The ability to be wrong in the right way is a dying art. This world has become so polarized that finding a way to admit defeat in a gentile, loving way is, well, truly Christian. It doesn't happen everyday.
On the major topics, we've failed, as a body of Christ, as a nation. We can't come together long enough to be together. Hence our difficulty on most subjects.
I read a few minutes ago that the nation is perfectly willing to send bombers to crash the party of ISIL, but we as a nation are not ready to send ground troops. I'm not sure I get the idea, here. We are willing to kill from a far, against an enemy whose evil-ness we've seldom seen the like of, but we are not willing to send our young into battle for a worthy cause. Most times it would seem we would be in or we would be out, but not on this subject.
I get that, I really do. I get most arguments. Abortion, homosexuality, sin as a whole, etc. I get it. I get both sides. I get the middle. I understand where and when we broke away from civility and fell into harshness.
But what I don't get is why the body can't overcome this. Why can't we stop the harshness and get to a common ground?
Today they will bury another good guy. Barry Hoekstra was one of those guys who could make you laugh even when the idea was a very solidly serious one. I met him 16 years ago when he spoke about weddings at my license to preach class.
"My advice is don't do them," he said, smiling. Heck, I didn't know him well, but what I knew of him always made me smile, also.
It seems when I think about how many good ones have left this planet into the good news of what lies ahead in the past two years, acknowledging that age is quickly catching up with me and my body is breaking down at a rapid rate, what I know is that we need to learn to reach a common ground because all this might go away at a moment's notice.
Less than a month ago, Barry wasn't even diagnosed. Less than a month. And he's gone. Pancreatic cancer that swept through like a conquering army.
Except, it didn't conquer, for he is now where many of us long to be.
Because there will be no arguing in heaven, and all our theology will be meaningless. The only thing that matters then is did we love and did we accept love.
Oh, I pray I will get that right one day. I pray we all will.
1 comment:
"Because there will be no arguing in heaven, and all our theology will be meaningless. The only thing that matters then is did we love and did we accept love.
Oh, I pray I will get that right one day. I pray we all will."
A thousand AMENs to that!
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