Day 2222 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

1 Samuel 16:7b NIV

Been thinking a little bit about how God's ways are so much higher than ours. We should all be thankful that He doesn't conduct Himself like we do down here. None of the foolish hatred. No petty differences. No selfish ambitions. No unrighteous anger. When we look around and see the brokenness of this world it makes it even more clear why we should jump at the chance to live for such a faithful and loving Father!

The past few days have brought us news of more violence and hate-fueled actions. Once again we're seeing how dangerous and just plain disgusting hatred and intolerance can be. More lives lost. More people hurt. All of it completely unnecessary. As we talked about a couple of days ago, every choice has a consequence. And a world that rejects Christ and scoffs at His ways will face the most dire of those consequences.

I've asked this question in posts in the past, but can you imagine what our world would look like if we all tried to see others as God does? What if we all truly believed that we were all brothers and sisters? What if we set aside the differences that really don't matter and worked toward something better? What we stopped judging people for the most foolish of reasons? What if we collectively turned back to Christ and asked Him to heal our land?

I know that at this point many of those are nothing but dreams that are probably too far out of reach. Sadly this place has gone so far in the wrong direction with far too many people being okay with it. But then again, there is nothing that's too far gone that He can't reach. Nothing that He can't do. It's crazy to think that all it takes is the humility to turn to Him and the willingness to change.

What I'll never understand is how someone could see a person of a different race and instantly hate them. I'll never understand why someone decides to go on a rampage that takes lives and breaks hearts. Mostly, what I'll never understand is how so many remain convinced that following Christ is silly or unneeded. Look at what our world has become and where it's going. Pretty clear that something is wrong and I think it might be that we keep shoving Him out of the way!

Christ is the only One that can heal all that's been broken because He's the kind of different that truly changes things for the better! If we could all start seeing others as the people that He died for then maybe we'll finally understand just how much we have in common and stop worrying so much about what makes us different.