Memphis City Police Graduation
I am bursting with pride and shaking with trepidation when I announce, my big brother is officially a Memphis City Police Officer.
When we left the swearing in ceremony, Kevin remarked, “Was that a graduation ceremony or a Sunday morning service?”
The officer asked the recruits to turn and look at the many faces in the crowd. He explained that these people – spouses, parents, siblings, friends – constitute their support system. They are accepting a difficult job. In fact, the entire ceremony was in memory of an officer who was killed in the line of duty. They didn’t have to worry about a support system, those people and coworkers would always be at their side. They needed to evaluate their foundation. Without a proper foundation, the rest crumbles in on itself. The foundation needs to be God. Anything other God will fall apart.
I wanted to scream a holy hallelujah after that! What a great reminder for all of us.
God is not our leaning post or our crutch to get us through the day. His letter to us is not simply some book that looks great on our shelf. He is our very foundation – the cornerstone, Scripture tells us. Likewise, our families, friends, and even our jobs are not our gods. They may be the bricks of the building or even the roof. But they aren’t the foundation. Only God keeps everything tied together. Only God creates calm in chaos.
One of the recruits gave the commencement speech and reminded his fellow graduates that they trained as hard as they could for 21 weeks. But the evil, the bad guys, they are training even harder and even longer.
I am proud to proclaim that my brother is one of the good guys in uniform. And yet I fearfully admit that, daily, he will be confronted with the bad guys in the city who will use any means necessary not to get caught. We must remember to pray for our men and women in uniform.
And we must not forget that we are also waging a war against in the spiritual evil in this world. We may not be receiving radio messages with rescue 911 calls. But our foundation needs to be Christ as well. I may not be required to wear a bullet proof vest to work, but I do need to know where I’m going if I was to die today.
What’s your life founded on?
Its true with out the family the job cannot be done.