Jamin Bradley

With one shot, we’ve all been played. One person has spurred both liberals and conservatives to lean into hate even more than they did before. Both sides are blaming each other, and at this point, both sides are right to do so. They have both lost their hearts, and their pain is not allowing them to find the way forward that loves both friend and enemy. We are no longer able to see the person in front of us.

Don’t let a shooter own your heart and mind. You’re worth more than another man’s hateful thoughts and actions. Yes, the world needs to change, but hatred only perpetuates hatred, and hatred is incapable of producing the kind of society that anyone desires. Its fruit is always rotten, and there is no eternal element to it.

Hate is an entity that is proactively seeking out people who will hold its hand. It’s a weight too heavy to carry, but you can’t tell until you’ve already let it up on your shoulders. It’s a beast that always has new solutions as to how to deal with your pain, but each solution leaves you more hollow than before. Hate pretends to be symbiotic, but if you were able to see the whole picture, you’d notice that it’s only ever been parasitic.

Jesus came to teach something very different. Love redeems your story, while hate only destroys it. Forgiveness lightens your load and liberates you from your enemies, while holding onto bitterness is like drinking poison. Justice is carried out through rambunctious peacemaking strategies that hate never allowed you to consider.

Jesus is someone you can trust your heart and mind to. Renewing ourselves to his thoughts allows us to bring heaven into our pain and eternity into our midst. Through this symbiotic partnership, we become everything that we always hoped to be as we are metamorphosed into the fullest expression of the image of God.

Hate has been lying to you. It can’t change anything, and it never could. But Jesus has a way of working all things together for our good.