Iryna and Charlie

The following are a series of thoughts on the events of the last few weeks, including the murder of Iryna Zarutska, the assassination of Charlie Kirk, and the Christian community's attempts to process both events.

On Iryna Zarutska

This is the sort of thing that should burn the phrase “never again” into the hearts of American men. If you don’t want your daughters to be slaughtered by monsters, the time to act is twenty years ago.

1. Speak the truth. Don’t be cowed by the people yelling “racist!” We can see, and have seen for years, that there really is a “race war” being waged against white people. The problem is real.

The Christian solution does not involve returning evil for evil and launching our own counter-race-war. It simply requires the unapologetic pursuit of justice. That starts with speaking the truth. And the truth right now is that the media and the justice system work overtime to protect black crime and exaggerate white micro-aggressions.

We have not correctly recalibrated until when the murderer says “but he called me the n-word,” every single person on the jury says “so..?” “Justice, and only justice, you shall pursue, that you may live and possess the land which the LORD your God is giving you.” - Deut. 16:20

2. Demand justice. Karmelo Anthony and Decarlos Brown Jr. should be executed immediately, and the entire nation should know about it. Capital punishment for murder is explicitly Biblical, and the civil magistrate must do his job. American men- American MEN- must settle for nothing less. This is not a fight our women should have to fight. They should not have to carry a hatchet like the girl in Scotland because their husbands and fathers have failed them.

3. Buy a weapon. Hit the gym. Earn a black belt. Be ready, be strong, be courageous. Wake up every morning ready to die like a man. It is better to die a hero than to live a coward. Jesus did. Monsters like this need to know that there are dragonslayers roaming the streets of America.

This also means learning situational awareness and de-escalation- in other words, wisdom. Godly men aren’t afraid of a fight, but they are happy to avoid one when they can do so without compromise.

4. Exercise Godly authority to care for your people. Don’t let your wife go shopping in the inner city at night. Meet your daughter at the airport and drive her home. Know where your kids are playing. Take responsibility for those under your charge. Set up wise boundaries.

5. Ladies. Be wise. Train. Arm yourselves. Be situationally aware. Don’t buy the “empowered woman” lie that you can go anywhere and do anything. Reject the feminism that has for years insulted and demonized the masculine instincts of the American male. You cannot fairly demand his protection while refusing to yield to his authority. Respect and welcome the protective instinct of good men. Be ready to fight like a rabid badger if you find yourself up against a bad one.

6. Our ultimate hope and shield is the Lord of Hosts.

Be fearless.

Be prayerful.

Be faithful.

And be ready.

What Do I Do With All This Anger?

After the sickening one-two punch of Iryna Zarutska and Charlie Kirk, many Americans feel at once furious and impotent. What can we do?

1 - Pray and sing the Psalms. Pray for and encourage the victims. Draw near to Jesus Christ. Take your anger, all of it, honestly and openly, to the throne of the Judge of all the Earth. And keep proclaiming Christ. I’ve already seen multiple people saying that they’re considering religion/Christianity with everything that is going on.

2 - Recognize that whatever daily faithfulness looks like for you, that is your warfare. Do it with all your might. Love your wife. Teach your kids. Build your church community. Do not grow weary in doing good. In due season, we will reap.

3 - Get serious. If you are just looking for a fun, chill life, then you are looking for a wasted life. If you don’t know Jesus, you need to start there. Make no mistake, this is not a battle between conservatism and liberalism. This is a battle between Christ and the kingdom of darkness. Get on the right side. If you do know Jesus, don’t be content to bury your talents. Let this anger shake you out of your complacency. Build a business. Go street preaching. Have more kids. Run for office.

We are here to make a dent in the gates of hell, not to sip martinis on the beach.

4 - Get practical. If you have not trained in self-defense, are not armed, etc., start immediately. Learn situational awareness. Train with your family and church. Learn martial art. Start doing push-ups. Become a hardened target. The demons are flailing. They know what time it is. Aslan is on the move.

