It Ain't Easy......Is It?

Hatred stirs up quarrels,
    but love makes up for all offenses.

Proverbs 10:12 

It's all around us every single day.  If you read, hear or watch the news, it's pounded into us with the force of a pile driver into our very way of thinking.  "It you disagree with someone, HATE them until THEY change!"  We are a society of lots of HATE groups each seeking their own interests while degrading the interests of others.  We have groups that HATE us so much that they believe theirs is the ONLY way to live. As a matter of fact, we seem to love to hate each other, yet we disguise it all as "love."

I have friends from a wide variety of different perspectives, yet even though we may disagree on many topics, love still holds us together.  You see, HATE is not the opposite of LOVE and LOVE is not the opposite of HATE.  Why?  Because they are both extremely powerful emotions!  The opposite of LOVE and HATE is this thing called APATHY (don't care).  As a matter of fact, the worst thing you can tell another human being is "I don't care."  Why?  Because you have just devalued them to the point of irrelevance. 

One of the first lessons I learned early in ministry is that not everyone is going to like me.  Some will even hate me, and try to run me off.  But God's love is stronger than any love and stronger than any hatred and even stronger than any apathy.  Darkness cannot hide even the smallest light, so too will love not be covered by hatred.

Remember what Jesus said when He was asked which commandment was the greatest? "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. And the second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as you love yourself.'"  Watching the actions of some of these special interest groups....they don't like anyone (including themselves).