A Time for Everything Under Heaven

I was thinking about my last post this morning about what I wrote in the "Note to Self."

As a God-fearing woman, I think it's hard to reconcile taking another person's life in defense of your own. Who's to say that my life is worth more than another - and doesn't the Bible say "Thou shalt not kill?" This is one of the main verses Christians use in arguments against, well, everything: the death penalty, guns, euthanasia, abortion... the list goes on.

I'm certainly not advocating that any of these things are okay. In a perfect world we wouldn't need any of it. Too bad ever since Adam and Eve disobeyed God and got themselves kicked out of Eden (and then made it no longer okay to run around naked - dang you Adam and Eve!), the world has been imperfect.

I don't believe God expects us to sit around and get our butts kicked, but in Luke 6:29 Jesus says, "If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn him the other also. If someone takes your cloak, do not stop him from taking your tunic." This chapter ends with the all-too familiar Golden Rule: "Do to others as you would have them do to you."

Pretty profound to be from the Son of the God who led so many leaders into war victoriously. I always wonder if maybe Jesus is like God's Public Relations Admin, coming from heaven to kind of set things straight about the God of the past and present a more loving, forgiving, and gentle God.

I could go on and on with this post. In fact, I think I wrote a whole paper on this in my high-school Christian Ethics class back in the day. But I will end with Ecclesiastes 3: 1-8 (which was made infinitely more famous by the Byrds song "Turn!Turn!Turn!"):

"There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven:
a time to be born and time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain,
a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace."

It is a mantra for LEOs everywhere, "Better to be judged by twelve than carried by six."

Eventually, we will all be judged by One. "I thought in my heart, 'God will bring judgment both the righteous and the wicked, for there will be a time for every activity, a time for every deed.'" Ecc. 3:17

Note to Self: Psalm 144: 1-2

Praise be to the Lord my Rock,
who trains my hands for war,
my fingers for battle.
He is my loving God and my fortress,
my stronghold and my deliverer,
my shield, in whom I take refuge,
who subdues peoples under me.

Amen.