This should give us hope, but it also means that we must be ready for much more of this violence. And we must be ready, in the conviction of Christ, to put a stop to it, hard and fast. It has been clear for a while that we were in a cold war with the left. The war is heating up. The domestic terrorists need to lose and lose hard and lose fast and lose every time.

5 - Speak the truth. Boldly, courageously. Pick up where Charlie left off. Make no peace with secularism. Make no peace with leftism. Destroy it ideologically, and be ready to enforce justice unblinkingly when the demons rear their heads in the streets. No more pretending that the Democratic Party that is currently celebrating that Charlie Kirk’s wife is now a widow and his children are orphans is a valid option for Americans or Christians. They are the terrorist party. They have been pushing for this assassination for years.

The Democratic Party leaders that are now intoning somberly about political violence are the same ones that have been branding conservatives like Charlie Kirk as white supremacists and hateful bigots for years. And that’s not to mention the fact that we don’t know who shot Charlie, but it may have been something much more than just a random disgruntled commoner.

This of course does not mean that we can treat every Democrat like a terrorist. But it does mean that we need to stop pretending like we’re just buddies with some little disagreements.

It’s Christ or chaos. The Christian West, or the third world. It’s time to choose. If the Lord is God, serve Him. If Baal is God, serve him. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.

6 - Don’t confuse simmering bitterness and blameshifting with righteous indignation. In your anger, do not sin. Do not return evil for evil, but overcome evil with good. But this doesn’t mean overcome evil with niceness. It just means that our actions must be under the authority of Christ, not simply driven by brute emotion.

The offer of Gospel love in Jesus Christ must always be a standing offer. But for those who seek to slay the innocent, faithful Gospel preaching means two to the chest and one to the head.

7 - Do not let the fires of indignation stop burning until justice is served. We must demand that the government do what God put it here to do. Those who say “violence is not the answer“ are ignoring the fact that biblically speaking, violence is the prescribed answer. Lawlessness is not the answer. But God gave the civil magistrate the sword so that he could bring it down hard on wickedness like this, and that needs to happen immediately.

DeCarlos Brown Jr., Karmelo Anthony, and whoever shot Charlie Kirk should be publicly executed immediately, and we should not stop being furious until this happens. This is Biblical, Christian justice.

Anyone who says we should “turn the other cheek” does not understand what that passage means. It most certainly does NOT mean turn a blind eye when innocent people are being slaughtered in our country. That is the exact opposite of what Scripture commands.

So go proclaim the Word of the King in your local city counsel. Get involved in your community. Pressure the politicians. Do not take complacency and compromise as an acceptable status quo.

“Learn to do good; Seek justice, Rebuke the oppressor, Obtain justice for the orphan, Plead for the widow’s case.” - Is. 1:17

8 - Do not lose heart.

The tomb is empty.

The King is on the throne.

The gates of hell will not prevail.

The demons are flailing because the Sunrise is burning their eyes.

It’s a good day to slay dragons.

To The Laughing Left

All these leftists intoning gleeful implications about “who is next” have me smiling wryly. I’m not sure that they realize how many young men are walking around this country who are praying for an Iryna Zarutska to save. How many husbands and fathers are thinking of Charlie’s widow and orphans who would literally gunbattle their way across the nation to give them anything that they needed. How many knights have their hands resting on their sword hilts. And if we die in battle, that cost has already been counted.

We would rather die as lions than live as sheep and be unable to look our children in the eye. We would rather lie fallen in the company of heroes than hide our face in the company of their widows.

This is not our boast because we don’t believe that there are dragons, or that they are mighty. It is not our boast because we, in ourselves, have the strength to conquer the gates of hell.

No, it is our boast because we follow King Jesus.

The corpses of serpents litter the earth in His wake.

The children of Light are not the ones who should be treading lightly.

