How Black Lives Matter Everyday

I am a black man…duh! I have always been and always will be. I am raising black children – my wife being African American. My black life matters in the way I live my life to be a source of strength, encouragement, dignity, and victory to all people, to the glory of God. My black life does not only matter when I encounter the police. It matters everyday. And it should!

Black lives matter in the young men and women I’ve walked with and helped raise to be honorable members of society. I have to believe that my involvement in their lives helped shape something in them that altered their destiny. The one who had no father can become a great father. The one born into poverty can obtain economic empowerment. The one struggling with identity can find themselves and fully reflect God’s intended image. The one not yet born can have a chance to make it.

Black lives matter in the lives of my own children, for whom I will work to leave a better world than what I found. I will persevere and work to embody how to overcome the struggle I and other black men and women face. I will work to bring a shift and create the desired momentum towards understanding, empathy, and recognition of people’s pain and process.

The question future generations will ask of us may not be how many protests we attended or how much we complained about the state of things. They will ask us how we faced and endured the brutality of the situations we’re faced with. They will want to know how we reacted when confronted with racial injustices, prejudices, and societal inequities. They will want to know how we made a difference. Demonstrations help but life lived with people changes generations.

He has shown you, O man, what is good; And what does the Lord require of you But to do justly, To love mercy, And to walk humbly with your God?

– Micah 6:8

As a Christian, I believe in preaching the entirety of the Gospel. I believe there are 4 parts to the message; living justly, caring for the heart broken and poor among us, having a moral aptitude and protecting the sanctity of life.

Black lives matter in all these areas and here’s why; When justice is denied to any group of people in society and we turn a blind eye, justice is being denied to all and I don’t believe God desires that. Think Esther in the Bible. It’s only a matter of time before we all face the full measure of the consequences. While a Christian should avoid being deeply involved in political discourse, they should champion the cause of the underserved and those whose voices are not heard at the table of justice.

The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners^,  to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion—to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair

– Isaiah 61:1-3

Justice can easily become the only focus of all our attention yet the plight and story of the black person does not begin or end there. The full gospel demands that we add to justice economic empowerment. We have to care for those who are not empowered economically. We have to care for the poor and work to bring the ‘low things high’ (Isaiah 40:4). This means raising up children born in impoverished situations where the only way out is down (death or prison). If you empower a poor black family to break out of the cycle and mindset of poverty, then you’ve proven that black lives matter.

Justice and economic empowerment go hand in hand and they can easily become the only rallying cry of our message. However, without a moral compass, justice remains a toothless animal that cannot affect or change the hearts of men.

We must, therefore, also preach morality and the sanctity of life. The church must speak clearly to all areas and situations in life and proclaim the nature of a God who loves us all and desires to see us come to the full knowledge of who He is. Morality is part of the nature of God. A moral society will have less need for justice since the ‘law is for the lawless’ (1 Tim. 1:9). A just society will have less need for law since the law is a tutor unto Christ (Gal. 3:24).

Lastly, the sanctity of life is also an important element of our lives and human condition. We must encourage people to hold life as being sacred and valuable from conception to death. As we fight for the unborn, we also fight for the born. We should discourage abortions, encourage births then fold our sleeves to work to see that the child we just fought to see born lives in a just world and is empowered to escape the trap of poverty and crime that ensnares so many of our black children. This is the WHOLE moral gospel.

Black lives matter daily and we should fight daily to see that we build up all lives and in so doing, black lives will be built up anyway.

My travail today is for the unborn child who might never have a chance to make their life matter.

My travail is for those who are born into abject poverty and facing lower and lower chances of thriving.

My travail is for those who fear that justice might never come in their time of need.

My travail is for those who have lost their way and ended up in moral depravity.

This gospel applies to all people but since we’re talking about black lives, this is how I show that black lives matter each day. I live it in ways I cannot explain in a single blog. How do you do it? Let’s change the narrative.