God Matters in Cops Lives
/By: Master Police Officer Chris Amos (Ret.)
With George Beck, Ph.D.
We are living during a time when everyone has both an opinion and the luxury of their own subjective truth to support that opinion. As law enforcement officers, this has produced an exceedingly difficult and challenging environment to operate in.
In a profession built on the foundation of truth and fact, such an environment can be frustrating, if not deadly. Think about it. You have been trained to distinguish between right and wrong, legal and illegal, lawful and criminal. In those gray areas, you have been afforded the use of discretion. It was not that long ago there was a consensus that certain acts were crimes, and it was your duty to take action to enforce the law. Times have changed.
But what if you were told there still are absolute truths? Truths that cannot be changed at the whim of politicians, mainstream media, Silicon Valley or even the Supreme Court. What if you were told that everything we are experiencing today was foretold thousands of years ago?
Therefore, as investigators in our search for Absolute Truth, let us address three truths that we believe to be true, yesterday, today, and forever:
There is a God.
God is for you.
God is in control.
If embraced, these truths will create a significant understanding of our modern times and will provide a level of peace and sanity that will make your job a whole lot easier.
There is a God
As officers, we all have that mindset that drives us to question what we are told and, if interested, we will investigate its veracity. And so it is with the existence of God. Can we produce evidence of God's existence in a laboratory? Can we prove He exists with our five senses? Well, yes and no. There are "general revelations" of God's existence all around us, perhaps the most obvious being creation itself.
In the Book of Genesis (1:27) written thousands of years ago, the author tells in the creation story that men and women themselves are a type of reflection of God. "So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them."
We are created in God's image with a God-given conscience. We do not need a state law to convince us that killing someone for $20 is wrong. Holding up the neighborhood convenience store is a crime, or raping a woman, or physically abusing a child is despicable. We innately know these acts to be wrong. In a perfect world, the perpetrators would be arrested, prosecuted, and thrown in prison for a very long time. Why? Because they have broken the law, most of which can be traced back to the Ten Commandments given to Moses by God Himself.
I knew much about God having been raised in the Church. I knew God in the same way I knew George Washington. I believed he existed, but I was not looking for Washington to do anything in my life. I did not trust our first president to impact or influence my life in any way. I certainly was not involved in a personal relationship with him. Ditto when it came to God.
I was 24 when all of that changed.
As a Norfolk Police officer with three years of patrol experience, married, and the father of a newborn son, life was good except for a secret addiction to porn that had consumed me. Today pornography is winked at, if not fully embraced. Not too many years ago, it was looked down on; it was viewed as something to be avoided. It was seen as harmful to a marriage and family. It is.
My silent addiction and our profession's stresses had me wrongly concluding that my wife and newborn son would be better off without me. I was young, and it pains me to think about what I had done one summer afternoon. But truth be told, I did the only reasonable thing I could think of to escape. I put my city-issued .38 revolver to the side of my head and began to squeeze the trigger. I was a fraction of an inch from death when I heard what I perceived to be an audible voice say, "There is hope." Three months later, I met the source, author, and very essence of hope, Jesus Christ, and my life radically changed. The God of whom I knew about intellectually, with little to no impact, I began to know personally. He saved my life that day. He would transform it in the weeks, months, and years that followed.
Seven years later, I heard that audible voice again. While pursuing a suspected drug dealer, he suddenly turned, gun in hand, and shot me twice. After falling to the ground, I heard the words, "Chris get behind me." Within seconds I had drawn my gun and returned fire. By the grace of God, I survived. By the wrath of God, my attacker did not. These are just two of the many stories of how God intervened in my life as a police officer. After taking that first step of faith, I went from the realm of general revelations about God to very insightful special revelations on who He was and who I was in His eyes.
Throughout the Old and New Testament, God's followers are found repeatedly sharing their personal stories about and experiences with God, from Moses and the burning bush to Paul on the road to Damascus. Ultimately, the absolute truth of God's existence will be a matter of faith on your part, but I assure you it is not blind faith.
God is for You
This truth is good news. You have been demonized and vilified by nearly everyone, including many who claim to be preachers or ministers of the Word of God. Quite frankly, their position is not supported by the Bible. On the contrary, the Bible makes it clear that God appoints all authority. No exceptions!
