Is it really like that?

Fairly recently I watched Harry Brown, a good film featuring an excellent performance by Sir Michael Caine.
However, I was really disturbed by the violence, more so than I would be normally. My conclusion was that much of the violence I see located in the US, so somehow I was removed from it, whereas Harry Brown is set on a London Council Estate and therefore seemed all the more real. The image of Harry unable to use the underpass because of the young people using it as a meeting place is disturbingly poignant.
The film left me feeling unsettled, not fearful exactly but more hopeless that an undercurrent of violence is a reality that some people face everyday - though Harry is fictional, there will be elderly people who are afraid to leave their homes or walk in certain areas. Harry's solution is to turn vigilante and I think that instinct is in all of us somewhere, however opposed violence we are. I think back to the awful story of Fiona Pilkington, who ended up taking her own life and that of her disabled daughter following years of abuse and violence by local youths. I remember feeling utterly incensed at this and and wondered what I would have done if I were a neighbour of Fiona’s? Would I have tried to gather evidence to support her pleas to the Police to react or resorted to responding to violence with violence?
Stories like this leave us with a sense of powerlessness, so we rage against the unfairness and in our imaginations we become fearless fighters of injustice.
However, as a Christian there is a spiritual dimension to my life and the presence of a supernatural God. The question I’ve been asking myself is when I feel powerless, why isn't my immediate reaction to turn it over to God?
There are some situations which I can resolve on a human level but there are others that I cannot. Either because I am removed from them (such as incidents overseas) or it is simply out of my control.
One day I hope for my instinct to always be to involve God, rather than trying to do everything in my own strength and the thoughts that this film has provoked have bought me closer to that. I will continue to listen for the quiet whisper….