King Solomon was very wise. There really isn’t anything new in our world today. Not hatred! Not injustice! Not racism! Not sexism! Not ageism! Not religious persecution! Not political biases! Not partiality! Not anything that human beings communicate—especially if what they say or do expresses something negative or anything that is in opposition to God’s intended purposes for humanity.
Though it is an uncomfortable truth, it is a truth nonetheless. Racism and bigotry are taught, and what the once down-low racists and bigots in America are teaching right now is that the melting pot metaphor that pertains to a heterogeneous society becoming more homogeneous was just a lie. This truth is why America’s racists and bigots will do their best to change America’s landscape—will try to change the face of America—from people of color back to just White America.
It has been proven that our prejudices are formed at a very early age. This truth means that our children can quickly learn from us how to be racists—how to hate certain people. Thankfully, the good news is that our taught biases can be unlearned. The uncomfortable truth, however, is that, if we truly love God the way He expects us to and/or the way we say we do, we could have chosen not to teach this horrid ugliness to our children.
Abandonment and rejection are the main causes of loneliness feelings. Additionally, emotional and social isolation are two distinct dimensions of loneliness. Mother Teresa says the following about loneliness and abandonment: “Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat.”
Your bloodline doesn’t mean every person on your family tree unconditionally and endlessly will love you, support you, believe in you, trust you, spend time with you, or care about you. Most of the time it will be someone who is not your blood relative who will be the kind of friend who sticks closer than a mother, a father, a brother, a sister, a cousin, and so forth. In other words, your true FAMILY will consist of the people who make every effort to love you, encourage you, listen to you, help you, and always be there for you—through thick and thin. That is why “blood” only means you are related, as well as why “blood” won’t always mean you are FAMILY!
To believe that we aren’t supposed to suffer is just us deluding ourselves—setting ourselves up for a Humpty-Dumpty fall. When our morality fails us, or when our idol status is revoked and no one worships us anymore, or when we actually fall from grace and shatter into millions of pieces—too many for our reliable, supportive, and encouraging family members and friends to put us back together—perhaps this is when we will believe and trust in what the Word of God says about suffering, which mainly is that the suffering of trials not only proves our character and integrity but also tests the object and quality of our faith.
Besides the Word of God and the leadings, promptings, and teachings of the Holy Spirit on the issue of demonstrating godly love to everybody, there also is one particular Contemporary Christian Rock song that forced me to re-examine my failure in showing the God kind of love to everyone, and this song also moved me to make an immediate radical change. This song is Casting Crowns’ “If We Are The Body.”
It is a shame that mankind, as a whole, still doesn’t see color the same way that the Godhead sees it. Because of people’s prejudices that are rooted in wrong thinking, myths and fairy tales, an inestimable number of people who discriminate against others, whether because of skin color, or for some other insane reasons, will miss out on experiencing the real richness of God’s multicolored nature (His spiritual covering) that adorns and fills every one of His Spirit reborn and adopted sons and daughters.
W.E.B. DuBois, the socialist, civil rights leader, and prolific writer, prophesied that the color line would be a 20th-century issue for the entire century! He was right. Is the color line a 21st-century issue for you?
