Can’t Dodge Our City

It is late Sunday night and I am watching the Western Channel on television as the debonair Errol Flynn plays the role of Sherriff Wade Hatton, the man who singlehandedly stood up to the evil bullying of a bad guy named Jeff Surrett played by Bruce Cabot.
Surrett and his gang held Dodge City, Kansas under a reign of terror as they killed, stole, cheated and intimidated their way to the top, defining their own brand of crooked justice. But have no fear movie fans, because Flynn cleans up Dodge by riding tall in the saddle and exposing corruption and punishing the guilty. He even ends up getting the girl, in this case a woman named Abbie Irving played by the beautiful actress Olivia de Haviland.
We all live within our own Dodge City. There are many who make up the spheres of our everyday world and they want to do nothing more than to press our buttons, stress us out, sidestep the rules and ridicule our values. They use insults and threats to try to thwart our best intentions. They play unfair mind games with our psyche in the hope of clogging our clear thinking. If truth sets us free, then their motive is to get us to buy into the lies which, in the long run, render us paralyzed from becoming the heroes that God has created every single one of us to be.
Rather than saddling up our horses to join in the battle at the O.K. Corral, we whimper and hem and haw our way back into the shadows, hoping we can avoid any confrontation at all. Instead of adventure- we compromise our morals and rationalize our way into settling for a business as usual, which is as crooked as Rocky Balboa’s punched-in nose!
When are we going to wake up and strengthen the good that remains? How can we be silent when God gave us a mouth to communicate our convictions? How can we behave with such indifference when real love drives us to act in a life-changing manner? And if isn’t you and me, then who? And if we don’t intervene, how can we complain? This is the day for us to grab our gospel guns and our badges of honor and begin to put an end to turning a blind eye when chaos threatens the safety on the streets that our own dear loved ones daily walk upon.
So it is time to imprison that which needs to be locked up and set free that which for too long has been stuck behind bars. Prejudice and racial biasness must go. You can hate what people do, but to hate the person is never right. We need to stop treating others as props, numbers, projects, and a means to our own ends. Every individual that the Lord puts in your path must be treated with respect and value. Again it doesn’t mean condoning everything another does, but you can’t use people and love things! It has got to be the other way around.
Faith cannot be kept in private. A belief that doesn’t transform a behavior for the better is not worth practicing at all. If it was only just a personal matter then God would have beamed us up to glory at the moment of conversion. Yet the Lord chooses to leave us here so we can be his hands, his feet, his heart and his words to those all around us.
Jesus told his disciples that if they had seen him, they were seeing the Father. Because we have the Holy Spirit living right inside of us, when people see us they are supposed to be able to know who Jesus is. How are we doing? Jesus wouldn’t just stand there deaf, dumb and blind when a positive impact that could alter eternity needed to be accomplished. God moved! And a goal to fly way below the radar is not on the flight plan of any committed heart to Jesus! If we see an opportunity to do good, we need to move. Silence is never golden if it causes us to swallow our tongues of holy fire!
What will we do if we wait too late to stop the insanity? Jesus didn’t call us to be peacekeepers but peacemakers. You can’t pretend to have a harmony if the notes are all clashing together. Somebody has got to restore order. Somebody has got to have the guts to call sin for what it is and meet it out for a showdown in the street. Running away is not an option. Closing our eyes won’t tame the potential nightmare. Only to do justly and love mercy and walking humbly with our God will birth thriving over just surviving in our confused culture. Will you take a stand for the light in the middle of the night? Will you let your voice be heard and your vote against mob mentality be counted?
History is made when a faithful man or woman is courageous enough to go against the flow. We need you Errol Flynn to ride into Dodge again. Will you risk the ridicule and right a wrong while you may? See the unborn child that has no voice of his or her own? Will you speak up for that little one? How about those kids being used and abused?
Will you rescue the young ones and let them come to you as Jesus did? How about mentoring the teens that have lost their way? If you see somebody trying to stretch the rules for their own selfish gain, will you make it your business to be a part of whatever it takes to get the situation back to its designed size?
No people, we can’t do whatever we want! God didn’t make us that way. Your choices affect us all and your choice to do nothing is deadly and has horrible consequences. We would not have had much of a movie if Errol Flynn did not answer the call to restore law and order to Dodge. We won’t have much a future unless you and I answer God’s call to do the very same! It’s time that we can no longer dodge our city!