Welcome to Take Every Thought to Prayer
By Charles Wagner, founder of Gramazin,
72Stories, Gramazin Prayers for the World

Prayers

#23 - Why Blame the Shooter - Blame the Gun?
Volume 1 - Prayers to Love God


Dear Father, when carnage happens in the news, such as a mass shooting, our society rekindles a passionate debate about gun control. Many speak of the need to ban guns. However, such incidents illustrate there are some other things that need to be banned, things far more important than guns. Shouldn't we ban hatred, envy, jealousy, bitterness, and self-centeredness? Didn't Jesus Christ do that 2,000 years ago? Didn't He speak of love for God and love for our neighbor? Didn't He speak about envy? Didn't He speak about the Good Samaritan, who put other's needs before his own? He convicted us. He spoke to our heart condition. He hit the nail on the head. In our true nature, humans hate, envy, are self-centered, are godless, and corrupt. What did we do with His laser accurate description of our souls? We killed Him. Who wants to be told our hearts need to be changed? Not the people of ancient Palestine and not us today. If a shooter's soul was corrupted, maybe that means our soul is corrupt too. Maybe our hearts have hatred, envy, and selfishness too. If we debate how a shooter's character should have been different, we must inevitably look in the mirror at ourselves. We can't have that. Oh no. We can't look at issues of the heart when we examine such a tragedy. Instead, we focus on gun control or the failure of the mental health system, police, or parents. There will be more tragedies in the future because we fail to see the real reason shooters do what they do. They have hearts that have rebelled from You. Father, help me see that human beings, like myself, do horrendous things because we have rebelled against You, the God who has called us to love our neighbors. Amen.


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