The attacks against you by those who are using God and the Bible as a weapon to vilify you are unfounded and not according to Scripture. In fact, Jesus commended the faith of a Roman Centurion as the greatest in all of Israel. The Romans were the occupying law enforcement force in Israel during the time of Jesus. They were simply the cop on the beat in their day. Evidence of this is found in the Gospel of Matthew 8:5-10:
"Now when Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to Him, pleading with Him, saying, "Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed, dreadfully tormented." And Jesus said to him, "I will come and heal him." The centurion answered and said, "Lord, I am not worthy that You should come under my roof. But only speak a word, and my servant will be healed. For I also am a man under authority, having soldiers under me. And I say to this one, 'Go,' and he goes; and to another, 'Come,' and he comes; and to my servant, 'Do this,' and he does it." When Jesus heard it, He marveled and said to those who followed, "Assuredly, I say to you, I have not found such great faith, not even in Israel!"
The Roman Legions were much like officers today, looked down on and despised by many, and yet the New Testament tends to show them in a favorable light. John the Baptist baptized several Roman soldiers. When asked what they should do following their baptism, John did not say lay down your weapons and become pacifists. Quite the contrary, John responded in Luke 3:14: "Do not intimidate anyone or accuse falsely, and be content with your wages."
In another account recorded in the New Testament, it was the Roman Centurion overseeing the crucifixion of Jesus who declared at the time of Jesus' death in Matthew 27:54: "So when the centurion and those with him, who were guarding Jesus, saw the earthquake and the things that had happened, they feared greatly, saying, "Truly this was the Son of God!"
The Bible speaks of a time of great tribulation that will come upon the entire world. Satan will be permitted to move unhindered and bring about much destruction. As the ultimate counterfeiter, he will give rise to his Antichrist. This man, who may very well be alive today, has many names in the Bible. Perhaps none more telling than the name, "The Man of Lawlessness."
Who among us would be more invested in demonizing and vilifying officers than the "Man of Lawlessness"? Why such hatred toward officers? Because officers are God's servants. It is not an accident, or mere coincidence that engraved beneath one of the Lions at the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial in Washington D.C. is the Bible verse Proverbs 28:1 "The wicked flee when no one pursues, But the righteous are bold as a lion."
Friends, God is with you and for you.
God is in control
Finally, and perhaps one of the most perplexing mysteries in the world is this notion that God is in control. This leads many to ask if God is in control, why does He allow so much suffering, injustice, and evil? This is a question that has been asked since the beginning of time. For example, Habakkuk asked this same question approximately 600 years before Christ was born into our world. Habakkuk was in grave danger. He was alone with the world around him crumpling quickly—there was bloodshed everywhere, and evil was overcoming nearly everything. He called out to God, and nothing changed; instead, it got worse. However, everything inside him changed, and he now found himself filled with hope, assurance, and victory. You see, we cannot control the world around us, but we can control the world within us, and all things are possible with trusting God.
In our personal lives, we have similar experiences like Habakkuk. Two years ago I was standing at my son Seth's bedside, disconnecting him from life support, when I asked why and how this could happen. My son was only 30 years old. He was a faithful husband, a good father, and an excellent Norfolk police officer. He helped everyone, yet he still died so young from an infection. Why? Sometimes the answer is beyond our grasp. However, it is during these times when we have a choice. We can curse God and His lack of control; His refusal or inability to act; and His weakness and indifference. Or we can have faith and remember God is in control, and embrace the many promises from the Bible like Proverbs 3:5-6 to help us see our way through even the darkest, most difficult of days.
"Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths."
I have made Proverbs 3:5-6 my life's verse. I have been able to navigate many difficult circumstances relying upon this promise. A few years ago, a good friend and fellow Norfolk Police Officer Brian Jones was shot and killed while getting out of his patrol car. A second officer, off duty, heard the gunshots and ran to Brian's aid. He, too, was shot but survived. I rushed to the hospital. I spent the next several hours bouncing between the third floor where I tried to comfort a mother of three young kids and now a widow, and the first floor where I joined another wife so grateful, so thankful that her husband's life was spared. At times like this, I have found great peace in trusting God, understanding that He knows what He is doing even when I do not.
Through all these circumstances, I have come to understand God was, is, and forever will be in control. Horrific things happen not because God is distant, indifferent, or callous to our trials. The exact opposite is true. God has given us free will and permits each of us to choose our path.
So I implore all of you to seek God as did a retired police officer named Willie, who recently passed into eternal life. I spoke to his wife in preparation for the funeral service. She told me Willie's favorite Bible was his Archeological Study Bible. Willie found a way that afforded him the ability to objectively investigate the words on the Bible's pages he was reading. Through study notes, maps, graphs, pictures of detailed excavated sites, and the many treasures unearthed, Willie found historical and archeological evidence to support the Bible's claims. His conclusion, in his words, "Yep, Jesus is the real deal."
As officers, you often are thrust into dangerous, at times deadly, situations through no fault of your own, but because of the choices of others. During these times, remember, God is with you, God is for you, and God is in control even when it seems as though all hell is breaking loose.
