Pick a Team

A week after the Covenant Church shooting in Nashville that took place on March 27th, I saw an old episode of The Good Doctor that stirred up a flood of emotions. The opening scene was two moms each driving with their young boys to a rally for a bill. One was dragging her eight-year-old to it because she supported it, the other was being dragged by her nine-year-old because he wanted to protest it. Gunfire erupted at the scene, and both boys were shot.

It hit a little too close to home.

While the mothers hung out in the waiting room, both covered in blood and shell shocked, two teams of doctors worked on saving the children’s lives. Female surgeon Claire made a comment to her colleagues about how ridiculous it was that people erupt in anger and violence when they don’t agree on a viewpoint. I was cheering this sentiment until she said something to the effect that the right (meaning conservatives) is always intolerant of the left’s (liberals) viewpoints.

I don’t want to sink into a political debate here, but from where I’m sitting, it seems to be the opposite. Regardless, right after she said this, head surgeon Dr. Andrews said he was a card-carrying member of the NRA. Claire let out a rude laugh and told him he was just saying that to rile her up. He responded that he and his wife were recently mugged, and he purchased two handguns. Then a young doctor (Asher—who happens to be gay) admitted that he voted for Trump in 2016. Her response? “Well, then I can no longer have any respect for you.”

She made my previous point right there. First, she claimed to not understand intolerance. Then she was immediately intolerant of their viewpoints. I’m surprised that any television show (which is Hollywood’s domain) would characterize a liberal in this light.

Meanwhile, in the waiting room with the two moms, they started to connect until the mom who supported the bill saw the anti-bill wrist band on the other mom (given to her by her son). She then accused her of being at fault for the boys being shot. This is where my blood started to boil, because it represents so clearly where our culture has fallen today. Unfair accusations, anger, violence, hatred.

Divisiveness.

I recently shared an Instagram post. It was a video of a P.E. teacher in California who had just been fired. She’d gained the attention of her superiors when she refused to use gender-neutral pronouns. She was then called into the education office and asked if there was anything else she’d refuse to do. She said that she would not allow male genitalia into the girls’ locker room, because she wanted to keep her students safe. She also admitted that she didn’t feel it was morally right to keep parents in the dark if their children were struggling with gender identity. Because of this, she was fired.

I shared that post weeks ago and have received almost 3,000 hits on it. Most are supportive and encouraging. But there have been more than a handful of people who somehow jumped to the conclusion that this teacher was fired because she was “indoctrinating” her students to a Christian viewpoint. They ranted about how God has no place in the classroom, and neither does she. Others labeled her a bigot because she must be assuming all transgenders are perverts. A few respondents stated that they’re teachers, too, and she’s making it up, because they’ve never experienced that type of biased attitude in their schools.

In case you’re living under a rock, let me tell you this country is a hot mess.

I’ve been reading Faithfully Different by Natasha Crain. If you want an eye-opening dose of Christian reality, you should read this book. Ms. Crain is very intelligent, articulate, and in-depth with her findings. Many people will say they’re a Christian (although I have a feeling it’s become more taboo than not these days), but when asked the tough questions—like if they adhere to a Biblical worldview—things go south.

I could jump on my soapbox (again) but I’m generally preaching to the choir. If we cherry-pick scripture to justify our desires, then we are blinded by the enemy. We have become a nation of idol worshipers—and we are the idols. When people will violently defend a woman’s right to murder her child, when politicians lure children to their state to receive gender “reassignment”, when we don’t bat an eye at another mass shooting…we’re as far from living how the Lord would want us to as we can get.

That’s the enemy’s plan. Divide and conquer. Destroy the family unit, take God out of our schools, our government, and the very fabric of our lives. We can’t have a foot in each camp, friends. We are either on Team God or Team Satan, and as long as we’re bowing to our “happiness” rather than God’s holiness, we’re on the losing team—no matter how small it may seem these days.

Fortunately, we have a great God Who’s plans cannot be thwarted. I won’t even pretend to know what He’s doing, but I know it’s good. We can put our faith, hope, and trust in Him, and He will never disappoint us. I encourage you to be in the Word daily and take hold of whatever strength you can find in Him, because I have a feeling it’s going to get a whole lot worse before Jesus returns, y’all.

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