How did we get here and where can we go?

I blame it on cartoons. We've learned since a young age through cartoons and video games that some characters "deserve" what happens to them. It's okay for the bad guy to get blown up or fall off a cliff, only to get back up and start all over again. Death isn't really final in animation.

Children are conditioned through cartoons to laugh at a character's misfortune. Then as an adult, we watch forensic, hospital, and police reality - and unreality - shows and are bombarded with the commercials of bleeding dead people across the giant screen. Actors we will see in the next episode or another movie bounce back to life.

Our love grows cold. Our empathy gets tired. The evil of the world starts looking like inevitability rather than something we can do something about. We numb ourselves through prescription or illegal drugs, alcohol, tobacco, food, caffeine, pleasure, and busyness.

Jesus said to come to Him. He tells us to think on whatever is pure and lovely. Not to be fooled by the enemy but to keep our thoughts captive to Christ and keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith.

In the middle of all the chaos and noise, He pulls us aside for quiet times with Him. In a day of "Breaking News", the Bible is more relevant and current than the headlines. And while we're choosing who to believe on every streaming device, He cannot lie. He will never mislead us. He doesn't just tell us what we want to hear. He tells us the truth.

The propaganda of the moment or the fickleness of public opinion does not affect Him. He gives us everything we need for life. He speaks to us through His written Word which He has preserved through generations. He promises never to leave or forsake us. He conquered sin, shame, and death. He redeems the regrets. He gives a future and a hope. Purpose and love. Grace and justice. He calls and equips us for more than we could ever be without Him. And He gets all the glory, for we know our very breath and heartbeat are only because He wills it so. He holds molecules and the universe together. Even as creation groans, and our own prayers groan, the joy and love and peace God gives are never changing.

Tragedies are tough. When we live in a community touched by death and loss, it's difficult to process. We were not meant to take on the griefs and tragedies of the entire world, nor were we intended to become desensitized to it. The only way out of the numbing and desensitizing propaganda and endless scrolling on a phone is to spend time with our Creator listening, enjoying Sabbaths where we detox, focus on real activities with real people, and interpret the events of the day through the light of what Scripture says.

My personal prayer is that my heart remains soft to the suffering of others, and my skin becomes tough to the suffering others would cause me. And that I wouldn't confuse the two. I also pray through all the propaganda and clutter that God through His Spirit and Word leads me into all truth so that I can discern the pleasing action and response God would have me do.

I am aware that as a follower of Christ, I am an alien and ambassador in this strange upside-down place. I speak a different language, and I interpret the events of the day through a different lens and vocabulary - that of Scripture, not of this world.

This earth is not my home. The news does not get the final word. And the unethical propaganda put forward like a cheesy gossip column at the grocery store checkout line does not tell me how to interpret events. God does.

"Don’t rejoice when your enemies fall; don’t be happy when they stumble." (Proverbs 24:17)