The Moment

This is The Moment. 

It is The Moment of darkness and anguish, of anger both justified and not. It is The Moment of reminder that the world in which we live is fallen and broken, marred by the ugliness of sin and depravity. It is The Moment that we have spent our leisure hours trying to forget exists—with our binge-watching, our parties, our vacations, our tightly scripted schedules of efficiency and self-absorption, we had convinced ourselves that such a Moment was a thing of the past. We had fooled ourselves into believing that we are better. 

It is The Moment in which we learned otherwise. It is The Moment in which we are reminded that there is only One righteous, and He is the Judge Who sees all. It is The Moment in which we reconnect with the reality that we are not our own saviors—but that we need the Savior. We cannot fix this because we are fallen and broken, too. 

But it is also The Moment of redemption. The Moment of recognition that there is one thing we CAN do: love one another. It is The Moment in which we realize that, since Christ reconciled us to God, we must also be reconciled to one another. It is The Moment in which we break bread with one another. Worship with one another. Be with one another. Love one another. 

It is a hard Moment, and an easy Moment. 

The Moment is hard because we are tempted to lash out in our anger. When armed agents of the government exercise deadly force on our fellow citizens, the hackles of every responsible citizen should be up. If all issues are “liberty” issues, an attack on the liberty of a fellow citizen is an attack on us all. And an attack on those who protect our liberty is also an attack on us all. So it is The Moment colored by potential injustice—after all, as broken and fallen humans, we are not privy to the complete truth of any Moment, and The Moment in which we choose how to react to it. And this is hard. Phrases like “due process” make The Moment harder, because we long for an easily graspable conflict in which the good guys and bad guys are easily spotted. We are tempted to throw the gasoline of social media on the tire fire of human depravity, because this is easy. What’s hard about this Moment is restraint—accepting that our information is limited by our imperfect perspective, knowing that our emotions are easily manipulated by media-driven narratives that scratch each socio-political tribe’s itch. 

The Moment is easy, though, because we are empowered to do one thing consistently, thoroughly, and convincingly in the face of each incident: love. This Moment becomes quite easy when we remember that we cannot solve the problems of the nation. We cannot expect to be our own saviors by putting the band-aid of ginned-up, faux concern on the bullet hole of hate with our hashtags, placard-waving and hastily-thrown accusations at one another. But for those of us who know The Savior, we can love every man, woman and child with our actions. We can place the interests of others ahead of our own. We can eat with one another. We can live life with one another—practically, daily, significantly. 

We can remember that we are ultimately one tribe, not many. 

For those of us who must shepherd one of the Lord’s flocks, we cannot be quick to speak. We must be measured and slow to anger. We must be careful not to walk recklessly through the minefield of offense and rage, for we are called to model the Savior’s love. The way forward will not be a great, colossal national movement put together by organizers….it will be a million small communities looking to the needs of one another, looking into the eyes of one another, having coffee with one another. Worshiping the Savior with one another. Living in the hope that the Judge of all the earth will bring justice to the nations…..and in the meantime, has called us to love. This is The Moment of that happening. 

In our helplessness, we long for the power to do something. ANYTHING. But the only power we have is His, and His power is demonstrated through our love. Locally, specifically, and often quietly—just like the Savior did when He walked the earth. We love in The Moment. And The Moment after that. And the one after that. 

It starts in This Moment.