Happy Monday!
I’m thinking we focus too much on today’s word-of-the-week…
DIFFERENCES
Do you notice how invested our culture is in highlighting our differences?
Of course it’s election season, so we’re buried in ads promoting difference. But I think the election rhetoric only ramps up what’s become our “normal” environment. We’re literally inundated with messages assuring us “we” are different from “them.”
I believe most of this notion we hold about our differences is a hurtful illusion. I believe the messages are dangerous lies.
Media and politics are the most obvious investors in the illusion of differences. They need us to believe THIS agenda, person, country, ideology, perspective, or approach is different—and superior. The stakes? Power, control, and huge sums of money.
This insidious lie spreads to every corner of life. Those folks are different because of what they wear or the language they speak. That group is different because they’re disabled. They’re different because they choose an unfamiliar lifestyle.
Then it leaks into even the smallest places. The people in the church down the street are different because their music is odd, or they don’t say the same prayers, or some theologian four hundred years ago disagreed with another theologian so they formed competing denominations.
I believe our Enemy delights whenever we focus on what divides us. I believe he loves it when we seize upon opportunities to separate ourselves from others. I think he dances with joy every time we put ourselves in a little group and pretend we’re somehow different than those others.
Dividing us is the Enemy’s desire. He doesn’t want us to remember God created us for community, that what divides us is inconsequential compared to what unites us.
We all ride the same road. We don’t have to ride it the same way, but if we ride it together we have a much better chance of getting where we need to go.
Have a great week.