Look Around

God turned Donald Trump‘s head. God could have spared Charlie Kirk as well. Please understand that in the strange providence of God, the death of Charlie Kirk was a victory. There are people that are turning to Christ because of the death of Charlie Kirk. There are people that are leaving the left because of Charlie Kirk. There are people that are growing a spine because of Charlie Kirk. We might get America back because of Charlie Kirk. The death of Charlie Kirk was a hard providence. But this is what victory looks like. We don’t always get to see why God does what he does. But why did God choose to have Charlie meet his end like a hero? Look around.

Don't Take the Bait

There is a massive difference between vengeful bloodlust and righteous indignation. We should not be satisfied with anything less than justice. No compromise. No “conversations about political violence.” Justice. This is a biblical demand. But that is not the same thing as lawlessness. Not by a longshot.

Our indignation is good, so long as it is righteous. When it becomes lawless, we become our own worst enemies. Hold the line, brothers and sisters. Pursue justice. Stand boldly against lawlessness. And keep being Godly salt and light.

Joel Berry pointed out beautifully that they shot Charlie because Charlie is what they fear most. A courageous Christian man who loved his wife and children. Not a Revolutionary. Not a crazy person. Just a faithful Christian. The powers of darkness can’t stand that. They would prefer 1000 conspiracy theorists and ragelords over a handful of courageous, godly men.

So don’t take the bait. They want us to riot and burn. But our marching orders come from the Word of God. We shall not be overcome by evil – but overcome evil with good. And I say this while fully recognizing that sometimes good overcomes evil with two to the chest and one to the head.

When Nehemiah armed the people of Israel, as they rebuilt the city of Jerusalem, he called them to be strong and to fight for their families. But he did not lead them on a terror raid of the threatening heathens. No, he armed them, he charged them to stand courageous and to be ready to strike down any who would come to harm their people. And they built.

And this is what we must do. Be joyful. Demand justice. Keep loving. Keep building. If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men. The powers of darkness can’t resist Gospel leaven. The fight will come and find you.

Trust God, and keep your powder dry.

"They Caught the Shooter"

Strategies on processing and continuing this fight:

1. Conspiracy theories and speculation will abound. Drop the tin foil hat and go to your prayer closet.

2. This in no way means that we should be afraid to question the approved narratives. If Mossad was involved, I want to know. Democratic higher-ups? We need the names. But we must not trade Kingdom work for endless speculation and bitterness building. They must be real questions being asked for good reason and with a clear objective, not vague speculation and rabble-rousing.

3. Once convicted, justice demands a public execution. Actually, at least three public executions. Charlie’s killer, DeCarlos Brown Jr., and Karmelo Anthony. The execution of justice is joy for the righteous, but terror for the workers of iniquity.

4. Public celebration of the assassination of Charlie Kirk is not “free speech,” it is the incitement of further violence, and it should be treated accordingly.

5. Any politician, Republican or Democrat, who is trying to play the “peace and unity” game, should be impeached and/or voted out immediately. Someone needs to start a list.

6. Democratic politicians and pundits who continue to use the same rhetoric that is being used to justify these murders should be prosecuted for the incitement of violence. (“Fascist, Nazi, Hitler, white supremacist.”) You don’t get to get your base to a point where they are partying in the streets over assassinations and then get to just say “hey stop doing violence” (*wink*) and escape all responsibility.

7. “Christians” who seem unable to maintain a clear distinction between Christian justice and actual fascism and Nazism and racism need to knock it off. Our indignation must be clearly righteous and clearly lawful or the justice of our cause is impugned and the favor of God is in doubt.

8. The focus must be maintained on the spiritual aspect of this fight. I like Ben Shapiro but he cannot pick up Charlie’s mic because he doesn’t follow Charlie’s Savior. (He is welcome, though, and some of y’all need to quit heckling him and start inviting him.) Conservatism is not enough. We are at war with demons. This war is only won beneath the banner of the Cross. Jesus Christ is King. This is the battle cry.

