Parents, We are all different and we have to love each other. To my diverse group of Facebook friends, I count it a great privilege to call you all friends. Some of you knew me as a child, some as a teen, some as a young adult, some from young married life and beyond. Some of you have seen and heard me at my worst, for that I apologize, and some of you have seen me at the moments God has blessed me to bring you some little bit of joy or encouragement in some way. Thank all of you for your friendships! As I look at you all, you are a diverse group of wonderful people representing a wide variety of causes, ideologies, ways to live your life, and ways to practice your faith. I would love to sit down at the table with you all together and allow you to get to know one another. You each have much to bring… a word of encouragement, a testimony to God’s goodness, a love story, a moment of fun, an embarrassing human moment to share. I would love for you to see and hear the diverse blessings each of you bring to the table. Many of you don’t think or act alike at all, yet each of you are a unique blessing in my life. I would like for us to have the chance to honor each other as God’s children, love each other and trust God’s Holy Spirit to make it clear to each of us what we should know and how to live wisely based on His Truth. If I distance myself from you and refuse to listen, it is so much easier for me to say, “you are not my people,” and when I do, I give myself permission to begin to fight, defend, and hate. My anger escalates and I fight to win at all costs. I’m not suggesting we should embrace a form of humanism where anything goes, we all need God’s boundaries and rules, but I am suggesting that when we speak to someone about our differences in opinion that we do it respectfully in love, still realizing that each person is created in God’s image and innately valuable. You see, if we are sitting shoulder to shoulder at the same table we can have discussion, and these can even be lively as we defend the values we hold most dear to us. However, when we get ourselves into trouble is when we begin to act superior to each other and justify it by our own arguments and others with whom we agree. When we sit down at the Facebook table, I have seen some of the people I care about tear each other apart, because we have said, “you are wrong, I am right, and therefore you are not my people.”
Notice how Jesus valued everyone. He never said, “these are not my people.” He did have a problem with those who had already decided in their arrogance that they were right and good and everyone who thought differently was wrong. We all have our junk, stinking ways of thinking, and bad behavior, so none of us is good or right… That’s why we need a Savior, we need Jesus… He is Good and He is Right… and His words to us are to love one another, to even love those you consider your enemies. I have never been converted to someone else’s opinion about anything from them yelling at me, attacking my way of thinking or calling me names. I’ve never stopped and said, “you know I think this person who is calling me names and attacking my ideologies is right, I think I’ll change my mind.” Most of the time I jump into the fight and begin questioning their intelligence and calling them names too, or running away in fear or at the least unfriending them. All we have accomplished is devaluing the other person, no one is lifted up, no cause is valuably furthered, and no love has been extended. Jesus didn’t tell Nicodemis, “For God so loved the Pharisees or Sadducees or Jews or Gentiles or Democrats or Republicans or whatever other group I claim…” He said, “For God loved the world in this way: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.” John 3:16 (CSBBible) The language is inclusive… the whole “world” and “everyone.” Since God loves this way, we have to ask Him to show us how to love this way too. Ask Him how we keep on loving when people keep being mean. Jesus kept being the loving, forgiving person He always was even when being beaten and crucified.
Hang in there people! God is with us! I’m praying for you all!
