An open letter to my Christian and Muslim brothers (including so-called ‘Extremist Factions’),Brothers, I’m writing to you because God has pressed upon my heart to do so. This ‘War on Terror’, this ‘Jihad’ has wrought violence and violence begets violence and there is no end in sight.
I can’t fathom and I won’t speculate as to why 9/11 had to happen, but I know that God does not waste a hurt and what was taken will be replaced a hundred times over, but only if we have love, faith and forgiveness.
I’m sickened and saddened by what has happened to Iraq and the toll it has taken on America. I feel shame and pity for our leaders, but also compassion. Everywhere you turn people are heartbroken and lost and confused-which becomes anger that we direct at faceless, nameless apparitions across the oceans. If we all took our broken hearts to God we could find peace. Our angry words are as dangerous as our loaded guns. More so, because bullets only destroy flesh and buildings, words destroy souls.
When we, Muslim and Christian, come from the same God and are after the heart of the same God how can we wage war against each other? If one of us is truly deserving of punishment isn’t that God’s decision to make and His vengeance to reap?
I am on fire right now with the Holy Spirit. The inferno blazing in my head and chest is of love and compassion. To my Muslim brothers, all I have to offer you, as a humble servant of God is my forgiveness and all I ask of you in turn is forgiveness. I love you all as I love my Christian brothers and I implore my Christian brothers to go to the Bible immediately if they don’t have love in their heart, because we a Lord who’s love is neither earned or deserved and we would shame Him to love anyone less.
Someone has to be the one to say ENOUGH, because not one more mother should have to senselessly mourn their child, rather that child is a soldier or a citizen.
Terrible injustice has been done by and to both sides in this conflict and evil will be heaped upon evil if we, as children of God, and the moral compass of the world, don’t demand that weapons be laid aside and we reach out brother to brother and simply forgive!
Christ teaches us to love our enemies. If he strikes our cheek offer the other. If he is hungry feed him. How can anyone hate someone who loves him or her? And if you learn to love the one you hate then how can you wage war?
Leave punishment to God because this is His world and we are all His children.
Tim Murr-1.12.08