9. Don’t stop. The gates of hell will not prevail. And if you’re feeling tired or ready to go back to the status quo, go watch the video again. Preach the Gospel. Love your people. Build something that lasts. And get involved. Men of America. For our wives and our children, for our country, for the glory and in the power of King Jesus, press the battle. Do not be content with anything less than total victory.

Unconditional surrender.

Deus vult.

Gospel Moorings

We have got to find a way to act on just and righteous indignation without losing our Gospel moorings and Christian light. It should not be half of the Christians proclaiming one and half of them the other. Our God is just, and He is forgiving. He is full of love, and He is angry with the wicked. We are called to be like Him. Don’t settle for whichever part of the equation is most comfortable for you.

Liberal Women

Christians regularly point out that liberal white women are the scourge of America. Yet when Iryna Zarutska, a 23-year-old white girl with a Black Lives Matter graphic in her room, is murdered on a train, there is no shout of joy from Christians. Instead there is outrage and sorrow. Because we actually care about women instead of just making a bunch of noise about their “rights.”

But the leftist media? Crickets. Evasions.

Christians want justice. Justice for Charlie AND for Iryna- the conservative Christian AND the BLM supporter. Their killers need to be executed swiftly and publicly.

If you’re a liberal white woman, you need to take a hard look at this reality. Your tribe doesn’t care about you. They are lying to you. That’s what demons do. They will happily leave you bleeding out on the floor if that’s what it takes to advance their agenda.

The Christians who supposedly want to stuff you into a Handmaid’s Tale dystopia are actually the people who want to make sure you make it home alive.

Shockingly, the people who don’t care whether you kill your baby also don’t care whether a stranger kills you. But the people who want to defend the life of your child want to defend yours as well.

Leave the death cult.

Come to Jesus.

Anger is Not Enough

Last week was one of the most infuriating weeks of my life. Between the assassination of Charlie Kirk and the murder of Iryna Zarutska, a heavy, sickening, simmering ache hung over everything. But life goes on. Aches fade. For some, like Charlie’s widow, the pain will remain for a lifetime, perhaps growing duller, but never disappearing. For others, the flash in the pan will dissipate in time for the next news cycle.

Emotions are like this. They can be a good starter fluid to get your engine going, but they are not sufficient fuel to keep it running over the long haul. We intuitively prove this with our inherent desire to bind young love in the chains of promises. We feel the emotions of passion and romance, and we want it to last forever – so we make promises and covenants and vows, so that when the emotions ebb and flow, our relationship will remain constant.

And so it is here. Anger is not enough. Victory requires discipline. How many little boys, after first being introduced to football, began training for the NFL diligently for the next three months? It is what happens after the three months that makes the difference. We all inherently know that this is the case. This is why after September 11, 2001, or even after World War II, the phrase “never forget,“ or “never again,“ becomes colloquial. We all know, deep down, that we are prone to forget. We know that if we don’t somehow put a ring on it, it won’t last.

It is completely good and appropriate, therefore, that Iryna and Charlie are commemorated in memes and memorials, in shirts and statues. Sadly, much like many marriages in America today, even the vows and the ceremonies often do not accomplish their intended purpose.

But when tragedies like those of last week occur, we have a golden opportunity. It is an opportunity to learn. To grow. To be shaken out of complacency and into something better – ferocious discipline. This, by the way, is one of the things that made Charlie Kirk so great. He worked. He worked hard. He outworked everybody, and the result was an organization that likely changed the outcome of the 2024 elections. We must follow in his footsteps. We don’t all need to be community organizers or political activists. But we do all need to identify the battles that God has given us to fight, and then discipline ourselves to fight them ferociously and over the long haul.

So while the anger is still hot, and the pain is still fresh, now is the time to set your frame of reference. Now is the time to make your plan – to assess your priorities – to set in stone the kind of discipline upon which you can build the life of a warrior. Otherwise, the siren song of the status quo will lull us back into sleep; we will resume life as usual, at least until the next horrific thing breaks through our complacent stupor for a week or two.

