INSPIRATIONAL TELEVISION (ON PRIMETIME fox)

INSPIRED BY MY DAD

I was at my house today, which is a once a week occurrence. (This is sad considering my dorm is only blocks away) But every Monday night I go over to watch “24” with my family and a couple friends.

–for those of you not familiar with the show 24 it follows a special agent through one day of his life in which he foils some elaborate terrorist plot to destroy the U.S.A. (usually by breaking several federal laws).

I like to watch this show because it is immensely suspenseful and makes for a good ol’ “evil VS good and good coming out victorious” hour of suspended disbelief. But this week I noticed my dad not going into the living room to take a seat for this entertainment packed hour, but instead going to the computer to do some work he had brought home from the office. I asked him, “Hey, aren’t you going to watch 24 with us?” and his response has had me thinking for the last three hours. He stated, “I’m done watching 24, I get mad at all the injustice in the world.” And he turned back to the computer.

What caught my attention was that he wasn’t referring to the child soldiers in the Sudan and Congo, who are being kidnapped while they sleep and made to fight against their own families, or the women in India who are forced into sex trafficking, or the men and women all over the world who are held in prison and tortured for their believes, or the countless other examples of injustice in the world. No, he was talking about this T.V. show world, and how the President won’t listen to this special agent, even when she is wrong and the special agent is right.

Now, I am not saying that my daddy doesn’t care about these things I have mentioned. I am just highlighting his way of dealing with the injustice shown on 24, leaving the room and not watching and putting it out of his mind.

I began to think about how injustice is just as deadly as a bomb, a bomb that is being detonated all over the world all the time and killing thousands of people everyday. Then I began to think how we would react if this world’s real injustices were brought out into the public view. If for just an hour a week we were shown the real effects of the injustices in this evil place we call home, how would we react. Would we just sit and watch? Would we leave the room and do something else? Would we just turn the channel? Or would we be moved to react, to do something worth doing, to make a difference in the lives of people we don’t even know.

I don’t have an answer at this time. I don’t know if I ever will. But the next time I see injustice I pray that I don’t just walk away, but that I do my best to change the situation to glorify God.

“if you don’t do anything to stop them, you might as well help them plant the bomb”
-Jack Bauer (main character of "24")