Fixing What Is Wrong

As usual I woke this morning with my brain in full gear. Thinking about the very things I thought about just before heading to bed. Many folks, including myself, tend to see the things that are wrong in a situation, might even complain about them, decide what the "cure" might be and then just simply walk away from it. Never taking a step towards changing the situation or doing the work to fix it. We often don't even bother to take it to heart and becoming active in any aspect of a solution. Before you start defending yourself in your mind, and thinking about all the things you have done to promote change, bear with me for just a few minutes more.

We can drop $20 or even $2 million in the offering plate for world hunger, but much of the time that money serves as a band aide to cover a huge problem that money alone cannot solve. There are some problems like world hunger that we alone cannot change, it takes changing mindsets, it takes banishing greed. A tall order for sure.

But now, lets just carry this to a more personal level. If for one year, every single person that identifies themselves as a Christian, would act as Christ did, if they would do just two things, love God and love others as they love themselves, the domino effect might just change a lot of folks thinking. The greedy folk might just see something to admire, they might just see fruit that is beautiful on both sides. The influence on others wouldn't be pushy and judgemental but desirable. Conviction of sin wouldn't have to be preached with brimstone, it would be felt in the coldest of hearts. We have grandparents day, beach ball celebration day, donut day and all these other days to remember a certain item or person, but why not have a call to change day for the hearts of those that call themselves Christian ? Why not have a day when every single church throughout the world takes one day to preach having the mind of Christ. To call for a change, no agenda from the pulpit. A day when there is no denominational doctrine preached or held up higher than the gospel. A day when only one thing is spoken of, change of heart, true change where you carry the command to love one another into the work place. Into the home, towards husband, mother, wife, grouchy grandma, bratty niece, drunken wayward son, even your ex. Even down to the bill collector and the person in line in front of you that is confused and taking a very long time to pay. Now, to carry that on for one entire year, the world just might be transformed. I say it would work for every religion out there. Instead of talking about someone, pray for them without any judgement or condemnation. Hey, I am talking to myself here most of all. I gossip, I judge. I have on occasion looked down on someone. I have slightly puffed up my chest and thought, "glad I am not a mess like that". It is only by the grace of God that I am not. I could have made a wrong turn sometime and ended up just where they did. If I had been put in their shoes, with their parents, their life, I may be right where they are. Sorta like the parents that lived messed up lives, had kids that turned out a mess, and then the parents get older and change some, suddenly they want nothing to do with the very kids they messed up. Reminders perhaps of what they were, or maybe just too hard to deal with. God doesn't abandon us, even when we are laying in the gutter. So many folks, come out from living a certain way, find God and then take every opportunity to judge, condemn and shun folks that are just where they were. No compassion, no love, just acting like the Pharisees of old.

We need to change. We need to make that saying, "Christians are the only ones that shoot their wounded" an obsolete saying. We need to gather together as a whole, with one goal in sight, to change. Impossible you say, well, sure it is with that mindset. So start small, change so your own family will see it. Start small so your own church will see it. Then the town will see it and pray that is becomes contagious. With the Internet, maybe we can have one day set aside for a sermon on those two commands in Matthew 22:37 And he said to him, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

There are bad folk out there I know, the kind you don't want to invite for dinner, but you can still love them and not treat them badly when you are having to deal with them. For those folk, the concept of heaping coals is a good one and it does work. Romans 12: 20 Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head. 21 Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.

Imagine the change in the world if we just were true to what we believe for one entire day, and then think if we kept it up for a year !

Maybe I need to keep a thought and behavior journal, like I keep a food journal ! Some folk are good at keeping a spending journal too. Might be pretty enlightening. Pointing out to me just where I need to improve. "You can't change what you don't acknowledge" says Dr Phil and I suspect we need to look deeply at our own actions, the words we have spoken or in this day, the emails we have sent, repent and start fixing the places where we are not loving. The best sermon is not preached, but is the example of a goodly life.