So what is your plan? God gave you righteous indignation so that you could do something with it. How are you going to make a difference in your community? Tweeting angrily for a couple of weeks is not sufficient honor for the life of a man who spent his days building institutions so that we could have a free country. More importantly than that, it is not sufficient honor for the King of glory, who bought us with His blood so that we could be a new creation and bear fruit for His kingdom.

So let’s get practical. What steps of discipline are you going to take? Here are some ideas.

1 - Prayer and the Word. If you went to church for Charlie last Sunday, I am glad to hear it, and he would be too. But church for Charlie will not change your life. You need to go to church for Jesus Christ. Being an effective warrior for righteousness starts by being righteous, and being righteous starts by having our sin crucified to the bloody cross of Jesus Christ, and the righteousness of the spotless Lamb wrapped around us in its place. Once made new in the power of Christ, we must not stop drawing near to God. We must discipline ourselves in prayer and the Word of God and the fellowship of the saints so that we are prepared to continue the fight which we began. So what is your spiritual battle plan?

2 - Build. Real progress is rarely frantic. The kingdom of God is like leaven which leavens the entire loaf; it is like a mustard seed which grows up into a mighty tree. It is not like a hand grenade that blows up in an enormous flash and then disappears. So what are you building? The primary thing you should be building, usually, is a Christian household. Godly children are arrows in the hands of a mighty man. If you wanna fight back against the darkness, have a bunch of kids, and raise them in the fear of God. Loving your wife/respecting your husband and raising godly seed should be top priority. The mightiest political activist in the world is a failure if he lost the hearts of his children.

Then, turn your consideration to building your local church. How are you edifying the body of Christ? What are your gifts? Are you using them? Teaching? Service? Generosity?

Next, the building of wealth. A good man leaves an inheritance to his children’s children. Are you building something you can pass on? Something that is going to prepare you to be able to influence your culture? Something that is going to allow you to give to those in need? The plans of the diligent lead surely to advantage, but everyone who is hasty comes surely to poverty.

Further, you should be building those particular things that God gave you to build. For instance, for me, it’s songwriting. Are people going to listen to my songs? I don’t know. But it’s just something that God put into me that I believe I’m supposed to do… So I do it. And at the end of the day, there is more music out there pointing people to Jesus. It may never top the charts, but if it encourages a few people in dark times or draws somebody into a closer relationship with Christ, I’m happy.

Then, consider the building of institutions, organizations, and community. Are you involved in your local community? Do you know who is on your city council? (I don’t, but I should.) Get involved. Lobby. Run for office. Start a homeschool group. Do street preaching or abortion mill protests. Get together with a group of guys and do bench press and Bible memorization, or martial arts, or small group tactical training. Who in your community needs a meal this Thanksgiving? Being salt and light is an instructive metaphor because salt and light both change the reality around them.

Let’s not lose our savor.

3 - Practical steps. Prayerfully consider something in each of the above areas that you can discipline yourself into pursuing. 10 minutes a day in Scripture. A 30 minute workout three times a week. Calling your local city council and introducing yourself. Learning about your local TPUSA chapter. Bringing cookies to your neighbor. Taking your kids to the park. Sharing the Gospel with your liberal friend instead of yelling at random liberals on Twitter.

The small steps of faithfulness, rooted in the hope and joy of what we have in Christ, are how we win. We trust in the power of God, not in the force of our frustration. If we are serious about changing this nation, this is how we do it. Take that anger, bind it in discipline, and send it on the path of righteousness. The gates of hell cannot prevail.

4 - While the above things are the path to victory, we should not quickly move past the defensive measures that we should put in place in the bloody days in which we live. Right now, the leftist demons are in retreat. We must press the battle. They cannot be given a moment’s rest until their godless ideologies have been completely eradicated from the public sphere.

