Day 2365 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.
Leviticus 19:18 NIV
It's amazing what you can notice when you pay attention, and what you can learn from it if you're willing to listen. We were getting some stuff done yesterday, and my mom and sister had their facemasks on because that's what we've been doing to help during this pandemic. But as we sat at a stoplight, I noticed this younger guy next to us. As the light turned, he looked over, saw their masks, and shook his head in disgust and disapproval. And that really stuck out at me. Our world has a really big problem and I don't know that there's much hope of fixing it. But for anyone who's willing to try, well, now's the time.
For that moment that young fella chose to be angry. He chose to look at someone else and judge them for something that doesn't really have any harmful or negative impact on him. I think it hit me so hard because it's this microcosm of how our world has chosen to behave. We have chosen to glorify our own opinions rather than humbly following God's commands. We've decided that we're right and anyone that disagrees with us is wrong and must be made to feel bad for being different. Every single day we choose countless times to lean toward anger, jealousy, resentment, division, and hatred. But what good is that ever going to do?
Love your neighbor as yourself. Safe to say that we're failing pretty badly at that one. We're all unhappy. We're all uncertain. We're all used to all of the fighting and arguing and maybe we've just accepted that life is supposed to be that way. We have allowed the negativity of this place to bring us down to its level. We have become so unhappy with everything that we have to find someone to blame for our being miserable. But maybe the issue is a little closer to home than that. Maybe the real problem is that we're not happy with ourselves. Maybe we've forgotten how to be happy period. And if you look around, it really does seem to fit so much of what we're seeing around us.
God commands us to love our neighbors. He asks us to treat others as we want to be treated. But instead we've chosen to hate those who are different. We've chosen to judge those who make decisions that we don't agree with. We've decided that it's more important to look down those around us than to lift them up. We have settled for the pathetic way that our world has decided to treat one another and accepted is as good enough. But it's no where close to good enough. It's the opposite of good period. It's the reason that there is so much division and misunderstanding anymore.
We have to find a way to let a lot of things go. We need to find a way to start treating one another with kindness and compassion rather than hatred and disdain. There will always be people who are different. There will always be differences of opinion. God made all of us unique and we need to learn to appreciate that rather than using it as a reason to fight. The only time that we should ever look down on someone is if we're reaching out to help them up. But looking down on someone because they're different and choosing to dislike them because of it will only continue the downfall that we're seeing around us.
Whether it's because we're not happy with ourselves or because we have this weird fascination with petty arguments and glorifying our personal opinions, we need to move past it. We need to stop seeing differences as reasons to push back and stand in judgment. If we continue to lean toward negativity then that's exactly what we're going to get. And while many seem to be okay with that, it's doesn't have to be that way. We can live our lives in a way that makes a difference. We can be the good that our world seriously needs. We can leave people better than we found them. But only when we choose to love them and treat them with kindness and respect.
Look, we can't make things better if we just do what everyone else is doing. While grudges, arguments, petty differences, and constant anger may be what the majority of people are okay with, we can't afford to settle for that. God calls us to make a difference by following Him and pointing others to Christ. He is all about love, honesty, truth, and compassion. So maybe those things should be our priorities as well. I think it's pretty safe to say that those things would definitely lead to far more good than what we're seeing around us these days! Worth trying at least.
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