You Never Really Know

Looks like the BTK killer is in custody in Wichita, KS. This man, Dennis Rader was a Park City employee. He is married with two grown children. He had just become president of Christ Lutheran Church in Park City. He seemed absolutely, boringly normal (though not particularly tactful) to those people who knew him.

Just in case you've not read anything up to this point about this case the killer chose the name BTK himself in a letter to local media. He described what he did to the victims; Bind them, Torture them, Kill them. He has been linked to ten murders beginning in 1974 and ending in 1991. He had been silent for years before March 2004 when he sent a letter to the Wichita Eagle-Beacon with a copy of a victim's drivers license.

What happens to a man to make him capable of this type of depravity? What happens inside a guy's mind to allow him to maintain two different lives? What must it take to bind, torture and kill and then drive home to wife and family and act naturally? What must his wife be thinking? What must his children be thinking?

A case like this (if it proves to be true, of course) cuts another notch into the national ability to trust. Now, we have to look at our neighbors, the ones who look normal, who grill burgers in their backyards, who hold steady jobs, who regularly attend church, who drive normal cars, who talk about the ballgame... we have to look at them and realize that we do not know them. We have to realize that we know what they want us to know. We have to realize that we are all susceptible to lies. As clever as we believe ourselves to be we must admit that we have been fooled. We have been deceived. We have been lied to.

Is it any wonder that Satan has his way with us sometimes? Are you surprised that we sometimes fall for his lies? Now, more than ever before, it's clear to me how much I must rely on God for strength and clarity. I must seek His favor. I must know His truth.