Good morning!

            Last night I had a dream in which three of fifty-two contiguous states declared war against the remaining states. At first, it seemed like a joke and people laughed about it. Then, people from the three states would deliver paper bombs and say, “It’s a bomb and you are dead.” One bomb looked like a bottle cap made of crepe-paper and another one had the state’s emblem on it. I was walking around with an unloaded shot gun. Because the nation was at war, my supervisor instructed me to shoot the enemy. So, two people came in to assess an issue we were having with a piece of equipment, so I pointed the gun at them and said, “Get down on your knees” while I simultaneously pumped the shot gun. So, the two men obliged and got down on their knees. I then looked to my supervisor and asked him what I should do, he told me to put the gun in the gun rack. Then, the two gentlemen and I sat down to share our thoughts on the war. The conversation shifted to gun control and the inherent problems and the misconceptions. I pointed out the need for weapons for hunting and the gentlemen agreed. Then one of the gentlemen picked up a toy gun and asked, “Why is it necessary for people to carry weapons” and then pointed out a toy gun as an example. I then told the man, “To defend our homes.”  Then the dream ended, and I woke up in prayer for our nation.

            As I began to pray for the nation and the mess it is currently in, the thought crossed my mind how the paper battle we are fighting over Facebook and the terrible things that are said, will soon become a real war with real casualties if we do nothing to solve the problems. Wars always start with words and then gradually devolve to all-out war as in the case of the Dakota-Sioux Uprising of 1862. When ideals separate us with neither side willing to sit down and to listen to the other, the spores of War are near to maturing (Mike Krier). My encouragement for you today is, at all costs, make the effort to talk through the problems because, if we do not, we will be guilty of being complicit to inciting war in the Kingdom of God and we will “Suffer as fools” (Martin Luther King Jr.)

Yours in Jesus Christ

MK