In the wake of last week’s bombings in Madrid, I’ve been going through a whole host of emotions.
At first, I felt a great deal of anger at the perpetrators and a great deal of sadness for the Spanish people. I had that “Here we go again” feeling, similar to the way I felt after the Bali, Phillipine and Najaf bombings over the past year and a half. Although the Aznar government maintained that ETA was behind the bombings, I had a nagging suspicion that it was at least marginally al Qaeda-related. Now, it looks as if that suspicion was correct.
Over the past two days, I’ve felt a mixture of sadness, horror and despair at the Spanish electorate’s response to the bombings. I see it as nothing less than capitulation and I fear that bombings just before major elections in Coalition countries may well become a routine thing. I worry that, in October, the Bush administration will raise the national terror alert because of valid intelligence and will be accused by the Dems of politicising the War on Terror and trying to influence the outcome of an election. Heaven help us if a DC Metro gets hit on Halloween.
However, in the midst of all these emotions has been a quiet Voice, assuring me “God is in control”. I’ve struggled with it and had nearly silenced it when I stumbled across Proverbs 24:17-20:
Do not gloat when your enemy falls; when he stumbles, do not let your heart rejoice, or the LORD will see and disapprove and turn his wrath away from him.
Do not fret because of evil men or be envious of the wicked, for the evil man has no future hope, and the lamp of the wicked will be snuffed out.
We are to stand against evil in all its forms, and, with GWB as our President, we’ve been doing a fairly good job at taking out a particular brand of evil. But I am comforted that, no matter the outcome of Election ’04, no matter the indignities and atrocities heaped upon us, God is watching, He is in control, and the end result is a known quantity: We win, in the end.
G’night.
