MLK

JHP bringing it in for MLK day. Some reflections that God placed on my heart.

It is MLK day and it's easy to see it as another day just to have off and to study or hangout with people. But I realized how much I don’t think about the racial and even the social injustices that not only happen in this world, in my community but even in the church. I think this day has really caused me to think about how to pray and how to think about this. I think it was easy when BLM was at the forefront of my mind but it’s easy to dismiss it. I am so thankful the P ray and P James are unapologetic to acknowledge it is a problem and it is something we need to care about. Often times I find my heart being very apathetic and indifferent to it, but I found myself praying and seeing how easy especially in the book of Ephesians, it talks about Jesus being our peace. I think we can often think about peace being comfortable, non-confrontational , that is the peace we think God is calling to us. But then I think about the cross. I think about what it took to have peace with God. It was quite the opposite of non-confrontational and opposite of secure and opposite of comfort. Far too often we think peace = peaceful. But when you look at the cross, there was nothing peaceful about it. Jesus confronted our sin, he took them and emptied himself ( Phil 2) , he stepped down for an eternal fellowship with the Triune God so that we could have peace with God. That is what Jesus did for us. And that is the same type of peace I think Paul is calling us to. One that may come with uncomfortable conversations and something that may require us to die to ourselves, but nonetheless it mirrors what Jesus did for us and that is our purpose in life is to mirror Christ. It may be uncomfortable, yet it is gospel peace- won by the gospel and for the gospel. When people especially look at the church, like in Eph 1, we have been called his body. When you look at a body, you see the person right? Christ as our head and we as his body. We move in accordance to his heart and his mind.( Shout out to PT school). When you see my arm and see my leg, it’s not like it has its own name. I mean it has a name but when you look at it as a whole, you name the body based on the face and the head- we should be moving in such a way that causes people to see Jesus. It

And I think it’s scary to Isaac’s point that a lot of the movements we see culturally are moving back to even godly things but with a twist where they take God out of it. And I think the church is kind of going with the flow of things rather than leading it. Especially this, not saying you need to treat it religiously in such that everything you need to do is to strive for this which I kind of felt myself doing when the BLM protests occurred- it just felt like if I’m going to be about it, every part of my day needs to reflect it. But I think I am more so challenged to be more aware and to fight on behalf of prayer for the racial tension and injustices not only found in this world, but in our church. My first prayer is seriously give me eyes to see and heart to know the weight of my God’s heart within the confines of hurt because of racial injustices towards families and people who experience daily. I don’t know how it’s like to be black in America, I don’t know what it must be like for P. Ray to have to prove himself unconsciously because people automatically assume he is a threat. I don’t know and honestly my heart needs the spirit to understand and remember we are called to carry one another burdens, not saying we need to fix or change, but carry it the way that Jesus does and that might even just being present. Anyways that’s something I got from Eph and just praying over this day.