One of my favorite Christian rappers, Lecrae, has posted a timely YouTube video in reaction to George Floyd’s untimely death. “He was made in the image of God,” he laments.
Lecrae affirms and validates the emotions of those that are grieving and lamenting, stating, “Your anger is justified…You should be frustrated. You should be angry. You should be grieved. You should be hurt.” But Lecrae continues “It’s [about] what we do with that hurt. It’s [about] what we do with that pain that makes all the difference. There’s a destructive way to use that emotion and there’s a constructive way to use that emotion. And my prayer is that we would use it constructively.”
Lecrae highlights three constructive ways to act (with some nice alliteration): prayer, policy, and programs. I would like to add that for the Christian community, prayer is the unique ministry that we have to contribute as a kingdom of “priests” before God (1 Peter 2:9). At the same time, it should spur the church to action rather than inaction.
Lecrae’s outlook and diagnosis of the situation is unsurprisingly biblical and taken from a Christian worldview:
“It’s a fallen world. It’s a broken world. And so as much as we’d like to think that everyone who’s supposed to be a police officer is going to protect and serve, it’s a broken world, and so they’re not all gonna do that. They’re not all gonna be there. In the same token, this is not to bomb-blast or say, ‘Hey, this is just the way officers are. This is just the way [that] people of a certain race [are]–white people, black, whatever! That’s not to say that. But this is a real issue in our society.”
Lecrae ends with a message of hope that is rooted and anchored in God:
“If you are feeling like you are drowning out here in this sea, I just want to encourage you and remind you: that God is not gonna let us sink.”
Play the video below to check the whole thing out!
The Confessing Millennial 