Have you ever cooked something and there was specific ingredients required to make the dish and the dish be done completely? If you left out that specific ingredient then the dish wouldn't end up being what you had hoped it to be. You could eat your finish product but there would be something missing. Our society is the same way. We can benefit from the system of life and the opportunity of freedom we have but yet there is an ingredient that is missing from making our society what it should be. You wanna know what it is?
LOVE!!!
One of the realities of life in this society is that Christianity is not the dominant force anymore. Christianity, at least from my view, has love as the center piece of the faith. Christianity is not just about getting up on Sunday morning get your dance on doing jumping jacks and while that is fine the foundation is not solely that. Everything Jesus done was based on love for me and you. God loved Paul enough to use him as one of the greatest Apostles ever. Through the Bible, we see God's redemptive (forgiving, renewing, etc) work in action. Why can't we love like that?
To me society would be much better if we truly loved one another. I'm not just talking about saying it because we can say we love somebody all day but it will not matter until we show that love in action. Society is now about every man and woman for themselves. We've gotten away from a communal attitude (as present in the early church). Gone (or slowly drifting away) are the days when a child would act up or get in trouble and the entire neighborhood/community would deal with the child in a loving way. Now if a child gets in trouble, it's their own fault and the parent within that house has to individually handle it. We have lost and are losing community values. We are less likely to see someone on the street and actually help them. All we like to focus on is our needs and what benefits us.
I live under the belief/assumption that everyone goes through hard times in their lives. I believe that some people have rough days at work, school, home and even in the church. Therefore we should do the best we can to comfort them and have compassion. I know people get tired of me saying this but I am absolutely convinced that you never know what a person goes through away from other people. One smile, hug or word of comfort can be the difference between a person giving up or going on inspite of pain and difficulty.
Let me offer some practical solutions in returing love back to our society:
-Watching the words we say to people and not just what we say but HOW we say it.
-Take a day or so and check up on our friends, co-workers and/or church members just to see how they are doing and give them an encouraging word.
-Give as many hugs as we can to people. Some people go all week and never receive a hug.
-In a community when we know a person is going through and we have the resources to help, we should get our community together to pull resources unified in helping person.
-Show way more compassion and empathy by putting ourselves in other people's shoes before we judge someone and/or their situation.
-Less gossipping about people and pray for their situation and/or extend our hands to help.
-Take more time to sit and listen to people's story and what they go through and really offer encouragement and if necessary correction/advice.
If you have some more ways leave a comment here or on facebook. I hope that we can begin to bring love back in every aspect of our lives and in our society.
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