I was twelve years old in 1968 when I learned that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had been shot and killed at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. In the middle of what was already a tumultuous time in our nation, the assassination of Dr. King led to riots and protests in cities across America.

Two months later, I woke up to the news that Robert F. Kennedy, who was running for President, had been gunned down in a Los Angeles hotel ballroom following his victory in the California Democratic Primary election.

The next years were a time of widespread violence in our country. Domestic terror organizations detonated bombs at the Capitol, the Pentagon, and the State Department in protest of the war in Vietnam. College students were shot by National Guard troops at Kent State University. A politically divided country was on edge, and with good reason. Twenty-five years after a united nation celebrated the end of World War II, a polarized people wondered if our nation could survive.

Anyone who lived through the late 1960s and early 1970s, as I did, can see the parallels between then and now. And yesterday’s assassination of Charlie Kirk on a college campus in Utah has left us all stunned, wondering about our own future as a nation.

Any fair-minded assessment of our current moment will conclude that this is not a left or right issue. It was not that long ago when a gunman in Minnesota assassinated elected officials. Earlier this year, a man broke into the governor’s mansion in Pennsylvania, targeting Democratic Governor Josh Shapiro. It wasn’t that long ago that a crazed man murdered a health care CEO on the streets of New York, while another man tried to kill Nancy Pelosi’s husband at their home in San Francisco. There are too many recent instances of domestic political violence to list.

Earlier this week, we were horrified, shocked, and grief-stricken by the images of an innocent young woman being stabbed to death on a light rail train in Charlotte, North Carolina. Now our hearts break as we think about Erika Kirk and her two young children who have lost a husband and a father. And we find ourselves wondering what it will take to heal our land.

Some are already responding to Charlie Kirk’s assassination with calls for more vigorous law enforcement or tighter gun control laws. But the ultimate solution—the only real solution for what is destroying us as a nation—is for God to heal us.

What we’re seeing in our nation is a profound sin sickness. People who reject God and His Word are left trying to make sense of life apart from Him—an exercise in futility. Without God to turn to or cry out to, people look elsewhere for deliverance and hope: maybe this political figure can save us; maybe passing this law can fix things.

What they find are empty cisterns.

The only cure for sin sickness is a heart transplant. The only hope for peace in our world is for the Prince of Peace to reign in our hearts. The only real hope for our nation and our world is for God to pour out His Spirit to heal our land.

After the turmoil of the late 1960s and early 1970s, I saw God do just that. The Jesus Movement that swept our country was a great awakening that spread across college campuses before overflowing into every corner of our society, and it was the foundation that led to the healing we needed as a nation.

May this be our prayer for the days ahead:

Restore us, O LORD God of hosts!
Let your face shine, that we may be saved! —Psalm 80:19 ESV