Practically, this means first that American men need to get in shape, get martial training, and be ready to stop DeCarlos Brown Jr. wherever he shows up, and to stop him cold and hard. It is time for American men to stand up for our wives and our children and say “no more.“ It’s time for us to quit being fat, afraid, and lazy; to put away the video games and the Netflix; to be the kind of men worthy of the name of Americans.

This also means that men need to pick back up the mantle of responsibility and authority in our society. Protect your wife. Look out for your kids. Stand up, men of God! It should not be our wives that are on the front lines fighting for the future of our children. It should be us. Running for office. Proclaiming God‘s word in the public square. Rebuking evil and chuckling at Karens. This is our time to be dragon slayers. It’s a mantle we never should’ve laid aside. May the righteous indignation of the last week cause us to pick it up again.

American women need to turn their hearts home. Make oases of beauty that are worth dying for. Raise boys who will die for them. Raise girls who glory in being glorious. As godly men rise up to fill the ranks… Let them. Step down, step back, go home, and let godly men clean up this mess. Things might be sketchy for a bit. (Guys, if we aren’t gonna step up then we should quit blaming the women for doing the mama bear thing. But they shouldn’t have to.) Ladies, do not try to tame your husband or your sons. Build them up. Submit to your husband and encourage him to go forth and conquer. We do not need nice chill buddy-buddy guys. We need warriors. Truth is, we always have, but it’s becoming quite obvious. And please, please, stop acting like you can go anywhere with impunity. Iryna is enough. We don’t need more daughters of America bleeding out on the floor.

Churches need to make themselves hardened targets. Institute security protocols and designated armed guards. And pastors need to become spiritually hardened shepherds. The kind of men who will proclaim the truth of God, without flinching, no matter how unpopular.

Politically, we must be engaged in a constant full court press. Abolition of abortion. The complete rejection and prosecution of transgender ideology. Mass deportations and immigration restrictions. Removing Democrats and cowardly Republicans from office and holding them accountable for their actions and their words. It’s time for a scouring of the Shire. And every last one of us should use the full power of our platforms to demand Biblical justice. I currently have a list of three – DeCarlos Brown Jr., Karmelo Anthony, and Tyler Robinson. It is the civil magistrate’s duty to execute these men, swiftly and publicly, and in so doing to put terror in the hearts of evildoers.

5 - We must maintain a healthy immune system. This is true enough physically; it is much truer spiritually. Now is not the time to turn a blind eye to sins committed by people “on our side.“ If our side is the side of the holy King of kings, then our standards of righteousness must be His. Make no peace with wickedness wherever it is found; it will destroy whatever it touches.

We must speak with crystal clarity. Anyone who knows the story of Luther‘s reformation knows how bloody it became. We do not need zeal without knowledge. We do not need rabble-rousing. We need holy, courageous wisdom; nothing more, and nothing less. Rousing calls to action must be given with Biblical clarity. We are not Marxists. We don’t want a bloody revolution. The left wants a bloody revolution, and Charlie and Iryna are just the next steps. We want the civil government to do its job, punishing the wicked, and we want every red-blooded American male to do his job and stop violence in its tracks. This is the exact opposite of Marxist revolution. This is law and order in a Christian society.

So simply encouraging an indiscriminate and ill-defined fomenting of hatred is, at best, foolish. Being dismissive and rude towards women in general is not the same thing as being unbending in the face of HR harpies. Cussing out leftists online does little to overcome evil with good. But speaking the truth in love just might. We must also understand that righteous indignation is absolutely a Christian reality, but living in a pit of bitterness, revenge, and depression is not. Our righteous anger should move us to action, and then we should lift up a sword and a song and go to war for the Prince of peace. We are a people of hope. A people of joy. A people whose victory has already been secured. So take heart, brothers and sisters, and redouble your efforts, because your labor is not in vain in the Lord.

