4:211 – Us Vs The Forces of Evil

#faithbites #faithjourney sources

Setting

Today a friend posted a meme that said we should stop government handouts because everyone is hiring and people need to work. I responded about the quality of work, the pay, standard of living, and how businesses need to change their behaviors to attract workers. The person responded with “Do I own a business”. I’m not sure where the conversation will go, though I do have ideas. The point is it’s turning into an attack on me vs looking at the standard of living and our overall culture. Attacking an individual is easy. It divides us instead of us looking at the root cause of the problem.

The title of this #faithbites comes from the animated show, “Star Vs The Forces of Evil“. It’s about a magical princess who comes to Earth to live as we do. There is lots of magic, dimensional travel, and shenanigans. The whole time, the forces of evil are trying to take her magic wand and conquer the universe. I thought of this as usually Star is ignorant of the evil going on and her human counterpart, Marco, sees the evil around. What would our world be like if we didn’t attack the messenger, but instead looked at all sides of the issue to find out how we can improve the situation for all? I’m not perfect, I was charged in my initial reply as it irks me. I can do better. Can you?

Today’s Questions: How do we turn the focus from person to policy? How do we unify against the forces of evil and not tear one another apart?

Scripture

• Matthew 7:13-14 – “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.
• Romans 15:2 – Each of us should please our neighbors for their good, to build them up.
• Isaiah 10:1-2 – Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees, to deprive the poor of their right and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people, making widows their prey and robbing the fatherless.

Reflection

Ok, the questions for today are tough. Humans have been struggling with those since the beginning. Tearing a person down is much easier than changing society or working on either a win-win or a compromise solution. But easy isn’t the path of a Christian. Our Mathew verses tell us to enter through the narrow gate. This is hard but it leads to life. Likewise, we should look at those challenges that are hard. Tearing down someone isn’t the narrow gate, it is wide and leads to destruction.

In #faithbites, we talk about love God and love your neighbor. Romans 15:2 exemplifies this. We need to build each other up. Help them to succeed. Let’s work together to love on each other and find solutions to our problems.

Finally, in Isaiah, we see where we should fight against unjust laws. This also goes for policies and processes. If the law is oppressive to people, if it tears them down, if it makes them weak and poor, we need to fight against it. This is where the power of our community can change it. We need to work to build up one another, reducing laws that help some and not others and find ways to share our faith.

I don’t know the right answer. I’m often stuck when I see memes that are stupid. The forces of evil inside me trying to get out but through Christ, I can defeat them. All of us need to know that we are strong and nothing can stop us when we have God on our side.

Prayer

Father God, you want us to live in communion with one another. We ask that you help us find ways to build up each other and work towards win-win solutions. Help us dismantle systems that disadvantage people. Help us to understand where our neighbors are coming from. Let us first seek your wisdom before we try to tear someone apart. We pray this in your name, Amen.