The recent event involving the death of Osama Bin Laden has had me thinking.
Let me preface a little: I've been thinking a LOT about charity lately and what that type of Christlike love really entails. How it applies to me in my life, how I should be treating others and feeling about others, how God feels about me and everyone around me and what that all means, etc.
I have to say that my resonating feeling on the matter is one of sorrow. Not a hopeless sorrow, because I believe that Heavenly Father rewards and protects and has plans of His own that none of us can even begin to imagine, but sorrow in the fallen expectations I've held in mankind. Those aren't the exact words I mean, but maybe I can explain a little better. After my initial shock on hearing about Osama's death, my second reaction was sorrow. My heart went out to all those familes that lost loved ones in the 9/11 attacks. To all the soldiers and soldiers' families that have given up their time here in the homeland to be abroad and help fight against the terror that has enveloped our world. My heart was full. But it seemed that many others felt differently.
I was saddened to quickly see the boisterous hatred of my fellow countrymen toward this man. Fellow Christians even, who are loud and almost giddy in their contempt and make no attempts to filter their bitter, often crass, opinions. I understand that what Osama Bin Laden condoned and led were greivous and highly inhumane. I understand that our world is still under heavy attack from similar bands of people with similar ideas. What I don't understand is why we don't leave it up to God to decide how to sentence this man? It's out of our hands now anyway. Why continue to abuse and rejoice in slandering? Lest anyone think I am defending Osama, or even sympathizing with him, please understand I am in no way intending to.
Perhaps my feelings on the matter are naive. Maybe we are perfectly justified in glorifying over the end of a man. But I don't feel confident in myself to make that judgement. For me, it is easier to love. I feel that our time and energy would be better spent on remembering those fallen Americans. To take a moment to let the reality of the world we live in sink in for a moment. Allow ourselves to spirutually leave ourseleves for a moment and travel to those lands that aren't as priveleged as we are and pray for them. Hope that things might become better for them soon. our time would be better spent, I feel, in thanking our dear Father in Heaven for the many, many blessings we have pouring into our lives each day.
I am a selfish person. I don't believe I am that way naturally, but I feel that I have let myself, through lazy habits become so. I know that I am of God and that I am at my core good. This experience has helped me see how destructive that selfish tendency can become and has helped me resolve to be better, and truer to that nature in me.
I know God is a loving God. On an incomprehensible level. I trust that whatever judgement may come to Osama Bin Laden and his sins will be just and true and done according to that love. That is just how it should be. Osama has been and now is completly in God's hands. I am glad that I do not have to make those decisions. Decisions that are so everlastingly heavy and complex. I find joy in the simplicity of love. I find relief in not having to feel badly toward this man any longer.
I know that there are bad things and bad people in this world. But when I think of them I don't feel hatred. I feel sorrow that they have sacrificed the most wonderful blessings that come from being good because of their selfishness and that they have mercilessly hurt innocents in their wake.
My thoughts are trailing now and leading into more abstract planes away from my focus of this post, I just wanted to clear my mind of these jumbled thoughts and explore how I'm feeling on this matter. I pray God will forgive me of my sins and help us all to find focus in our lives.
