I hope you’ll indulge me and listen to what God put on my heart tonight.
Tonight, in lieu of Bible study, I spent time with God and reflecting on the life of Charlie Kirk. Not so much his death, although that has to be acknowledged, and not so much his politics, but more how this man in his early thirties, who was adopted as a son into God’s holy family through trusting in Jesus’ holy blood when he was a teenager, and then went on to become and live out his daily life as someone who his wife, Erika, called “The most Godly man I’ve ever known.”
Although he called out sin and evil every day of his life post-conversion, he never failed to practice peace and forgiveness. Being honest with myself, I couldn’t have done what he did, because my nature is argumentative and desiring to lay blame, but even people who vehemently disagreed with him always said he spoke to them with honesty and civility and respect. As I said, I could’ve have done what he did.
He had many death threats, he needed protection for his family, but he never backed down or failed to speak Jesus at every meeting, gathering, and event, and he knew full well that people who speak God’s truth in this wicked and fallen world automatically have enemies and they walk with targets on their backs. But he never once stopped. He never once failed to answer God’s calling to be light in this world.
President Trump has told friends he’d expected Charlie to be president one day. Charlie, himself, told stories of people who tried to sway him into running for an elected seat and he wouldn’t even consider it; He’d say that he had the best job in the world, sharing the Word of God with untold numbers of people, especially those his age and now college aged.
Gen Z saw years unable to go to class, unable to go to church, who had proms cancelled, who had graduations cancelled, who had friends who grew lonely and depressed from the isolation, who had friends take their own lives because they couldn’t handle the despair, and who couldn’t go to those friend’s funerals for fear of catching and spreading a disease. Who watched politicians and health organizations lie to them, and then watch talking heads and reporters take what they were told as gospel and propagated the lies. They saw teachers, principals, and instructors choose to teach via video and refuse to teach in person. They saw doctors and nurses videoing themselves dancing in hospital corridors because entire floors were empty and they’d grown bored. They saw even clergy warn not to spread the disease. They were warned repeatedly to where a flimsy cloth mask that both them and the people telling them to wear them knew full well were useless against the virus. They stood six feet apart at grocery stores. They were forced to get stuck with needles over and over again. They saw news reports of 17-year-old boys die of heart attacks in football games and young mothers lose the ability to speak coherently or walk without aid.
They saw years where their world lost its mind and its hope.
Charlie told them they could hope, that they were seen, that they were loved, and that they had value. He shared Christ’s love and Good News and corrected the worldly when they either knowingly or unknowingly spread lies.
And he hated the sin, but never failed to love the sinners.
I thought about his example and decided that I had to try and live by it. That lead me to consider one of the people in this world whom I’m most intensely hateful of needs Christ’s love and forgiveness, also.
So I prayed that, although I want the shooter to be found and justice done, I also prayed that he come to know Jesus like Charlie did. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but before he, too, one day stands before God’s Judgment Throne he’ll have Jesus step out from the side and say, “All charges are dropped, I’ve already saved him.”
And although I hope it happens with enough time left in his life to be able to understand and grieve. For this terrible act he’s done, I hope more that one day he’ll come face to face with Charlie, and the two will hug like the long lost brothers they are.