Here’s what I’m learning. We’re all just trying to figure this whole thing out. Some of us are speaking out, some are quietly pondering, some of us are praying and fasting, others are pointing the finger at each other, while others are just giving the finger. These can be polarizing times with a pandemic and crazy, divided politics.
How do we hear each other and not demonize one another? We are all trying to find the truth—some on the far right or the far left, some trying to find it in the middle, others trying to find it in conspiracies. Some are diving down hard into the scriptures, and others are looking to this prophet or that. Some throw their hands up saying, “I don’t know what to believe. This is all fake.”
I do know this: we can run but can’t hide. We can speak louder and still not be heard. We could be silent and just ponder and never share our ponderings. We could keeping going down an endless rabbit hole of conspiracies. We could become so radicalized in our ideas that we go to civil war. Or we could do the long hard work and invite someone to the table of discussion. Whether in person or virtually, we could sit at the table of discovery and try to listen to one another without demonizing one another.
Some might say this is too idealistic. Maybe or maybe not. It’s definitely not fast. It’s slow and it’s hard. It’s full of tears, introspection, risk of being misunderstood and challenged. There aren’t enough hours in the day. It’s going to take time, and no, we can’t do this with everyone. But we can do it with a few like family, friends, church, maybe even a few strangers that actually might become friends.
What if we just come away agreeing to disagree? How does that solve anything? It solves a lot more than you think, because you practiced hearing someone different, and them hearing you, and you stopped demonizing one another.
At the end of the day, we are all wanting to be heard. Listening and sharing our fears, truth, experiences of our lives with another person different from us helps open the heart to see we are just people trying to figure this thing out.
In doing so, maybe we will learn something and grow together at the table of discovery and not tear each other apart and play into the hand of the true evil one who only wants all of our distraction, division, and destruction. Or maybe we all discover the Gospel—the good news of Jesus—and we find the way, the truth, and the life in him.
He has the answers, and it’s found not in a political party or an ideology. It’s found in the breaking of bread of His life with one another.
If you’re a believer, let’s be Jesus with skin on with one another and with the world around us, and invite someone to the table of discovery. We just might find each other and Jesus and see His Kingdom come. Take the risk!
“Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” – Isaiah 1:18
