August 13, 2017
Division – hate – racism, these are the things that have been filling up my timeline for the better part of a year. Some ask, how did we get here? How is this America in 2017? I have asked myself that same question but I wonder weren’t we always here? Wasn’t these things present, festering under the surface? Who is guilty? Who caused it? If I am being honest my answer is I did. And if you’re being honest you will recognize that you did too. You may not be a racist or sexist or any of the other “its” out there but ask yourself, have you been divisive? Have you been exclaiming “Not my president” regardless of if you were talking about Trump or Obama. Have you been retweeting, liking and encouraging conversations that are more dividing than uniting. How many times have you spoken, posted, tweeted, liked things that made fun of, took a jab at or angrily expressed your viewpoint? I try not to do it, but I have and many of you have done it too because I’ve seen it. We all have the right to our thoughts and our opinions, but how do we express them? Do we share them in a way that brings understanding and while it may not unite us in agreement it at least unites us in respect? If you have name called when someone disagreed, took pleasure in boasting of someone’s shortcomings (no matter what side), repeated rhetoric from the right or the left without understanding that others may feel differently than you and choosing to love them anyway then you have added to the division we see. Don’t get me wrong we NEED to take a stand against evil and wrongs perpetrated against others but we can’t pick and choose. If it was wrong for the other guy to do it or say it then it is just as wrong when your guy does it or says it.
Whether you love Obama or love Trump. They are mere men and I for one do not place my hope in either of them. My hope is in the Lord. My hope is in the fact that if His church would just rise up in this day, when we are so desperately needed He will move and change things. None of us are perfect, we are all sinners and we all fall short, but God is where we look when all we see is hate around us. God is where we look when we are so angry at what is happening in our world. God is where we look when we are afraid for our families, our young men and our husbands, our daughters and our wives. God is where we look when we feel the weight of the injustices and feel burden that after all this time some things have not changed. God is where we look for hope, for healing, and for strategy on how to overcome. God is where we look to have the power to stand united in love even in all the brokenness in our country.
Our politicians (no matter what their party affiliation is) will not turn this country around. It is up to us, His church to do that. Politicians won’t stop things like what happened in Charolette from occurring in other places, we must do that by standing united. By refusing to let our likes and dislikes of politicians, and agendas divide us.
Hatred and destruction is born out of division. We must commit to respecting each other. We must commit to standing in solidarity with our neighbor when he/she is the victim of hate. We don’t have to agree with them to know that hate is WRONG! We must stop repeating and taking for face value everything we hear from the media (including social media) because whether it’s the right or the left there is an agenda, a perspective of influence. We must get informed for ourselves.
Let’s link arms with our neighbors and do the opposite of what hate says. Love when we don’t want too. Speak softly when we want to yell and refuse to give in to the violence whether it is through our words, our body language or through our fists. We must speak up when things are wrong but from a stance of love not hate. There is a reason the Bible says “…if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.” (1 Corin. 13:2)
Finally I want to say that racism is real and alive today and just because you have never felt it doesn’t mean it has any less power today than it had before, it only looks different. No one group has the market on it. I myself have felt it and have known plenty of people of many different races to feel the wrath of it as well. Just because it isn’t our experience doesn’t mean we know the depth of the pain they feel. I am heartbroken for our country and the world our children are growing up in, but I am not without hope. We can do something about it. Sure we will pray and seek God’s direction, but then we must put our faith into action. We must walkout what we believe even if we are walking alone. Christ died for all of us and until we get the fact that not one of us is more deserving than the other, we will find ourselves perpetually back at this place. The day after tragedy fueled by hate. Let’s stop dividing in the big and small things and let’s remember to love.
Leadership Uncontained, LLC 