“Every day in every way I am getting better and better.” That self-help mantra comes from psychologist Émile Coué and is a form of therapy used to help people who struggle with depression. People who believe in human progress and human social evolution want very badly to believe that society is also getting better every day in every way. How do you help your kids process the news from Paris this week?
When a relatively small number of people are willing to give their own lives to take the lives of other innocent people, people whom they don’t even know, and take those lives in as grisly and spectacular manner possible, this is not a short-term or easily fixable problem. Islamist terrorism has become a part of the permanent landscape, sort of like organized crime, and it will probably never go away. As long as some people can gain influence over others by stoking their resentments about religion, money, and power, no one’s life will be absolutely 100% safe.
As your children grow, you can share this sad but realistic awareness at a level appropriate for them. It is wonderful to have naive and optimistic innocence of mind and spirit, but children need to grow their instincts for self-preservation.
They need also to meet and love Jesus now. Right now. Paris is this week’s reminder of the shortness of human life. But it provides a painful opportunity to celebrate the certainty of eternal life with Christ.
The peoples who are victims of Islamist terrorism may or may not be able to hold the perpetrators of these atrocities accountable. It is very hard to hold a suicide bomber accountable for his or her crimes. Christians, though, are assured by God that nothing escapes his gaze and memory and that he will take care of business in his own way at his own time. Sooner or later divine justice will be done.
You know, when you read the words of the prophets of the Old Testament, when you hear their ringing denunciations of the terrible violence of their days, you might have thought that we have progressed beyond that “primitive” savagery. We haven’t. Read the first few chapters of the prophet Amos, for instance, to see how people at that time were vulnerable to the violence and cruelty of others who had little regard for human life. Be comforted that God will bring justice even when kings and judges can’t.
But above all, place your hopes and faith and trust and love in Jesus Christ. He will give you a meaningful life worth living, and he will give you the confidence that your death, even one that comes far sooner than you thought or wished, will only become the portal to eternal delight with him and reunion with all the saints.
Originally posted by Time of Grace.
