Lord, Help Us All

The past few days I've been in kind of a melancholy frame of mind.  There's so much turmoil going on right now in our nation that has friends barking and snapping at each other because their views are different. 

Divorce is rampant.  Families are feuding.  Children hate their parents.  Moms and dads  just walk off and leave their kids, never looking back.  People hating the religious, and many religions hating people. Different races at war, and wars going on all over the planet.  People screaming tolerance, yet not tolerant of anyone that disagrees with them.  Road rage...school rage....violent rage.

What in the world?  What has happened to us?  Where are we headed?

Looking back, I can remember my grandfather, Papa, never learning to drive.  He walked everywhere he went and when seen walking, sometimes someone would stop and see if he needed a ride.  That was a time when kindness was the motive.  It was great living in that kind of society. 

My brother and I would ride our bikes or  skateboards all over our neighborhood in Knoxville.  People watched out for each other, and honestly cared about each other.  It was a fun, carefree time.

I'm not naïve enough to think that bad things didn't happen back then, I absolutely know it did, but it wasn't the norm.  People were genuinely surprised to hear about acts of hatred and violence.  It was the exception to hear of hatred, violence, murder, and abuse.  Today, it's become so normal that we hardly even take notice of such acts.

I've tried to figure it out and the only thing that makes sense to me is control.  We've become so self serving and self engrossed that anything that dares to disturb our self absorption becomes the object of our tirades.

That guy that pulled out in front of us made us angry.  Why?  We couldn't control his driving.  We couldn't control him, we couldn't make him wait until we had passed by.

That person that we just had a fight with because they don't vote the same way we do, or have the same religious views.  We get angry because we can't control their thinking.  We can't make them see things the way we do.

Those poor, deluded children who think they have the right to go into school and kill other students because they couldn't control what their peers thought of them. 

That husband, wife, friend, or family member that we just argued with, that we've talked about, that we may have even gotten violent with, is the object of our anger because of our inability to control what we think they should say, how they should act, what they should do.

I wonder why we all  have gotten to that point that we think a person should suffer our wrath just because they didn't do as we expected.  We  don't stop to think that maybe we're wrong, maybe we judged too harshly, or maybe we don't have a clue what that person is dealing with.  And then we
act surprised because there are repercussions for our outbursts.  We're surprised that our blood pressure is out of hand.  We're surprised that we are plagued with headaches and illnesses.  We're surprised when friends walk out of our lives.  We're surprised when we're overloaded with guilt and depression.

Who wins?  Who walks away unscathed?  No one.  We can never unsay a word.  We can never undo a deed.  We can never make someone unhear  or unsee something. 

Lord help us all....me especially, that I use control to sensor me, that I may guard my words and my actions, that I may try to emulate Christ's example of what I should be, that I may "do unto others" only those things that God would be pleased with.  I want to be that person that is understanding....that person that loves....that person that is kind.


Ephesians 4:29  Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers.

Ephesians 4:32  And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another even as God for Christ's sake has forgiven you.