Three and a half years ago in seminary I took a class that explored calling. In one class exercise, we filled out two giant Post-its: one (not pictured here) on which we defined our calling as we understood God revealing it to us, and another (this photo is part of it) on which we identified people whom we saw living out a similar calling, followed by listing the competencies we discerned God could be requiring of us. The two Post-its hung on a wall in my home for two years as I prayed over them. I have always been fascinated by Christian apologetics — thus Ravi’s name. Now I would obviously cross it out.
So many thoughts as I pray and process the details of his life that have surfaced after his death. So many under-developed thoughts, I might add, as I process grace and justice and sin and forgiveness and biblical history and church history. Here are the directions in which my mind and spirit are tending:
•I am mourning for his victims of many ages, nations, and backgrounds who share the same suppressed trauma.
•I am grateful that at this time in history, victims are slowly but increasingly empowered to speak out.
•I am prayerful that these women will find the counseling, rehabilitation, hope, and freedom they need to move forward.
•I am grieving that countless victims of abuse in past decades, centuries, and millennia have not had the opportunity to speak out about the evils committed against them.
•I am convinced that teachers are judged more strictly (James 3:1).
•I am sobered by remembering that no one is exempt from temptation.
•I am cautioned to avoid celebrity Christianity.
•I am reminded that Scripture repeatedly highlights not only the victories but also the inexcusable failures of major biblical characters, quietly shouting on page after page that the only true hero is God.