My Dear Friends

I sit here, before the sun rises, wondering what to write.

The Federal Government has nationalized the National Guard in Oregon. Oregon and Portland have rushed to federal court to oppose it. There is little they can do.

A Mormon church in Michigan has been attacked. Its members shot. The building set on fire. The culprit was a veteran.

The nation seems undone, insane, and irreparable.

The voices on both sides do not want to tone it down, but rev it up. The left, confronted with the data that violence is rising on their side, have doubled down on violent rhetoric that could lead the mentally frail to act out.

On the right, there are those who profess Christ with their lips and government with their actions — wanting to wield the state as a cudgel against their enemies.

Assata Shakur has met her Maker and, as someone who rejected the Christ, she meets a fiery eternity. The Left is celebrating her, though she is a cop killer who fled to Cuba and sought refuge with communists. She, in the end, did not win. She burns.

I saw the Bluesky Libs account responding to a friend’s objections over some indictments with, “Crush your enemies, see them driven before you and hear the lamentations of their women.”

That line comes from a fictional character in a movie. But it is a line a lot of people on the right have embraced in dealing with the left. It feels good in all this chaos to use Trump and his control of government to crush your enemies.

I’d trade the fictional Conan the Barbarian for the very real Jesus Christ who, instead, said,

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’

44 But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,

45 so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.

46 For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?

47 And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?

48 You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. (Matthew 5:43–48, ESV)

If you embrace the ways of the left, you risk becoming like them.

If, instead, you love your enemies, love your neighbors, and pray for them, you have real power on your side.

When the children in the Catholic school in Minnesota were gunned down, people on the Left mocked thoughts and prayers. I cannot help but notice now that many on the Right who claimed to be insulted by that mocking themselves do not really believe in the power of prayer. They believe in their own power that they can wield against their opponents.

Friends, I believe in the power of prayer. I don’t know what tomorrow will bring. I don’t know what the headlines will be as I sit down behind the microphone at noon today. But I know God is still in charge, prayer still wields extraordinary power, and the people on the left and the right calling for vengeance, fights, violence, etc. are behaving according to the ways of the world. I don’t call for abdication against the Left. But I do call for those on the right to be in continual prayer and fight differently from the Left.

God Almighty is on the side of righteous and all things do work for the good of those called according to His purposes.

So, regardless of what is happening or will happen, it’s all going to work out okay. Don’t fret. God’s got this. We are going to be okay.