Anger begets anger. Surely we have witnessed that these past days. My heart is heavy for those who lost their lives and their families dealing with the reality of the results of anger and how it ripped through their lives and hearts leaving an emptiness that lasts long past the event.

I’ve seen and listened to the newscasts. I have listened to the pundits and commentators. To be honest, I don’t think they help. In fact listening to some, I think they make matters worse. Some news people seem to bait their interviewees or put words in their mouths to push their own agenda or their network’s agenda. It doesn’t work for me.

A network is not interested in truth – it is interested in ratings and ratings turn into money. Big money.

Opinion alert! I have yet to hear anyone talk about the steady diet of violence on our television screens, in our movie theaters, in music lyrics and in the video games. Most of them are angry and violent – and very graphic. Our young people are listening to this day and night on their iPods or watching it on the screen.

Is it any wonder we have young people who were weaned on this sewer turn violent. They cannot translate blowing a head off the bad guy in a video game is not a same as killing in the streets. Reality is very different. It’s ugly. It is hell-inspired.  And real people’s lives are snuffed out leaving grief behind. A family, a community, a nation scared.

The video game doesn’t kill – people do. Just like guns don’t kill people, people do. What we need is not a new gun law but a new heart.

These BLM protests are not helpful. I fear they are infiltrated by those with a wicked agenda. The Psalmist said, “Do not associate with man given to anger; or go with a hot-tempered man; lest you learn his ways, and find a snare for yourself.” If you join an angry mob you could well find it to be something that feed itself and grows until you are consumed yourself. Job 5:2 says, “anger kills the simple.” In other words, anger is unwise and it hurts the one who is angry. Yes, there is righteous anger which is justified but it does not grow violent.

Let us take a breath, address our anger in a non-violent (not weak) reasoned way and become statesman that can lead this great nation out of this darkness.

But first, let’s change our hearts. Only God can do that through the blood of Jesus Christ. He suffered untold violence so we wouldn’t have to.  He is the only hope for us.