Remembering Charlie Kirk is the easy part.

A year ago, I watched my fifteen-year-old daughter sob over FaceTime after Charlie Kirk was killed.

She had been saving her allowance to join his membership. He was a hero to her.

September 11 was history to her. September 10 wasn’t.

This morning, I wrote about her grief. I ended with this: “You don’t have to share his politics to respect her grief.”

I mean that. A father shouldn’t have to defend his daughter’s tears to someone who disagreed with the man she was crying over.

But that sentence asks something of me, too.

If I want someone to care about my daughter despite their politics, what happens when somebody I disagree with needs something from me?

I read John Konrad’s account of a conversation with a neighbor after Kirk’s death. The neighbor expressed sympathy when Konrad said he’d lost a friend. When he named Charlie Kirk, the conversation changed.

Konrad returned to a motto from his life as a Merchant Marine captain.

Acta Non Verba.

Deeds, not words.

A Christian can quote a command for years without doing what it says. We know the words well enough to mistake agreement for obedience.

Would I help someone who hated Charlie Kirk?

Take it further. Suppose someone who laughed at his death needed a ride to the hospital. Would I take them? Could I get them there without making them listen to everything I thought of them along the way?

“But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;” (Matthew 5:44)

Jesus names people who curse you, hate you, and mistreat you. He gives you something to do for them.

That is a hard sentence to leave alone. We can spend a long time explaining the person until we feel excused from obeying it.

You know what they said. You saw what they posted. You have the screenshot.

All of it can be true. The command still has their name on it.

Last September, during Kirk’s memorial, I wrote that if the shooter repented and believed in Jesus for salvation, he could one day be in Heaven with Charlie, worshipping the same Savior.

That’s the Gospel I believe.

A murderer should answer for murder. A grieving family deserves justice and protection. Salvation rests on what Jesus Christ did for sinners, including sinners whose names make us sick.

My own child was crying. The command applied to me then. It applies to me a year later.

I can condemn their cruelty. I am still responsible for how I treat them.

A year has passed. We can post the photographs, remember the man, and tell our children why he mattered. There is a place for all of that.

If there’s somebody you have plenty to say about and very little desire to pray for, start with that person. Ask God to save them if they’re lost. If you know they’re facing a real need you can meet, help them. Let the help arrive without a lecture attached.

You can do that quietly. They don’t have to know which anniversary made you think of them.

Remembering Charlie Kirk doesn’t require me to love an enemy.

Following Jesus does.

Acta Non Verba.

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