activate

​At the beginning of this year, shortly after the Parkland shooting, God gave me a word, "ACTIVATE". Other words followed having the same theme..."move, go, no hesitation..."
 
I know it is common for God to give many people the same words when he wants to communicate, so when I heard of a large group of ministry organizations that got together to form a movement called, "The Call", I felt an incredible rush of excitement run through me. It was one of those moments you remember where you were when you heard/saw it and it completely fills you with a feeling of knowing… or understanding. For me, it was affirmation of the word(s) I had received. It also gave me strength and hope to persevere during a season of doubt. The words on their page said this: "The war on INACTION has begun."

We are living in a time where evil's dastardly plan has included our precious children turning against each other in horrifying violence. School shootings are now commonplace. Shootings aren’t the only example of kids hurting one another. Bullying is rampant. It's so normal that kids don't think they are doing it. Competition, comparison, and judging, all of which have been around, are prevalent and pervasive among our youth. With the help of social media, youth have become willing prisoners to hate, comparison and pride. The message of love is being drowned out.  

On any given day, Instagram scrolling can leave a young person feeling inadequate and depressed. And now that we can see into each other’s polished, live and completely edited photo books, it makes the enemy’s sick plan even more efficient and effective. Social media has also allowed messages of warped morals, unrealistic expectations and unreachable standards to dampen joy and confidence. In one ten minute scrolling session, you can be lifted by truth or be crushed by comparison. 

This is not what God intended. He has sent us the biggest, most beautiful love letter of all time and we have either not read it, read and rejected it, read it and forgotten it, read it without reverence to it, or read it and added our own amendments to it, changing it to fit our comforts and ideals. His word is flawless. It is chalked full of treasure and truth. His desire is that we will hunger for it and allow it to transform us to be what he intended, before sin entered the equation.

That being said, our children are lost and suffering. With possible good intentions we have allowed God to be one of a long list of things we want to expose our children to so they become well rounded individuals. We want to blameshift when something terrible happens and declare that it must be some evil person or horrible thing. The fact is, our world is terribly broken.

I watched the interrogation of the young man that chose to pick up the gun and kill his fellow classmates at Parkland. While I am aware there is alot of emotion surrounding this evil and painful event, what God showed me in the video was a hurting boy. His parents abandoned him as a child, a second set of parents died and a brother admitting he had been cruel, brought him to tears, sobbing when his visiting brother admitted (confession/repentance) that he had done wrong by not telling him how much he loved him, and then proceeded to hug his brother and tell him he was sorry and he loved him.

Isn't this what we all need? To know we are loved and accepted and cherished? The message (the love letter) is ours to help deliver. Are we delivering it? Are we daily repenting our sins (where we fall short) and forgiving others in theirs? 

ACTIVATE...we must. There is no other cure. My prayer for anyone who has read this far, is that God will convict you to the core, that he is real, that he is God and that he loves you and requires much from you. From there, I pray that you rise like never before. That you choose to bravely activate all the gifts he has gifted to only you, and use them to love his world the way he loves you. He has asked us to love him, love his people, make him known.