This is Scary

Two days ago, CNN posted a frightening story about child soldiers. According to this report, there are more than 250,000 kids fighting as soldiers around the world. Many of these children are kidnapped, brainwashed, and drugged before being forced to fight. There are several groups trying to put an end to this terrible practice, but there is still a long way to go.

What a horrific perversion of God's gift of children! I can think of few things worse than turning innocent and impressionable children into cold blooded killers.

I think this just goes to show how pervasive and corrupting humanity's preoccupation with violence is. We are so obsessed with war that we will use children to fight them.

The irony, of course, is that in the Bible children are symbols of peace not war. In ancient Israel, for example, the prophet Isaiah envisioned a time of peace for his embattled nation. One of the enduring images of this peaceful vision involves a child:

The wolf shall live with the lamb,
the leopard shall lie down with the kid,
the calf and the lion and the fatling together,
and a little child shall lead them.
(Isaiah 11:6)

Our world is a long way from this vision. May God help us act to save our children and work to bring about peace instead of war.