Our Children are Asking

Jesus said, “Which of you if your child asked for bread, would give them a stone”?

But our children are asking! And we are handing them stones.

A week ago, my daughter came home from school and told me about the #WalkOut her senior class was planning. She shared how they were going to rise up and walk out for 17 minutes in memory of the 17 students killed in the most recent mass shooting. But, more importantly, they wanted to take a stand against the violence.

I had not realized the #WalkOut was a national movement among high school students. There have been 63 mass shootings since January 1, 2018. Mass Shooting Tracker records the data on the location and number of casualties for each event. Some of these took place in schools. Others took place in churches, businesses, malls, clubs, and other public places. The frequency is increasing and we, as a nation, seem paralyzed and indifferent to confront the complexities of this problem.

I have my ideas and opinions. But, ultimately, it will take us uniting to solve this problem. And the Church needs to be at the forefront. We [the Church], like the prophets of old, need to repent and call on God above to bring peace below. In past generations, whenever the Church would repent and pray, God would then raise up leaders to bring about change. However, the Church’s response to our teens and the #WalkOut campaign doesn’t give me much hope.

I heard the Church mock our teens saying they just wanted to get out of class. For 17 minutes? That’s not even one class period. And no one skips 3rd period. You skip 1st or 6th in order to make it worth it. But perhaps we have forgotten the logic we used when we skipped school.

I heard people accuse them of immaturity as if they couldn’t possibly comprehend the complexity of the situation because of age. Yet, we have no problem sending these same students off to fight our senseless wars overseas. But the most disheartening was the counter movement #WalkUp. It’s not enough to mock our students, we must also tell them the proper way to execute their movement.

Here’s the problem. #WalkOut and #WalkUp convey two different messages. #WalkUp is internal. It says there’s an internal problem. In other words, the problem is rooted in the teachers’ and students’ inabilities and if they would simply be nicer and kinder and more outgoing, then it would solve this massive violence problem in our nation.

#WalkOut is an external message. It says the problem is bigger than us. It acknowledges a systemic problem in our nation. It forces everyone to take a good, long look in the mirror. #WalkOut says that we can no longer give platitudes to our egos and self-gratification because the USA is not the hero it claims to be. We are so selfish that we are willing to sacrifice our children to the god of Molech (aka. political agendas).

#WalkOut is a teenage prophetic movement. And it is a warning that we are headed for the fall of an empire if we don’t change our ways. Dear Church, you are asleep in a recliner! Wake up! Repent! And call on God!