Hopeless

I'm seriously contemplating deactivating Facebook - at least through the end of the election this year.  I am stunned at the level of downright hatred and vitriol I see - sometimes from people with whom I even agree and often have great respect for.  Not this time.  When someone can actually post a photo which decries "I feel safer in the hands of ISIS than I do in the hands of a white cop,"   I recognize all this for what it is:  complete and total insanity, lacking in any shred of reality or truth.  People will say anything these days, and I challenge anyone to say face to face what they find no problem posting in the relative obscurity of the internet.

...and all of this leaves me feeling hopeless.  In despair.  I find no hope for our world at least in its present form.  I was growing up in the 60's but as a student of history, find that the divisions along racial and political lines are now as worse as they've ever been - even the '60's.  And we have no one to blame but ourselves.  WE have brought this about with our own hatred.

I recall one of the great life lessons I learned coming at the hands, of all people, from my high school cross country and track coach.  Ken Jakalski was an optimist.  Even in the face of reality which perhaps wasn't always that good, especially when it came to team talent, strength, and outlook, he always accentuated the positive.  "Envision yourself winning.  See yourself doing the best yet.  Enthusiasm is the key to success."  It was always a positive attitude so that no matter the expected outcome - we worked for and envisioned the best we could.  And it paid off numerous times.  That life lesson continued in college with the same kinds of attitudes coming from Coach and English Lit professor, Paul Olsen.  "Focus and work toward the positive, not dwell and obsess on the negative"  was the lesson to apply in matters of training and competition, to be carried on into life as well.  Oddly enough, that lesson comes from Scripture, where St. Paul says "do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good"

Today, no longer.  It seems that as a society, we want to focus on the worst in people, and not the best.  Certainly we have lost sight of any semblance of potential that exists within any individual, and we use our flaws, failings - our sins - to divide us, often with a "holier than thou" attitude along the lines of "well I would CERTAINLY never do that!"  Frankly, this is at the heart of our problem.  We live in a world that defends societies that believe in killing anyone with whom they disagree.  Islamic culture has this tenet as a core of its beliefs, and yet we support and defend such countries as Saudi Arabia as a matter of course, and then attacking the religious core of this country - Christianity - which teaches all people to "love one another" (and the aforementioned overcoming of evil with good), and who takes on the philosophy that we are willing to die for our beliefs, rather than the Islamic tenet of being willing to kill for them.  Right along with that, society is attacking the foundational premises of this country, that all rights derive from God, because when we place that responsibility into our own hands, humans can just as easily grant rights as take them away.  Humans can just as easily create rights that exist more within the realm of evil than they do those in the realm of good.  It's why the founders appealed to God, knowing that for humanity, absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Why is our society the way it has become?  Because it is also becoming increasingly godless and a-moral.  The two go hand in hand.  Take God out of the equation, and the net result is seen time and again throughout human history.  What is the solution?  It is to find hope in the midst of hopelessness in turning to Christ Jesus.  Yes, one would expect me to say this.  Yes, as a pastor, I certainly ought to have this as my focus.  But it goes beyond that, in that the corrections we've had to make in this own country's history have always been because of recognizing that we were not, in fact, living up to the premise that rights come from God and not by our own hands.

Now I have failed at this throughout my life thus far as well.  I am one who can indeed only obsess over the negative, and not work toward the positive.  Yet I resolve, because my faith in Christ demands it, to be one who remains positive about the future.  I resolve to re-learn those life lessons from my high school and college coaches, and to see the good as best as I can, and to live it in my life.  I resolve to apply Romans 12 and to the best of my ability overcome evil with good.  I guess that also means that Facebook stays on for now, and from this moment forward, I pray, work, and live toward a brighter future.  Will you join me in this pledge?