By Brad Campbell –

Just a thought to help start your week.

This photo was made on a trip to Nashville, Tennessee, a fascinating city.  As you look at this photo, you are looking toward downtown Nashville with its many entertainment-related venues and restaurants.  I’ve always been fascinated by a city’s downtown.  Downtown seems so daunting, but adventurous.  So large, and yet so manageable.

I think of Johnny Cash and “Walk the Line”.  When I think of visiting “downtown” I think of the many times I walked a line to downtown as a kid, for any number of reasons.  I think of countless family trips to Memphis and Nashville.  I think of walking downtown St. Louis and Washington, D.C.  Each place very large, but each so accessible.  In every location, there is the possibility of danger, but there are also many trained professional officers protecting the public.

If I can relate that picture of a large place to one of a larger personage, allow me to say that the men and women who stand in defense of our nations, our downtowns, and our neighborhoods each and every day stand larger than life, both adventurous and approachable, both fun and all-business.

Countless emergency service personnel in the form of police officers, EMT’s and other ambulance personnel, and those in the armed services put their lives on the line for each of us – some of them doing so many times a day.  They stand large, ready to defend.  They stand large, families of their own to represent and protect.  They stand large because we need them.

And yet, it seems as if our officers also stand these days with a target on their backs.  I’m straying from my usual Monday morning focus to remind us each in the week ahead to pray, pray, pray.  Pray for our emergency personnel.  Pray for those who need defending.  And, today, thank God Himself that even when those who serve so well seem to be the focus of an attack of evil, they continue to walk the line for us each day.

This week, I’m asking all of you, my confidants, neighbors, friends, and loved ones, to please take a moment and pray specifically for the families of three young officers from my home state of Mississippi who were taken out of this world by violent means this weekend.  They deserved better.

Evil is rampant.  I pray your week ahead is free from it.