Well done, good and faithful servant.
These are undoubtedly the words that Charlie Kirk heard yesterday afternoon.
Kirk, a devout follower of Jesus Christ, a family man, a father, a husband, and the most influential conservative activist of his time, had his life ripped away from him yesterday afternoon in the most horrific assassination I have seen in my lifetime.
I can remember when President Trump was nearly assassinated in Butler. We as a country knew right away that the bullet did not cause fatal damage. So, when I heard the news that Kirk had been shot, my mind instantly believed that he would be fine and that no fatal damage had been caused.
After seeing the uncensored version of the assassination online, though, I knew that wasn’t the case. It would take a miracle, which millions around the country were praying for, to save his life.
As a follower of Jesus Christ myself, seeing the news that Kirk had passed was absolutely devastating. However, I find peace in knowing that he is with Jesus in heaven right now.
Yet I am in anguish for Erika Kirk and the son and daughter that Kirk leaves behind. No one deserves to have their husband or wife ripped away from them in an instant. No one deserves to have to witness the event happen. How is she supposed to tell her children that their father, who they likely saw that morning, that he won’t ever come back or be around to comfort them again?
This is a question that America has been forced to answer too many times. From JFK to the political assassinations that took place in Minnesota a few months ago, political violence isn’t a one-sided issue. It isn’t a Republican issue. It isn’t a Democrat issue. It is a human issue. An American issue. An issue in the very country that was founded on the ideas of free speech and life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Charlie Kirk was a champion for free speech, whether you liked him or not. If you disagreed with him, he not only asked, but he also encouraged those who disagreed with him to move to the front of the line so that a civil discourse could be had. Charlie knew how to keep the discourse lighthearted even in the most tense of discussions. If someone had a disagreement with him, he encouraged them to articulate why they disagreed with him, but he also pressed back and made sure that they could support and defend any argument.
Kirk was a threat–not because he was violent—but because he was extraordinarily effective. He was persuasive. He was able to articulate his arguments with the best debaters, and he was able to do this without a college education. He was a self-made man, which is one of the main reasons why young men found his ideas so appealing. It is easy to imagine him in the running for the White House in a decade or so, but we will never truly know how far his momentum would have carried him, because someone who had a different belief that him chose to use a bullet rather than words to attack him.
Undoubtedly, the assassin’s goal was to silence a movement. However, he just made his enemy bigger than ever. Charlie Kirk was a man. Now, he is a movement, more than ever.
As we get more information, outrage will surely be sparked at the shooter and anyone involved in this horrific assassination. However, if I truly claim to be a follower of Jesus Christ like Kirk was, I will pray for the shooter and pray that Jesus would make Himself known in a real and radical way.
And that is exactly what I will do. Not because I am better than him, but because I wish that he would receive the forgiveness and grace that I have already received from Jesus alone.
What the shooter did was horrific. It was disgusting. However, forgiveness is exactly what Jesus would want me to freely give out, because I have also been forgiven for a multitude of sins.
Romans 3:23 reads, “for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.”
I am no better than the man who shot Charlie Kirk. I am a sinner just like him.
I pray that our country will somehow move forward from this horrible tragedy and ensure that something like this will never take place again. Now more than ever, we must unify under the belief that the right to life is a right that must not be taken away.
