Everyone has one – an imaginary line that exists somewhere in our minds, or perhaps deeper still, within our hearts and souls. A line that seems to tell us, “That’s enough. You’ve gone far enough.” It’s the difference between a police officer who gives a “suspected criminal” an extra kick to the ribs when he is on the ground and the officer who will not go that far. It’s the difference between a person who will respectfully disagree with another’s point of view and the person who attacks the other with vulgarity or name-calling.
It is this “line” that reveals a deep dissimilarity between those who are generally considered to be good people. Take Byron Smith for instance. Here is a 65 year old man, who has had his home broken into numerous times. He is, by his own accounts a good person who tries to be nice and do the right thing. Mr. Smith, tired of the break-ins, sets a trap for the burglars. He hides his truck and waits in the basement with snacks and two guns. Sure enough, he hears a window being smashed and two teenagers, a boy and a girl, enter his home in the middle of the night. He shoot the boy three times and then shoots the girl. As she is lying on the ground pleading for her life, his gun jammed, so he reloaded and shot her 4 more times. He then waited 24 hours before calling police. The intriguing part about the story is that Mr. Smith recorded the audio of the entire ordeal. While he was shooting them he can be heard taunting them. “He said, “They weren’t human….I see them as vermin.”
I can sympathize with Mr. Smith being afraid because his house is broken into. But he crossed that line, he went too far. Seven shots to an 18 year old girl is not just excessive, it is unconscionable. He said he didn’t want to live in fear the rest of his life. He will not, for his new home will be protected with steel bars. He ended the lives of two young people and essentially his own.
Yes, this case is extreme. But it speaks very clearly to this line within each of us. What I have figured out is that this line is a moral line. And we all have this line. Every time we make a moral decision (right or wrong), the line comes into play. I believe that we all born with the line intact, but it seems that the line keeps getting moved. (I’m thinking of writing a book, “Who Moved My Line?) But that is only part of the problem. The question haunting me is: What causes a person to cross that line – a line that would stop you or me in our tracks?
Let me leave you with two more questions to chew on:
Where is your line? And how sure are you that you will never cross it?
Only By The Grace of God,
Terry
Pressing Higher Blog 