JP: Jury Duty

JP Writes:

Can you believe it? For over 25 years, I was eligible for jury duty in Georgia and was never called. I haven't even been in Kansas City for one year, and I had jury duty starting January 4th! As strange as it may sound, I was kind of looking forward to it. Being a Political Science major, our judicial system has always intrigued me, and I always wanted to see it function firsthand (albeit from the correct side of the jury box!) Or so I thought. What began at 8:00 am as a potential intriguing adventure ended shortly after 8:00 pm as a 12 hour ordeal with me being thankful I was being sent home.

Shortly after 1 pm, the Prosecution and Defense began their "interrogation" process of me and the other 69 potential jurors (now some of my closest friends after being locked up for 12 hours together.) At this time we discovered the charges in our case: Murder of a 6 month old baby and cruelty to a child. After 4 hours of listening to the jurors responses to their questions, it hit me. This man's life was in the hands of 12 of these 70 people. All of us had issues, but quite a few really had some HUGE issues. And I felt that we were a fairly accurate cross section of society. However, it would have been difficult for me to pick out 12 to help me decide on what color to paint my house let alone for my trial. It is so easy for us to judge by a person's outward appearance. I have no idea of this man's guilt or innocence, the longer I sat there the more I prayed for this man and the jurors. Maybe that's why I was there. I began to pray that God would reveal the truth of Samuel 16:7 "the Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance but the Lord looks at the heart." He knows the truth and will bring revelation if we ask.

As I drove home, I was thankful that my life is in the hands of our beautiful Savior, Jesus Christ and not man. For if man can misjudge Him when He was on trial, how much easier would it be to misjudge our fellow man. Again, guilt or innocence, I have no idea. But join me in praying for wisdom and revelation from God for the jury and for salvation for the accused if he does not know Jesus. Even if guilty, he is no worse off than we were in the eyes of the Lord before we received His gift of salvation.

Jeff