God's Role in Tragedies

There are tragedies in the news every day. All around the world there are children who suffer and die. A little boy drowns in his family’s swimming pool. An elderly lady is raped and robbed. A wife murders her husband. A drunk driver or a texting driver causes a wreck that kills a family. A doctor has to tell a patient that he has terminal cancer and there is no medical treatment that will help. A middle-aged man dies of a sudden massive heart attack or he lives on in disability.

I struggle with it myself. Maybe it’s how we have been taught. Maybe it’s our own natural preservation. Maybe it’s just human nature. I don’t know what it is but it seems to be prevalent in the Christian culture of America. Why is it that Christians think God is more unnaturally concerned about our health and heartaches than He is an unbeliever? Why do we get mad at God when bad things happen to our loved ones or us? Why do we blame God when our loved ones or we suffer? Why is it that when tragedy strikes it is always God’s fault? There seems to be this idea in America that as a Christ follower God owes us good health. I know it is prevalent in what is called the health, wealth, and prosperity preaching but it appears as an undercurrent in most every Christian group I’ve ever been around or heard of in America. Also, there seems to be a belief that in being a Christ follower God is suppose to build a force field around us that will protect us from tragedies and heartaches.

Understand, I’m not questioning a belief in God or about God. What I’m questioning is our belief system in a God who is supposed to protect us from tragedies. Or maybe it is our expectation of God in this belief system. In this belief system we portray God as master of the universe and, especially, master of our universe, which is totally true. Yet in this belief system He is either the cause of our problems or He is the passive spectator over our problems. So, we question why God would do this thing that has brought sorrow or we are confused as to how He could allow this thing to happen. Either way, how can we reconcile a God who would cause tragedy or passively allow it to happen with a God who loves us and wants what’s best for us?

I don’t think it is intrinsically wrong or bad to question God with why or how. The Bible is full of great people of faith who ask God why and how. The issue is, it seems to me, to be the preconceived ideas behind the whys and hows that predetermine our response unless God does what we ask Him to do i.e. heals or reverses tragedy.

For example, someone has been in a horrible automobile accident and was not killed. In fact they make a full recovery and you may hear something like, “It was only by God’s grace.” A little girl wanders from her home onto a busy highway and is hit by a car and killed. No one ever says, “It was only by God’s grace.” Is not all of life somehow an extension of God’s grace? When Paul said, “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me did not prove vain” (1 Co 15:10) was he only speaking of the good things in his life? Wasn’t he also the guy who would later say that he suffered “a thorn in the flesh” and rather than removing it, healing it, or doing something miraculous that took the suffering away, God said, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness” (2 Co 12:9)?

Is God’s grace only something that we measure when something good happens (at least something we judge as good)? When something good happens it is by God’s grace. When something bad happens it is God’s fault. I’m just struggling with those two paradigms. Someone may say that God uses bad things happening to get our attention, wake us up, discipline us, or even punish us. Does our God cause the pain, suffering, and death of our loved ones as a means to get our attention? If He does, wouldn’t that make Him some kind of sadistic masochist?

When Paul spoke of his “thorn in the flesh” he did not say it was God’s fault. He said “there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me—to keep me from exalting myself!” (2 Co 12:7). Here are some mixed concepts that are hard to reconcile. First, the idea of something “given” carries with it the idea of being for ones benefit, something received through favor, and implies a giver. It is the same word as is used in what is commonly called The Lord’s Prayer: “Give us this day our daily bread.” (Matt 6:11) Second, he describes the thorn as “a messenger of Satan.” A “messenger” is an angel sent with a message. Third, he tells us the mission of this “messenger” is to “torment” him. The word used is one that describes to be beat up. It literally means to “strike with the fist.” Figuratively it means “to cause injury or weakness or possibly a circumstantial difficulty.”^[1] Lastly, he gives us a known purpose of this thorn: “to keep me from exalting myself!” Whatever the thorn is its purpose is to produce humility.

So, there are several different interpretations as to what the thorn is that Paul was writing about. Yet, even if figurative language was used with metaphorical meanings the concepts of 2 Co 12:7 are just not easy to reconcile with our American Christian culture. Literal or metaphorical, how do we reconcile a God of love and goodness with a God who reveals something magnificently great to Paul, and then in order to keep him from getting the big head God sends an angel of Satan to beat him up.

