True Wisdom

"the LORD is more pleased when we do what is right and just
than when we offer Him sacrifices."
                                                                      -Proverbs 21:3


I'm concerned with the level of aggression I see everywhere I look. "Being right" has leaked from our politics to our personal lives and these days we are desperate to have the last word. Self-righteous indignation is becoming everyone's favorite past-time, and there are fewer and fewer of us listening to each other in humility. Instead, our amygdalas have been hijacked with our own blustering opinions and our obsession with all-things-media inches us to the razor's edge of civil unrest turning from fiery words to physical weaponry and civil war.




The Proverbs speak wisdom amidst such chaos, timeless transcendence to the cyclical repetition of civil war within & without. Solomon reminds us, God is not pleased with death. Now, whoever you believe God to be (or not to be),  you cannot help but observe a historical pattern of human bloodbaths (war) rising up in every generation. Genocide, colonialism, democratization, resistance... words that insidiously emerge into bloodshed in every generation, and often, in the name of god, freedom, rights, and/or progress. And yet, the regressive result (mass death) is proof that we are NOT following God at all if we perpetrate this response.

If Solomon is to be believed as the wisest man of his day, we can vouchsafe that we have continuously misunderstood the character of God. He is not like us at all. Rather it is our propensity towards hatred of self & others that perpetuates the very war we project onto Him. Something inside of us is at war, and it erupts externally because we fail to address it internally. We determine that we must war against "the other" because we allow our intolerance to swell to a fever pitch, and so choose 'sacrifice' instead of doing what is MORE pleasing to God--what is right and just.

What is right and just?



Forgiveness.



Though we cannot believe someone could see things differently, we forgive. Though we are mocked for our worldview, forgive. Though we are bombarded by -isms, we forgive. Though we are resistant, we forgive. Though we are defensive, we forgive. Though we are goaded to attack, we forgive. Though we are burning with the fire of free speech, we forgive. Though we are sure of our perspective for righteousness and justice... we forgive.

Let me remind you, that there is no other way to deescalate a generational cycle of bloodshed. There has never been another answer righting every wrong and bringing justice to our inner brokenness. There has never been another solution which leads to the laying down of arms, and the transformation of souls. To err is human, to forgive, divine.  We see this by the Cross, the story of forgiveness... where justice and mercy kiss, where grace swallows judgement whole, and life declares the death of death.

Forgiveness frees us! The forgiver finds freedom to pave the pathway of peace for all who are weary of war. We can choose to turn down the noise of every internal grievance, and ask instead for the quiet sublimity of compassion. And in so doing, we reverse the curse of incivility.  

I pray for anyone reading this, that the noise inside of us would surrender to our counter calling to forgive. We are filled with conflict, but there is a fountain filled with love available to those who will give it freely. God reveal who you really are because we want to stop the vicious cycle of hatred we see in and around us and we cannot do this without understanding what is right and just. In Jesus Name, Amen.