Bin Laden

"But this one offered one sacrifice for sins, and took his seat forever at the right hand of God; now he waits until his enemies are made his footstool."
-Hebrew 10:12-13

This has definitely been one of the longer gaps between posts in quite a while for me. A lot has happened in the greater world. Yet my world remains the same. If news had not reported 9/11, I still would not know about it. No one I know was affected by it, or if they were it has never come up in conversation with me.

Of course the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are due in great part to 9/11 and I do know some relatives that went over there and came back seemingly the same as they did when they left. Because of the media though, I realize their service is far from nothing and provides the level of freedom that we enjoy and subconsciously take for granted. Sometimes I think we take what God provides us for granted as well.

Bin Laden took a lot away from people, but he didn't do it single-handedly. Capturing him would have been little reason to celebrate because he didn't carry out any attacks himself and the kinds of people that acted on his plans are still out there. Some say the numbers are even greater than before, but whether that's true or not is of little consequence.

I was angry when I saw certain Muslims watching the towers fall in New York and celebrating. I was not as angry when I saw Americans celebrating the death of Bin Laden, but I wasn't celebrating either. Being pro-life, I am against the death penalty, but I am more offended by abortion because that is taking innocent life. Bin Laden took innocent life. His life was far from innocent.

In all fairness, I don't believe Bin Laden would have ever repented, so taking his life likely didn't change anything, but I still don't believe that any person had the right take it from him. Perhaps the plan was to capture him alive and his death could be considered self-defense since he was moving towards a weapon and not surrendering. On the other hand, if one had the ability to incapacitate his wife in the leg and then put a bullet in his eye, did they have the ability to incapacitate him as well? I give the SEALS the benefit of the doubt like I give the police the benefit of the doubt. Pittsburgh especially has seen more than its share of police officers killed or wounded on duty, so I feel if they shot to kill in the line of duty they would be justified.

Typically, my posts have a clear message, but even with the time I have had to reflect since my last post, I feel left with more questions than answers. Like the quote above suggests, maybe we don't have the answers yet because we are still waiting for our enemies (if we are on God's side) to be put under his feet.