There are plenty of things going on in this world that should make us furious. From the young girls that are being sold into the sex trade by their own mothers in Iraq, (a 14 year old virgin can bring in over $30,000) and the rape victims in India who are stoned to death because they dishonored their family name, to the children who come to my church who have to endure the humiliation and abuse of drug addicted parents...The runaway teenage girl who ran straight into the arms of the boy in the youth group who was trying to straighten up his life and instead made her pregnant. It makes you want to shake some sense into people, doesn't it? But the most maddening thing is that too many people who claim to believe in God have come to the point where they shrug their shoulders and say, "Well, what else can we do?"
One of the best and most effective strategies of hell, is to make us all complacent. To stop getting angry and to just let things go. We may be shocked, wag our heads in disagreement and wish for the days when life was more innocent, but when all is said and done, the standards that we say we hold to, we can so easily let slide into the sewer.
I listened to Bristol Palin, the daughter of evangelical Christian Gov. Sarah Palin, giving what was supposed to be her heartfelt sentiments on teenage pregnancy in an interview on the news. "I'd love to [be] an advocate to prevent teen pregnancy because it's not, like, a situation that you would want to strive for, I guess," Bristol said. She told the interviewer that abstaining from sex before marriage is the best, "but not realistic at all." Thanks Bristol. Young women all over the country are so inspired - I guess.
Everything in her interview revolved around how tough things are on her: having to scale back on her teenage activities, stay awake late at night, and have to care for someone else. But what about the huge disservice she has done to this child, to have to grow up in a home without a mother and father who are in a committed, adult, marriage relationship? What about the damage done to the attitudes of young girls who hear her pathetic attempt to discourage teenage pregnancy with her confession that it's just unrealistic? If you're that wimpy about it, just stay home and say nothing - please!
Complacency. Claiming to believe in a right and wrong, but when it gets too tough to handle, just shrug your shoulders and do nothing. Don't fight, don't revolt, don't insist that life could be better. Just give up, it's so much easier.
Just writing this makes me mad, and that is a really good thing! If complacency is a strategy of hell, then a full-frontal spiritual attack is the only choice we have. Our prayers of spiritual warfare on the part of those we see who are suffering, and stepping out of our comfort zones to rescue people who are destroying themselves, are all a part of standing up to the chaos that's all around us. Let's all stop being so nice and passive - get mad and do some fighting back!
