world would say to look out for you. That we ought to build up our defences and maybe if we can spare a thought once we’re secure, we could find a way to help people from a safe distance. But that is not what Jesus did. He got his hands dirty. Dealt with people face to face.

We get opportunities every day to decide how we will respond to each person we meet. However we perceive of them. We should pray daily about how we can use each opportunity to love someone in spite of the cost to ourselves. Some would say it is foolish to not secure our own safety first, and it can be dangerous and frightening to do so, but we’re not reaching the world when we’re huddled up safely in our warm and cosy homes. Sometimes God forces us out of our comfort zones to bring us across the path of people he’s seeking. But other times the onus is on us to take that step out in faith.

There are people dying every day… without Jesus. Surely Christ’s love compels us to go find them.