I wonder if we'll ever figure it out...

2/22/2018

Photo by Kat Smith from Pexels

I wonder if we’ll ever figure it out.

We have so many problems, so many conflicts, so many issues.

Over and over again we affirm for people that the individual is what matters the most.

Your thoughts, your feelings, your desires are most important. It doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks or says because you should just do you.

Then we’re shocked when people act selfishly. We’re “shocked” at the vile behavior that prompted #MeToo. We’re “shocked” at the never-ending violence that comes up over and over again in our schools and public places. We’re “shocked” at political scandals. We’re “shocked” at oppression and hatred between races and cultures.

We should stop being “shocked” because we created this.

Until we love others more than we love ourselves.

Until we count others more significant than ourselves.

Until we value others more than ourselves.

There are no amount of laws, public reprimands, arguments, or well wishes that are going to change this situation that we find ourselves in.

I wonder if we’ll ever figure it out.

We can’t do this on our own. We can’t lecture others into being nicer or kinder or more loving. Our evil nature doesn’t allow that.

But we can experience it. We can experience a love that is boundless. A love that doesn’t go away just because we’re bad. It comes through Jesus Christ.

Experiencing Jesus’ love and sharing that love can make us nicer, kinder, and more loving.

It can help us love others more than we love ourselves.

It can help us count others more significant than ourselves.

It can help us value others more than ourselves.

And it is in that moment when we will finally get the peace that we’re looking for. But I’m sure it won’t happen without Jesus.

“God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” – Romans 5:8

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” John 3:16-17

2 Comments

Allison

2/23/2018 01:53:06 pm

Tom - Thank you so much for your wisdom and guidance in a turbulent time. The thought I keep having over and over is - what if the WWJD movement of my youth was a broad based hashtag movement nowadays? Instead of rubber bracelets and varying colors for cause awareness in the late 90s we have hashtags, so what if it came back and stronger than before? If even the concept of WWJD could permeate into our legislature. It saddens me how easily issues are compartmentalized into single topic headlines instead of the systems based (inter-related) societal dynamic of cause and effect.Complex problems require multi-faceted approaches with similar complexity. Aka- there’s no easy fix. And when one link in a system is broken you often have to fix other links too. #WWJD

Tom link

2/27/2018 01:54:36 pm

Hey Allison,

Thanks for the comments and for your thoughts. You're right, we would like there to be a simple solution and yet the problems are complex.

The trouble I see is that we try so hard to fix the symptoms that we never actually get to the cause and nobody really wants to talk about that because it means that we would actually have to care about other people more than ourselves sometimes. That fits into your WWJD thought too because caring about others more than himself is exactly what Jesus did.

I wonder if we'll ever figure it out...

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