{"id":869,"date":"2016-07-11T15:37:57","date_gmt":"2016-07-11T15:37:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/?p=869"},"modified":"2016-07-11T15:37:57","modified_gmt":"2016-07-11T15:37:57","slug":"violence-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/2016\/07\/violence-2.html","title":{"rendered":"Violence!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve seen and listened to the newscasts. I have listened to the pundits and commentators. To be honest, I don&#8217;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&#8217;s agenda. It doesn&#8217;t work for me.<\/p>\n<p>A network is not interested in truth &#8211; it is interested in ratings and ratings turn into money. Big money.<\/p>\n<p>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 &#8211; and very graphic. Our young people are listening to this day and night on their iPods or watching it on the screen.<\/p>\n<p>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&#8217;s ugly. It is hell-inspired. \u00a0And real people&#8217;s lives are snuffed out leaving grief behind. A family, a community, a nation scared.<\/p>\n<p>The video game doesn&#8217;t kill &#8211; people do. Just like guns don&#8217;t kill people, people do. What we need is not a new gun law but a new heart.<\/p>\n<p>These BLM protests are not helpful. I fear they are infiltrated by those with a wicked agenda. The Psalmist said, &#8220;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.&#8221; 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, &#8220;anger kills the simple.&#8221; 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.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>But first, let&#8217;s change our hearts. Only God can do that through the blood of Jesus Christ. He suffered untold violence so we wouldn&#8217;t have to. \u00a0He is the only hope for us.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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&#8217;ve seen and listened&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":466,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,20,16,3,47,121],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary","category-current-issues-in-the-news","category-personal-thoughts","category-safe-place","category-safety","category-violence"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Violence! - Safe Place with Ruth Graham<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/2016\/07\/violence-2.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Violence! - Safe Place with Ruth Graham\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"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. 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No stranger to heartache, she seeks to provide a Biblical perspective to her journey of faith. She is warm and talks openly about her own need for a safe place as she journeyed through her husband\u2019s infidelities, her subsequent depression, her divorces, her teenage daughter\u2019s two unplanned pregnancies, another daughter\u2019s bulimia, her son\u2019s battle with drugs, grandson's special needs and returning to school at age 40. Although born into the \"famous\" Graham family Ruth did not feel she had a safe place to unburden the secrets of her life. She felt she had to project and image and wear a mask that she \"had it all together\". She had to meet others' expectations of her. It was not until a mid-life crisis did that she fully discover the unconditional love and grace of God. Her life's passion is to connect people to that same grace and love she found, no matter who they are or what sin. Ruth is an experienced conference speaker and Bible teacher. She has appeared on a variety of radio and television shows including: Good Morning, America, The Hour of Power, Focus on the Family, Moody Broadcasting, Fox &amp; Friends, CBN, Life Today and CNN. She has worked in publishing for over 14 years and is the founder of the Ruth Graham &amp; Friends Ministry. Ruth has three grown children and nine grandchildren. She lives in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. 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