When we struggle with the idea of health, tragedies, and heartaches and God’s role in these we need to have as our foundational understanding the fact that God is never at fault. He is not faulty. We are. So, if we don’t get the answer we want, God is not at fault. When tragedies happen (and they will) they are not God’s fault. We live in a fallen universe where sin has corrupted every degree of its existence. God is no more to blame when tragedy strikes than He was when the first sin infected the entire universe. Jesus taught in the New Covenant that the reason we should not despise or curse our enemies is because “He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” (Mt 5:45) That is, there is a sense of equality in this life where God is not prejudice in His provision or protection. Also, there are things in this life that are experienced by Christ followers and those who are in opposition to Christ alike. His sun rising can be a good thing but in a land that is parched it can be another day of devastation. Rain can be a good thing, too, but in a land that is flooding it is a thing of more destruction. Beneficial or bad it comes to the evil and good, to the righteous and unrighteous.

It seems to me that with just a cursory reading of the Bible, even the New Testament, we find all kinds of people experiencing tragedies and heartaches. John the Baptist was beheaded. I wonder how that affected his loved ones? Jesus suffered more than we can imagine. He died with the question “why” on His lips but I wonder if in the cry were there blame, anger, and disappointment toward the Father? Stephen was stoned to death, Paul was beaten, John was exiled to an island, and these are only some of the ones we know. What about the countless other followers of Christ who remain nameless with a few simple sentences in Acts 8:1-3 that describe a mega attack on Christ followers in Jerusalem with massive destruction of lives? Men and women being thrown in prison separated from their families, children who lost their parents, parents who had to watch their children murdered, siblings who saw their brothers and sisters being tortured, families being scattered throughout the world losing everything they owned and being cutoff from their loved ones. How many stories of tragedies and heartache are written between the lines of Scriptures? Fox’s Book of Martyrs is a history of tragedies and heartaches of those who were followers of Christ. There were husbands having to watch their wives raped, children being sold into prostitution, wives and mothers watching their husbands and sons burned at the stake.

My struggle listing these who suffered tragedies and heartaches is that they did so because they were followers of Christ. Then it hit me. EXACTLY!!! If these suffered because they were believers then why would we who are believers think that we would be exempt from sufferings of any kind? They suffered and/or died for their faith. Their faith didn’t exempt them and our faith doesn’t exempt us. In the American culture when we experience tragedies and heartaches it is probably not because of our faith. (At least not yet are we being martyred for being a follower of Christ.) It is most likely in-spite of our faith. That is, these tragedies and heartaches are just a part of life. They are like the sun that rises on the evil and good or the rain that falls on the just and unjust.

If this were our understanding and built into our belief system as followers of Christ, when tragedies and heartaches come upon us our faith would not falter because we wouldn’t have an expectation of God to protect us from such things. Would we still ask God why and how? I assume so. After all, He is the all knowing and our faith would have us turn to Him for understanding, comfort, hope, peace, etc. We may even express anger but it probably wouldn’t be toward God as the cause or the passive spectator. Maybe this was the scenario of Paul’s account in 2 Co 12. Maybe he suffered some kind of physical ailment and in the midst of the third time of asking God to remove it God let him in on the mystery of the ailment. Maybe it was because he wasn’t blaming God or so angry with God for doing this or allowing this that he was prone to hear God’s mystery.

In our American Christian culture we don’t really grasp the mystery of God nor God’s mysteries. We spend our energy crying out to God because life isn’t fair. For instance, one-person cries to God that it’s unfair because his father dies at 70 years of age just when he was starting to really enjoy retirement. Another person says, “Well, at least you had your dad until he was 70. Mine died when he was 52.” Still someone else says, “My dad died when he was 36. I was 13.” Yet another says, “I was conceived just before my dad went off to war. He was killed in battle before I was born. I never met my dad.” Then a mother chimes in saying, “My son was murdered in a high school shooting. He never was able to have children.” In sadness a dad says, “At least you had your son until high school. My daughter died of cancer at the age of 2.” Then a woman says, “My first child was a girl, carried full term, but still born.” Expressing deep grief another couple expresses, “At least you had children. We were never even able to conceive.”

As we focus on how unfair life is with our blame and anger toward God we miss the mystery of God in His sovereignty working in and through the frailties of life. I don’t mean to imply fatalism at all. God is in control. He is sovereign. He even sometimes miraculously delivers some from the heartache of tragedy. He sometimes heals the body and extends the life. In fact, maybe life itself is the miracle. Do we still ask for healing, deliverance, and to escape tragedies? Absolutely. The Scriptures implore us to. Yet, in all of this there is still a mystery that remains known only to God Himself. Even after revealing all that He did to the Israelites who wandered in the wilderness and preparing to go into the promise land Moses declared, “The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our sons forever.” (Dt 29:29).

