I Can’t Breathe – Let’s March by AChuckAllen
Nine Minutes! George Floyd had already been handcuffed and had already been detained. He was face down on the pavement with a policeman’s knee on his throat. I hope the images of George Floyd’s last moments of his life are etched into our country’s memory. It is gruesome. It is brutal. It is what murder looks like. It is insidious and it grieves the heart of God.
Before you get all self righteous and tell me to wait until we know more facts, STOP and ask yourself if a man on his stomach, handcuffed, apprehended and detained, with no weapon or means to cause harm, surrounded by at least four policemen could remotely pose a threat to them? I am not suggesting that George Floyd was a boy scout. I am in no way assuming that I know why law enforcement was called in the first place. What I DO KNOW is that the continued trend of young black men dying for no cause or reasoning is rooted and based in evil.
And, so we have millions of people, across all races and generations fed up with this useless hatred continuing in our country. As a result, we have millions that do not know quite what to do with that rage. But, friends, we must not fall prey to answering evil with greater evil. We must not answer hate with a greater force of hate. The world has proven that trying to match evil with a stronger degree of evil draws us into Satan’s trap of cyclical hatred and generational bigotry.
We march, chant, post signs and pray. We speak up, read up and shout. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was and is the greatest leader in my generation. Not because of his color or because it is politically expedient to claim that today, but because he created a movement of change when it seemed impossible to change. He and his group of progressive thinkers understood that true change is not change that is done to you. Change that is created and then welcomed, happens, not out of the destruction of property or people, but in the peaceful yet very loud voices of men and women that are fed up with both the hate and sin of racism and with the destruction of property that actually takes away from the main message of peace!
Dr. King said, “I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.”
We must drop our hatred of any man or woman based on skin color, ethnicity, gender or faith system. We must let go of the ties that bind us in upheaval and riotous living. I can hear Dr. King saying that “A riot is the language of the unheard.” But we can listen better than this and we can speak in love that lifts us all above this insanity of rage.
So, we march. Then we march again. we march and we shout until listening ears hear well enough to know that the shouting voices have reached the hearts of leaders that then are moved to change. I am of the opinion that the constant game of blaming someone for everything is fueled by social media and mainstream media, and that includes whatever your favorite news outlet is. There is a natural bias within our broken, sinful state that is only cured by the presence and power of Christ Himself.
More to come, but for now, pray for peace in our country. Pray for change in our country. Pray for love to overwhelm our soul. Pray for black, brown and white people to grasp the reality that we have all been created in the image of the Almighty! And then pray some more.
Go in Peace,
AChuck