Following Your Inner Compass

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

In the aftermath of the January 6, 2021 storming of the Capitol, some amazing stories are emerging worthy of a Lifetime movie special. A young son calls a government agency to warn them that his dad is planning to go to Washington, D.C. for the express purpose of killing people. His father, sensing that his son was not on board with his political perspective or his plans, threatens his kid. He tells him - if you go to the authorities, I will consider you a traitor. And traitors must be killed. The son makes the call anyway. The father is subsequently arrested and faces many serious charges.

What kind of strength did it take for that boy to make that call? Today he lives in hiding, fearful for his life, dependent on the generosity of friends to provide for his needs.

I wonder what his mom thinks. I wonder how his siblings reacted to the news that he had made this call.

Someone asked him why he did it. He said he just knew it was wrong to hurt other people, no matter what you believed about their politics.

Who knows what else will come out about this story. But it seems to me that anyone who would go to such lengths must have some inner compass, deep within them, to go against the grain of his family system.

For those who find themselves in a position of having to take a stand for lovingkindness that costs them relationships, let’s pray:

I ask you, God, to strengthen all of us by your Spirit - not a brute strength but a glorious inner strength - that Christ will live in us as we open the door and invite him in. And I ask him that with both feet planted firmly in love, we’ll be able to take in with all followers of Jesus the extravagant dimensions of Christ’s love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! Live full lives, full in the fullness of God.

Ephesians 3:15-19 The Message (with some pronoun adjustments)