Faith in America: Austin Lee

I am a Christian and sometimes I am embarrassed to tell people. I feel like my faith has been hijacked by a group of people that practice a brand of Christianity that I do not support or agree with. They are about hating things: Homosexuality, Abortion, People, etc.

Christianity should be about love, loving even those that have done the very worst things. This is a post I wrote about a year ago that talks about the God I serve: A God of Love.

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My little brother is an amazing musician. He can sing just about any song, any style, and even a couple of languages.

However, my favorite song that he has ever performed has these lyrics: “My God is so high you can’t get over Him; He’s so wide you can’t get around Him, He’s so low you can’t get under Him. You must come in by and through the Lamb.”

You often hear about God being big and doing big things. He helped Noah build a huge boat. He helped Gideon destroy a huge army. He parted the waters to allow the Israelites to escape Egypt. He sent his Son to die on the Cross to save the entire world from its sin.

We have heard about God’s power, His strength, and His omniscience. I was reminded yesterday of the two best qualities of God. His gentleness and His love.

I need to back up a bit and tell you a couple of stories one about Elijah and the other about a horrific tragedy.

Elijah

If you want to read this whole story it can be found in 1 Kings, chapters 18 and 19. God had just performed a miracle through Elijah by ending the drought in Israel. Jezebel, the Queen, was not happy with Elijah and threatened to kill him. (The fact that Elijah didn’t trust God at this point is a great story for another time.) Elijah runs to a cave and hides out to save his own life. God instructs Elijah to go to the mouth of the cave and wait for the Lord to pass by. A powerful wind came, then an earthquake, and then a great fire came, however, God was not in any of those loud and obvious events. Soon after the great fire Elijah heard a gentle whisper.

God was in the whisper. Elijah experienced the presence of God in a whisper.

Ok. Hold on to that thought for a minute.

Tragedy

On July 25, 2006, Jennifer Ewing was riding her bike on the Silver Comet Trail near Atlanta, GA when she was attacked and murdered. On Monday, May 18, 2009, Michael Ledford was found guilty of her murder in Paulding County Superior Court.

I went to the first full day of the sentencing portion of the trial on Tuesday, May 19, 2009. As I walked into the courtroom and sat down the court was in the midst of deciding which of the audio tapes from prison would be admitted to support the prosecution in their bid to sentence Mrs. Ewing’s killer to death. The tapes that were played caused me to be even more angry with Mr. Ledford than I was when I got to court.

He complained about the cable television channels he was able to watch, he complained that his family wasn’t sending him money fast enough, he complained about being on suicide watch, and on the list goes of things he complained about. Just before the jury came back into the courtroom the prosecutor gave a brief description of another audio tape that he wanted to play. It was a phone call between Michael Ledford and his 14 year old niece. The description of the phone call was not pleasant. I assumed that a 20 second description of a 20-30 minute phone call would have only the out of context highlights and therefore the actual call wouldn’t be as bad as it sounded. I could not have been more wrong.

As the conversation was played tears came to my eyes as he described himself as famous. As his niece related to him as if he was on a reality television show and not in jail for murder. The news media was described as “paparazzi” there to take photos of Mr. Ledford's family for some gossip magazine and not because her uncle was accused of murdering a wife and mother of three. He asked his 14 year old niece to send him picture of her and her friend in bikinis. He agreed when she asked if it would make him feel “warm and fuzzy inside.” He told her to send him a letter addressed to “Handsome Mike”. He told her that if she came to visit him he wanted her to wear skimpy clothes and bring her friend. He told her that she didn’t need to worry about jogging on the Silver Comet Trail, that he would make sure all the bad guys knew to leave her alone. He talked about the injuries he sustained to his genitalia and that he was healing okay and was able to “carry his parts.”

Until May 19, 2009, I had never been in the same room with evil. It was sickening to hear him talk about his inconveniences in jail while I knew the pain and torment that he had caused the Ewings. While we were grieving with the Ewings, it seemed as if he was already moving on to his next victim, his own niece. A chill ran down my spine as I sat on the hard wooden bench in the courtroom. You could hear a pin drop.

There in the eerie, sickening silence, after hearing the worst thing I have ever heard in my life, I heard a gentle whisper that could only come from God: “I love him, just as much as I love you.”

Just like with Elijah, God showed up in a whisper. The still small voice from deep within my soul reminding me once again of a love that is so amazing, so complete, and so out of the ordinary that He loves us in spite of our brokenness.

With the personification of evil right in front of me in the courtroom I could hear my little brother’s voice in my head singing, “My God is so high you can’t get over Him; He’s so wide you can’t get around Him, He’s so low you can’t get under Him. You must come in by and through the Lamb.”

My God is so big.