Just as any American I am glad that Osama Bin Laden has been brought to justice for his crime and the murder of nearly 3000 people on American soil.

But I find that I cannot celebrate his death.

My human heart and reason tell me that an evil man has received his just desserts.  My sense of patriotism stirs with guilty pride that an enemy of my country is gone, taken out by some of our nation's finest.
Yet, my still flawed, still incomplete understanding of the Bible and the whisperings of the Holy Spirit restrain me from delight in all this.  Even as many cheer, are not those cheers echoed by the real enemies of God and Christians?

"For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places." Ephesians 6:12

Bin Laden is dead and another human being has fallen forever into hell and the "principalites and powers of this world and the spiritual wickedness in high places cackle with glee.  Does God who leaves the 99 to find the one lost sheep, grieve now at the death of this one?  There are so many more still living in the same darkness and deception and time is so short.

More and more I feel the burden of this growing realization.  More and more I sense a glimmer of the real power and importance of our witness for the name and salvation found only in our Redeemer, Jesus Christ and the difference between that and force of arms.  Is this what the martyrs felt... saw?  Is this why they went willingly to their own deaths and will again as witnesses to the end of the truth in the face of injustice and evil?

I have always and still do believe in the rightness of defending our selves, our families, our country and our friends and neighbors.  I just wonder, as believers in Jesus Christ, saved through faith in Him and His death and resurrection, what should we be feeling? What does our Heavenly Father feel? What does Jesus feel and how can we see things as He does.

Sorry.  I'm not providing any answers here.  Just questions and an invitation for your thoughts as well.

YBIChrist,

Sonny