Thursday, December
15, 2016
For
you are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus. And all
who have been united with Christ in baptism have put on Christ, like putting on
new clothes. There is no longer Jew or
Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus. And
now that you belong to Christ, you are the true children of Abraham. You are his heirs, and God’s promise to
Abraham belongs to you. Galatians
3:26-29(NLT)
It always started when we were going someplace in the
car. One of my children would tweak the
other child’s sense of personal space.
It might be as little as a toe on the other side of the line I set when
I told them the last time, this is
your side; that is your brother’s side.
A toe on the wrong side meant a shouting/shoving match was sure to
follow. Sometimes it was just a look that hinted a toe was coming
over the line.
A conversation that took place once, overheard from the
driver’s seat:
Her: Stop it! Him:
You stop it!
Her: You’re on MY side! Him: Am
not!!!
Her: This is the line…Dad said!
Him: No
it isn’t…it starts there!
Her: You don’t know anything!
Him:
You’re ugly!
Her: You stink!
Him: Well
you….
ENOUGH! Enough! (said the Mom). You two argue about everything! You even argue about what you’re arguing
about!!!
(10 second pause)
A voice, softly from
the back seat…
Her: No
we don’t.
Siblings – and other assorted human children – have been
arguing since Cain and Able. And what
chance did those brothers have when they heard the story from God how Adam had
blamed his wife for that business about getting involved with the apple.
Whether we are born with that seed of rebellion, or
learn it from our parents and their siblings, children have been picking fights
with other children since the dawn of time.
We’ve just come through one of the ugliest fights in
recent memory that didn’t involve movements of tanks and battleships – the presidential
campaign. While the candidates
themselves now have little reason to bludgeon each other daily, the supporters
of the candidates haven’t let-up on the ugly…from either side.
It will be a long four years no matter for whom your
vote was cast. One side wants sanctuary cities to keep the
Feds from deporting illegals; the other side wants a wall built along Mexico’s
border to keep out the undesireables.
Each side claims to be Abel
(the good son), accusing the other of being Cain, (the evil son) sneaking up behind the good guys
with rocks in their hands.
And, despite the world leaders in politics, religion and
business, like Dads, drawing imaginary lines in the back seat of a Ford station
wagon to keep the Cains and Abels separated, still the children disagree. But, unlike the Dads drawing lines, and the
Moms yelling Enough!,
nothing presidents, kings or preachers can do will ever really keep the
peace.
And it is an amazing thing that God still keeps his
promise to never destroy the earth with another flood.
For You Today
Peace,
like electing an unconventional president in a system rife with corruption, is
a movement; it’s never a possibility to legislate peace. It must come from the personal choice of each
individual who elects peace to reign in his or her own heart.
For
that there is not a preacher, president or king who can give you what you
desire. For that you need a Prince of
Peace!
NOTES
[i]
Title image: By Marines
from Arlington, VA, United States (Let's Get Ready to Rumble!!!) [Public
domain], via Wikimedia
Commons
