Loss of Hope

Posted by Larry Miller on April 7, 2009 under Why | Be the First to Comment

A few days ago a Vietnamese born American methodically killed more than a dozen people, then himself. What would make this man act on impulses many have, but never follow? The fact that he killed himself let’s us know he had nothing in his life to keep him going. That he killed all the innocent people showed the rage and hatred in his heart. What brings a person to the point where they think they have nothing to live for and want to inflict as much pain as possible on the way out? The man had lost all hope of better days.

While campaigning, Barack H. Obama talked incessantly and ambiguously, about hope and the changes he wanted that would bring this hope to the masses. Jiverly Voong did not participate in the hope many experienced as the smooth talking new president moved into the White House. Apparently he did not expect to either. He lost his job at IBM, he couldn’t speak the language well. What was he to do… his life was over, he thought.

The fact is the President is not to blame. It is true that he sold, and many people bought, the idea that hope could come from a man with more promises than Hershey has kisses. These people bought into the idea that their lives would be made complete by a beneficent government under the command of their would-be Messiah. Jiverly Voong did not share this hope. The fact is, had he shared it this hope, and this is all he had, sooner or later he would have come face to face with the same disappointment, frustration and depression that brought him to the end of his life. Was it his inability to fit into the government program designed to at least make him feel like he was succeeding? Or was it that that the Big Brother federal government operations were incapable of meeting this man’s needs.

While attempting to induce citizens as well as aliens, legal and otherwise, to place their confidence in our government’s good will and ability to see us through our current malaise, this government is also working to limit the effectiveness of faith based organizations through the tax code and various, less visible, regulations. It appears that throughout this administration, engineering a shift in mindset and loyalties is more important than solving problems. The President is not alone in this effort. This has been the aim of many in his party for years… only now they have the votes to push it through, aided and abetted by some members of the other party who are embarrassed by the social conservative values and wish they would go away.

This presents a truly dangerous situation for our country as they are attempting to relegate the only ones who can help people find real hope to an hour time slot on Sunday mornings. If Mr. Voong had found this hope, would he have slaughtered thirteen innocent people as they were working toward better days of their own through US citizenship? Would he have inflicted, what is possibly the greatest evil the town of Binghamton, NY has ever seen? Of course not, as he would have seen the better days ahead for himself in this life and the next.

If someone could have gotten through to him with the message contained in 1 Timothy 4:10, “…we have put our hope in the living God, who is the Savior of all men, and especially of those who believe” surely his life and the lives of thirteen other people… along with their families, would have been different. This is the hope our government is looking to take from people and in it’s place, give them faith in a fallible state run by imperfect, and often incompetent, men and women.

We too are imperfect and sometimes not up to the task of pointing the people to the one who has neither of these shortcomings. We are not the hope, we are just trying to share this hope with others who need it. While we work with whatever circumstances we have, it is our duty to kick open closing doors so as to prevent as many of the Jiverly Voongs of this world from destroying themselves and others created for a full life on this earth. And while doing this, still sharing the hope that no government can provide.