When I was a kid, believe it or not, I had a real problem with listening to my elders (mainly teachers) and their authority over me. I was a pretty bad kid; with countless detentions you can give a kid growing up. You’d think having my dad as a deacon in the church and my uncle a pastor, I would be a well behaved kid, right? Please, I was everything, but that, which my dad believed in the paddle system. You would think I would learn to behave right…nope. It wasn’t until my eighth grade year that I wanted to go on a school trip to San Antonio, so I had to behave! Which in the end, I behaved and went without in house suspensions so I could actually go. The key was simple; respect your authority.
I know not everyone going to read this is a Christian, but there’s something relevant that you should hear. In the book of Romans, chapter 13, it talks about submitting to authority. The verses are as follows. “Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authorities except from God, and authorities that exist are appointed by God. Therefore, whoever resists the authority the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves.” What you take from these verses is simply this, respect and submit to authority, do not resist.
In America as of this month especially, it seems like everyone is missing a brain and ears. So much chaos is going one all from people who chose the hard way of doing things. That authority is our law enforcement and of that they are put there for a reason. I’m not saying there aren’t bad eggs in a bunch because in fact there are, but the good ones shouldn’t be tossed in the bin with the rest. No one is excluded from submitting to authority not even authority itself. There are things they have to follow and things that enforced for us to abide by and follow.
All of these bad situations, would be avoided if people just learned to listen to cops and recognize they have the authority to enforce laws. Going back to the verse above, “…those who resist will bring judgment to themselves.” It’s clearly evident that when things are done the hard way, that person is at fault and not that of the others. Any other argument is proof that it would be invalid. Now does someone have to die for it? No. But should they be stopped? Yes. We do not have the authority to judge from a video the intent of an individual towards law enforcement. For all we know, he could’ve had the intent to harm the authorities trying to stop him, but we don’t know. Also, there’s no way to know because we for one are not him or can retrieve his thoughts. Resisting authority breeds consequences and cooperation does not.
Our country is hell bent on it being cops fault, when actually it’s really our fault. If we used our God given common sense to follow orders, then we might be better off. We have become so divided as a nation and we are losing sight of the bigger picture. A nation without God, is going to continue to be chaotic, but until we recognize that, we are going to get worse and worse.
In Romans, chapter 14, verse 19, it says, “Therefore, let us pursue the things which make for peace and the things by which one may edify another.” Only this is possible until we fall on our face and cry out as a nation for God’s help and love one another. We can’t fix this on our own. God will help but we have to ask for it, as a whole, as a nation. Love conquered death, but that is because of God. We have to submit to the authority God appoints men to serve Him, to serve us and protect us. We are making it harder every day and we must admit this problem. Only then we can receive true help and true peace.