As we fight this war, and even when we may be grateful for the reinforcements from unsavory quarters, we must never buy the lie that we can set aside the Word of the King for a while – that we can overcome evil with evil – that we can put a pause on righteousness – that we don’t have to fight like Christians. To do this is to misunderstand how we win. We don’t win by political shenanigans.

We win by the power of God. If this battle is between right and left, then all we have to worry about is the next election. We can handle that. If this battle is between light and darkness – between the Seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent - then we need weapons not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. We need Jesus. We win this thing God’s way, or not at all.

Everything Is Gonna Be OK

As the ripples from the most horrible week of the year continue to spread throughout our nation’s consciousness, many Christians remain deeply disturbed, depressed, and angry. If this is you, then this is for you.

Everything is gonna be OK.

Jesus Christ is on the throne. He will bring forth justice to the nations. The wicked are not winning. God turns even their most evil acts into victories for His purposes.

Everything is gonna be OK.

It is good and appropriate for us to mourn and memorialize Iryna and Charlie. But it is not good for us to sink into depression; to lose our song; to become a crushed people. Sorrow and anger have their place, but they should not rule our hearts. Just because everyone is still talking about these horrific events does not mean that you need to continue to meditate on them.

Scripture tells us to weep with those who weep. (Rom. 12:15) Erika will be weeping for a long time, and I hope and pray that she has godly counselors weeping along with her and giving her hope in Christ. But most of us are not anywhere near Erika. Most of us did not even know Charlie. I am not saying this to dismiss the reality of the anger or the sorrow – both of which are appropriate. But God will give Erika the grace to bear the cross which He has assigned to her. It is not our job to carry it for her.

We should be inspired by Charlie. We should be infuriated at that wickedness which took his life and the life of an innocent 23-year-old woman. We should, by the grace of God, use those emotions to drive us to do righteousness – to draw near to God more. To love our families more. To speak out in our communities more. To preach the Gospel more. To waste less time. To stand taller and to fight harder. To train like warriors so that we are ready to stop wickedness cold wherever it rears its ugly head.

But it is not wrong to move on. I did not say forget – I said move on. The fight continues. Charlie would want us to carry on the fight. This is what Christians do. When we came to Jesus, this was an act of surrender. We gave ourselves to Him and picked up our cross. If we counted the cost correctly, we realized that we were surrendering our lives. We were signing up for a war. We are blessed in this day and age by the reality that the Christian war is rarely crowned with martyrdom. But when it is, we must recognize that that’s been part of the math all along.

It really is OK to turn off Twitter and go enjoy your family. It really is OK to not continue to sit and soak in the heartbreak a week after. It really is OK to remember the Kirk family in your prayers and to get back to work. I am not continuing to drink deep of all of the tributes and the trauma. I’m stepping back a bit from the constant focus. Not because these things shouldn’t sink deep into our bones – they should. But because they should not sap the life out of us.

My wife didn’t plug into the newsfeed pretty much at all. She has a home to keep – children to make happy. If she were near Erika, she would have been there for her. But for the duties God has given her, the misery would’ve helped nothing.

So let’s keep our perspective. The sun will rise again. Charlie won a great victory. We are surrounded by opportunity. Life goes on, and we have a target-rich environment in which to make our lives count, for the glory of God, the good of our neighbor, and the blessing of America.

When a comrade falls on the battlefield, let this make us all the more excited to win the fight.

This is what all the great stories are made of.

And yes. Erika and the kids are going to be OK too. Life will go on. They will survive. They will laugh again. And one day, they will see Charlie again.

So brothers and sisters, take back up your mighty hope. May God put a song in your mouth and a spring in your step again. Never forget the lessons learned or the deep determination forged in the fires of last week – but recognize that the battle goes on, and the enemy is in retreat. Now is not the time for the people of God to lose heart. Now is the time for us to let out a battle cry and press our advantage. The gates of hell will not prevail.

Everything is gonna be OK.