Spurn the Warrior

Spurn the Warrior

“Father, why do you permit atrocities against the innocent?”

And He replied, “Do I commit such acts – or do you?'

"Will any fewer be dead in a thousand years?”

Reject the warrior’s words, manner and means. Be a shield against him. Do not seek to destroy enemies but to protect those in harm’s way, and to reconcile aggressors to the good path.

Do not become the warrior. If you would risk your life or that of others in acts of aggression for any cause, use that same courage to preserve life by pursuing peace, for there is no greater cause. Demonstrate greatness not by inflicting suffering and death, but by lessening or preventing it.

You will surely ask, what shall be done if an enemy attacks my people? First realize that all are your people – all are your family. In acknowledging this you will surely find means other than killing to respond to aggression. If you intentionally kill or cause suffering, you break His Law. There is no exception.

If all the needless killing of our violent past and present could be undone, would you not make it so? Would you not right the wrongs and restore life to those from whom it was taken? You must work to preclude such wrongs now and into the future.

Peacemaking is not a passive endeavor –

strive aggressively to avoid or resolve conflict.

Know that the killing of a single person is a holocaust for the human cord grows weaker with each thread cut from it. In God's eternal view, no fewer will have died during the passage of a thousand years – but how many generations might have been born of the murdered? There lies the tragedy He calls us to recognize.

In killing, the present and the future are destroyed. Consider yourself a survivor then of the many slaughters of the past, for you would not live otherwise. Death is a natural consequence of living. Do not hasten the inevitable.

Finally, know that our infliction of suffering and death upon one another is its own punishment. We suffer as a people, destroy our future generations, and are diminished in His sight.

In killing we do service for the enemy that would degrade us. God does not condone acts of violence but grants us the right to choose, to err, to bear the consequences of our actions, and to learn that there is a better way.