I Need a Gospel Ache.

I get to walk out my door this morning and go on with my life.

I don’t have to think about the revulsion and the outrage from yesterday if I don’t want to. I can block it out. I can move on.

I see a police car pass, I check my speed. I don’t worry about texting my wife to tell her that I love her, just in case.

Friends that I love and care about will have a very different experience this morning. As they have many mornings before, likely from the first time they found out just how painful it can be to be a black man or woman in America. This uncertainty, this hesitancy is something they will continue to experience many mornings from now.

Justice runs deeper than the rightful imprisonment of men who would abuse their power for the sick thrill of a deeply ingrained, self-justified rush of superiority.

We need a different ache - I need a different ache - than self-righteous revulsion and horror at the deep, twisted sickness afflicting my nation.

I need a gospel ache.

I need more of Jesus washing my heart with His mercy and desire to remove the cancer of racist, murderous pride and twisted power that resides within my own soul. I need to see that policeman and see the full potential of the sin within me that Jesus calls me to war against. I need to ache for the justice of salvation and freedom from racism for him as I would war for myself.

I need Jesus this morning.

We need Jesus this morning.

We need to feel what He feels, and long for a gospel invasion of the power of the Holy Spirit to do what only He can do. Not just for my own sake, but for the sake of my friends that I love.

I dream of a day for my friends when they are able to breathe the same free air that I do, without fear, uncertainty, or the painful rejection of being hated for the color of their skin. We need justice now, and we need the kind of Sovereign Justice that re-humanizes the dehumanized and tenderizes the polarized.

Come, Lord Jesus. Help us.