Sunday, February 3, 2013

Thinking About What We Say


Some of you may have read in the news about the death of Chris Kyle, a Navy Seal sniper who served in Iraq. Events like these are always tragic, but especially so whenever veterans die on home soil by the hand of a fellow citizen. However, I think we should be careful how we respond. **Just a word of warning, one of the following quotes contains strong profanity.**

I first started thinking on this after reading a couple of companies responses to Chris Kyle’s death. The two quotes taken together impressed upon me the power that our words can have, and reminded me that we can tell a lot about a person by what they say. Here is the first of the two quotes that started me thinking:
 
“Godspeed Chris Kyle. WTF is going on in this damned country?” 

I will admit that I initially felt anger similar to that of this writer after reading the story of Chris Kyle’s murder, but anger is rarely the right response, and cursing out your own country is certainly not (1 Peter 2:13-14). Yes, Chris Kyle was killed by a fellow American. He was killed by a fellow veteran who may have been suffering from PTSD. Did the individual in quote 1 know this? Did he realize that he was chewing out another veteran, one who –even though this doesn't make his actions right –was probably suffering from the psychological aftereffects of taking part in war to defend America’s freedom? Instead of cussing out our country –and therein the brave men and women who defend it –I believe that a more appropriate and God centered response can be found in the following quote from company #2:

“Pray for the Family and Friends Of Fallen Soldier Chris Kyle. God Rest His Soul.” 

Though I often struggle to do this, prayer is always an appropriate response to tragedy. Here it would be a prayer for comfort and saving grace for Chris Kyle’s family and friends as they go through this difficult time. A proper response does not include cursing the man who did this, but rather we should pray for his healing, both spiritual and physical, just as Christ prayed for the forgiveness of the Jews even as they raised Him up (Luke 23:34a).

We should be careful how we respond to these events as Christians because what we do and say will be seen by the world and connected by them to who we stand for: Jesus Christ. If we cuss out others, people will see that and identify it with Christ. I know that I struggle with, and often fail to, respond properly in different situations. I found this quote by Chris Kyle very moving, and I think that it can be applied to believers as well:

“What keeps me up at night is not the people that I have killed. It is the people I wasn’t able to save.” ~Chris Kyle 

Although we as Christians know that we cannot save anybody in and of ourselves, I also know that I haven’t lost as much sleep over not giving a Christ-like response to somebody as I should.

I don’t know if Chris Kyle was a Christian, or if his friends and family are believers, but we should be praying for them. And we should also be praying for the man who committed this crime. We should respond in a manner that brings glory to Christ our Savior’s name.

Rest in Peace Chris Kyle,
Joseph M.

Credits:
New York Times (although you can find the story from any main news outlet).
 

3 comments:

  1. Good thoughts, Joseph. You are right, anger is not the correct response, but how often we all fail! God is indeed merciful...

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  2. Is how bad you feel over your sins an indication of your virtue? Penance is not a virtue. Penitence is a virtue, or at least desirable when having done something sinful. Should one berate himself for what he did not properly? Should one lose sleep over what he did improperly? Should one purposely lose sleep in order to repent for a certain amount of time during prayer? Is this what is referred to as "fear and trembling"? Does this fear and trembling apply primarily to the ascertainment of the certainty of salvation, or does it reach to all aspects of life? If prayer is to be approached with the concentration of a math problem, is it also to be solved in exactitude so that there is no shadow of doubt of any possible misunderstanding? What exactly is the proper amount of prayer, and what exactly is prayer limited to? Is there an objective standard to the proper amount and content of prayer, or is there a subjective component? If there is a subjective component this could hypothetically be reconciled with the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. If then the Holy Spirit is indwelling in the heart of a believer, how is it that we do not feel "bad enough"? Do we feel as if the problem that we could have solved, or attempted to solve, was not solved by us? The question remains whether if there is no cut and dry standard for the proper time and practice for prayer, how can you know if you did it wrongly, and if there is a exact standard that should be followed, as in mathematics, what is it? The Bible? The Bible stresses different things at different times for which to pray. Or is The Lord's Prayer the standard? Should we take Jesus as our example and pray all night, or do cases vary so that the emotions of the believer are a good standard of when to cease praying for the moment? If you pray about something regularly can you be said to have considered enough to ask God to give you wisdom in dealing with a problem with which you feel you should deal? ( :^{0} Did I take the metaphor of math problems too far? God created math.

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