Today we have a lot of opinions. In fact, thanks to the internet, everyone and anytime can have an opinion on anything and everything. That's right. I might not know anything about a subject and after a search on the internet I may feel like an expert. I might not know anything about a news situation but after listening to the radio, I feel like I know enough about a situation to get into an argument over it.
I hope you are reading this and feeling the underlying tone of the above, this line of thinking is silly! I am not an expert on anything that I have just learned from the internet, I am certainly not a medical doctor. Likewise, just by reading or hearing a news article I shouldn't feel I know everything about a situation.
And YET, my social media sites are FULL of opinions. People making concrete and hard-nose decisions about everything from political to parenting, from dog owning to house building. I wish I could remember where I read this, but I read somewhere that people this days are more likely to believe their own experience / opinion even when they are presented with FACTS that prove otherwise. And I am sure there are people reading that and completely disagreeing ;-)
I am not sure if we have always been this way and the increase in accessibility of information has made it seemingly worse or what but I really have to question why are we allowing ourselves to act this way? Why are we allowing for division and negative rhetoric? Why are we allowing this to give us the right to seriously abuse each other and warp real problems? Why do we talk at each other instead of listening to each other to truly find the truth?
We have created environments in which it is not safe to actually work through real problems. We have allowed negative rhetoric to create a perception of the world - that is NOT correct! And this is not just because of one political candidate - this is all and both sides! We do not live in a black and white / Christian and nonchristian world. In fact at this moment we don't live in a very Christian world at all!
We should be looking into our own reality. Instead of calling others out, we should be calling ourselves out. As Christians we are not called to judge but instead love. As Christians we are NOT called to judge. But lately that is all we are doing, judging and taking sides. Hearing someone confirm a fear we already have only gives way for us jumping to bigger conclusions instead of us finding the truth.
Really this post should be named: What is Truth? Because today "truth" is used to create realities and division that is not always there. "Truth" is used to put up walls and divide us into sides. We are called by God not to BE God but to be the BODY of Christ in this world. We are called not to make decisions individually but instead as a whole for the good of the world. We are called to work together to bring to Earth the Kingdom of God.
If we continue at the pace we are working and with the ignorance of false reality we, as those proclaiming to be Christians, will bring the end times and realize that all along we were working for the wrong guy.
