Catherine Larson, author of "As We Forgive," shared with a group from school about the Rwandan genocide in the early 90's. In 1994 Hutus killed a million Tutsis and Hutu sympathizers. Many of those killed were hacked to death with machetes and farm tools. Before 1994 Rwanda was held up as one of the success stories of the modern missionary movement. It was 80% Christian. Much of the violence perpetrated was Christian on Christian violence. Catherine quoted a Rwandan bishop who said, "It appears that our hearts were more tied up with Hutu and Tutsi than our hearts were tied up with Christ."This is the problem with my own heart. There are so many things that vie for the attention of my heart. I know they all pale in comparison to the glorious riches of the Gospel, but I still allow them to tie up my heart. Republican, Democrat, American, white, black, rich, poor, evangelical, liberal...these are all things that can identify us. What is it that draws our hearts to these labels. I believe it is that they offer us hope. These labels offer us a hope of belonging, a hope of a better life, a hope that will not be fulfilled. "Remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world" (Eph 2:12). The hope of glory is Christ in you (Col 1:27), therefore our identity must first and foremost be in Christ.
I have never participated in genocide. But I know that my heart is capable of the division that caused the genocide, because my heart strays from the One who offers true hope. May the words of the old hymn "Come Thou Fount" be our prayer:
O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be!
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.
