The Flashpoint Example...

I was at home this evening as I was watching the TV show titled “Flashpoint” - for those that don't know it's a special police unit geared towards getting people out of crime scenes without anyone getting injured or killed – of course sometimes that fails, but anyways that's a whole other topic.

Now – I too would like to take a moment to say that I rarely ever watch TV, and furthermore am reading a book titled “Shall I pray or watch TV?” - but I must say that I'm thankful for having watched the TV show as God was confirming a message to me that's been ongoing throughout this blog, but also through messages I've heard in the past week.

In this episode of “Flashpoint” *SPOILER WARNING* I'd like to say there was a young man about 21 named Jackson. He went to visit his niece for her birthday, brought a present, and his sister greeted him at the door. She wouldn't let him in because of his past. Now – Jackson was a drug user/abuser/seller and all the stuff that goes along with it. Anyways, he was caught 8 months prior to this event for possession of cocaine. Through this, he had transformed himself and wanted nothing to do with his past.

Well his sister wanted nothing to do with her brother, AKA Jackson, so she told him that she didn't want him at her daughter's birthday party, due to his past, but also because he owed her almost $700 for his past crimes.

Now – first off, it's obvious that the sister wasn't forgiving her brother of his debts.

What did Jesus teach?

Matthew 6:12 And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.

Obviously the sister was lacking God in her life. Selfishness was being revealed – as she wouldn't let her own brother to her daughter's birthday party until his debts were paid up; eventhough he had bought a gift for the daughter. She wouldn't even take the gift – left him at the door stranded for nothing, and being the changed guy he was, he left the gift at the door in the mailbox.

So anyways, the brother goes off, calling everyone he knows in his new “cleaned up” life. He's looking to speak to any friend that is willing to give him or lend him some money. At one point one of his friends said she had $40, but as that wasn't enough, he told her not to worry and continued searching. Eventually he finally called his old drug dealer. He wanted to get loaned some money from this guy.

Now – first off, it's clear right here that this guy was lacking God in his life. Now God may have appeared in the event of $40 – which wasn't enough right then and there, but why did he need the money that day. Again – he wanted to have control and make everything right and he was bound to do something to make it right that day. NOW – I'd just like to say, that's not how God works, but again that's a whole other separate message – all I'd like to say is he wanted to take control of his life, rather than letting God control the situation.

The result?

Well – he goes to visit his drug dealer, and in the mean time the cops are planning a drug bust on this dealer. Word got back to the dealer that there were cops up on the roof, and the dealer thought it was Jackson – when it was actually the undercover cop that was in the room that was with the cops.

Anyways, the undercover cop tries to help stop the drug dealer from shooting Jackson – there's a slight struggle, the cop ends up getting shot – and it's a load of drama until that final scene. The final scene has the cops breaking into the apartment, and unfortunately Jackson ends up getting shot and within a few minutes dies.

Now, Jackson ends up being dead in this drug bust for several reasons:

1. his sister won't forgive him
2. Jackson wants to control the financial situation to have his family back in his life
3. the cops tried to control the situation

Now, if his sister had forgiven him, and allowed him to the birthday party this would've never happened; if Jackson didn't try going to seek financial resolution that every day, he probably would've never ended up in the drug dealers apartment and would've have been shot; if the cops dealt with the situation differently, nobody probably would've been shot.

Unfortunately it's clear that everyone in this episode was lacking God. Where God is lacking there is death. Where God is lacking – we want to take control and when we do this, we forget that God is in control. The end result is not God's will, now yes God allowed it to happen, but it's because we as a people don't want to follow the will of God and would rather follow the gift he has given us and that is the gift of free will. Each person in this episode followed their own free will, and the result was death.

Now – as the closing scene of the episode came about, the one cop had to go to the sister's house and of course inform her of her brother's death. Unfortunately, this is where the episode ended, but I'm sure that the sister would have been there grieving as she realized had she just forgiven her brother, the situation would've been different, her brother would still be alive. Unfortunately – her brother is now dead, and she will either have to live with that for the rest of her life, or she will have to turn to God and seek for forgiveness.

Unfortunately, these types of situations happen to many of us daily, fortunately we don't have to deal with someone dying in a situation like this daily, but we still have to deal with the forgiveness and other things. Sometimes it takes a bad situations like a death or murder for us to realize that we should forgive those in our lives, but it is a reality that we as humans are a people who lack the teachings of God, but also just lack God in our lives.