When the Screaming Won't Stop (Friday Devotional)

“For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another. We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching; the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver, in generosity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness.”

- Romans 12:4-8

I couldn’t make the screaming stop.

That had been the frustrating, recurring theme of my Wednesday. Every time I had attempted to lay my son down for a nap, he would squirm and kick and finally, when I wouldn’t take the hint, scream. No amount of soothing or coaxing had helped; none of the usual tricks that I’d spent the first fourteen months of his life learning had worked.  Whether he was teething or fighting off a stomach bug or just feeling temperamental that day, the end result was a very tired, very unhappy toddler. So as I lay in bed, exhausted and defeated from a full day of this, I wasn’t the least bit surprised to hear screams once again coming from his room, where my wife was taking her turn trying to put him down for the night. I pulled the covers over my head and tried to block out the noise.

Sometimes it feels like that’s the only way to respond to a world that you can’t get to stop screaming—screaming in terror, screaming in anger, screaming in pain. Sometimes ignoring the school shootings and the sexual assault and the drug abuse and the poverty and the wars and the corruption and the countless other evils and injustices feels like the only way to stay sane. Sometimes you just want to pull the covers over your head and hope it muffles the screaming.

But, of course, it never does. Even if you try to see no evil and hear no evil, evil persists. No matter how firmly you clasp your hands over your eyes and ears, the darkness breaks through and demands a response. Retreating from the world, in all its sin and dysfunction, is not a viable option. God does not call His children to abandon the world He gave them dominion over.

Instead, He calls you to do your part, however small it may seem. He calls you to help. He calls you to care. For some, being light in the darkness means offering encouragement to someone you know is struggling. For others, it means prophetically speaking out and taking action against injustice. For many, it means quietly, humbly serving those who may never give you so much as a 'thank you' in return. Whatever your role in a given moment, the important thing is that you do not let your fear of the world overcome your love for the Savior. After all, as hard as it can be to remember sometimes, he has overcome the world.

When my precious baby was crying out for relief, I knew I couldn’t make the screaming stop—but after a moment, I also knew hiding underneath the covers wasn’t doing anyone any good. I got out of bed and started picking my son’s toys off the floor of the living room. It wasn’t a big gesture, and it didn’t stop the screaming. But it was something.

And in a world that won't stop screaming, something is better than nothing.