Anguish In Orlando

Several days ago a gunman entered an Orlando, FL nightclub (which catered to the LGBT community) and started shooting. The results of his rampage claimed the lives of 49 people, with an even greater number wounded in the attack, and constituted the worst mass-shooting in American history. The outcry and anguish in Orlando was immediate and justified, showing the effects that such death-dealing had caused. One of the questions asked is, “Why did this happen?”

Investigation of the attacker revealed a link between his actions and the nefarious group ISIS, providing a now-familiar motive for his killing spree – the ongoing jihad between militant Muslims and other ideologies which contradict their own. His wife, also under investigation, may or may not have been involved with what he had done. Government officials are labeling the perpetrator as a ‘home grown’ terrorist, someone who had been ‘radicalized’ by inflammatory online posts by such groups as ISIS, Al Qaeda and others. However, and as tragic as it was, the anguish in Orlando is not the result of just this one incident – it comes from something much more profound.

The anguish felt in tragedies such as Orlando and San Bernardino all have a common thread; it’s a response to the actions of those who had a heart without God. The wanton taking of innocent life is terrible and the anguish itself is understandable, but in many of these situations the real cause of anguish is that most of those victims and their families also have a heart devoid of God’s presence.

Life is shallow and meaningless without the presence and power of God’s Word. Those who mistakenly thought they were doing God’s will in killing others have found out that they were deceived. The victims themselves have also found out that they were deceived, in that living a life contradictory to God’s Word will – eventually – bring nothing but loss and heartache.

Following a lifestyle which focuses on the flesh, satisfying inward desires and abandoning the counsel of the Lord will ultimately end in emptiness and sorrow. The families of those victims are in anguish (no doubt), because those people are now gone. They mourn the loss of their loved ones, but they also (whether they realize it or not) mourn the loss that those victims now experience because their fate has been sealed. They can no longer make right the wrongs in their lives, and they will never have an opportunity at the life which Christ died to provide for them.

The anguish of the victims and survivors is real, but how much more anguish should we feel, as Christians, that so many lives have been snuffed out before they came into relationship with their Redeemer? That is the true anguish in Orlando.

May God give us the wisdom, confidence and boldness we need to proclaim Him to everyone we meet before it’s too late, for them as well as for us!