Someone once said, “prayer is not man trying to bend the will of God to our wishes but to align our wishes to His will.” That is where the mystery is. In crying out to God we find the mystery of God and the mystery of faith. So, in sickness, if healing happens we rejoice in and praise God for what He has done. If death happens, in grief we praise God that the life He graced us with is now in heaven. When we approach tragedies and heartaches with this mindset we are released to grieve in a healthy way. Grief is not a place we are to live but a process we are to go through. Sadness is a necessary part of life, for without it we would never realize the joys. Rather than life being unfair, maybe it is more inline with scripture to say, life is unpredictable. Without life’s unpredictability we would never find the mystery of God. Without the tragedies and heartaches we would never find the faith, understanding, strength, courage, hope, peace, ect. that we so desperately seek when we are in the midst of those tragedies and heartaches.

Life happens! Every experience of life is an expression of God’s grace. The experience may be wrapped in mystery but we can trust that He will give us His grace and He will be with us in the midst of the experience. Birth, death, and everything in-between is just life. Live it to its fullest. Experience the highest highs and the lowest lows. Experience the joy and the grief to the fullness. Worship Christ in all of life. When death comes it has no sting and it has no victory. When tragedies and heartaches happen, cry out to God with all the emotions and questions deserved. Grieve in the depth of your being. Shed tears of misery.  Yet, reserve your anger toward the true culprit: sin. When I say sin I’m not talking about particular sins that someone may have done to bring about the tragedies and heartaches, although, those sins may have been directly a cause of sorrow i.e. someone takes an overdose of drugs and dies. I’m talking about the being of sin that is set loose on all humanity and the universe and is actively reaping havoc and destruction. Pray with all your might for God to preform a miracle to stop or, at least, reduce suffering. If the miracle doesn’t come then we must trust God and His mystery. Draw close to Him in humility and know that God cares for you. He inspired Peter when he wrote,

God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble.

6               Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time,

7               casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you.

8               Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.

9               But resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same experiences of suffering are being accomplished by your brethren who are in the world.

10            After you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen and establish you. (1 Pe 5:5–10)

This is not to be construed as an answer to those suffering. Nor is it a ‘should’ that implies I’m right and if you disagree you are wrong. I have written this over several weeks and months as I have been working through some of my own tragedies and heartaches over the past few months. I have had dear friends, a husband and wife, killed in a car accident. I have had friends, who are followers of Christ; see their marriages crumble in divorce after up to 49 years of marriage. I have watched dear friends, a young couple and their families, rejoice in cancer being in remission and chose to get pregnant, only to be devastated to have the cancer return 2 days before the birth of their first child and the families first grandchild. I myself have suffered severe declination of health. Working through this writing has helped me deal with my emotions and grief. I hope it helps you, as well.

My faith will not falter.

My hope will not be diminished.

I will trust in my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, until my last breath.

My Love for Him and people will not shrink.

---

^[1] Louw, J. P., & Nida, E. A. (1996). Vol. 1: Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament: Based on semantic domains (electronic ed. of the 2nd edition.) (230). New York: United Bible Societies.

Learning Respect in Relationships

-->

I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid myself.” (Gen 3:10)

There is a sense in which we are born with certain personality traits. I have observed this in my four grandchildren. Each one is uniquely individual from birth. Within days and weeks you can see that each one has a distinctive way in which they relate to the world around them. This is why individuals raised in the same household, by the same parents can be so different from one another. This is true even with identical twins. I know because Estela and I have identical twin girls. They share the exact same physical DNA but they are totally different in personality.

Though this truth is obvious about each individual there is one thing that is constant in every human being. From birth we all are undoubtedly totally self-absorbed. Infants are concerned with one thing – getting their needs met by others. They are totally and completely dependent on others to get their needs met. It does not matter to them whether those others are tired, hungry, sick, or anything else as long as they meet their needs. Infants have two basic needs – physical and emotional. Babies want to be fed, changed when wet or dirty, warm, health, and loved.

In the beginning crying is the stimulus we use to get our physical needs met. Babies cry when they are hungry, wet/soiled, cold, or sick in an attempt to persuade someone to meet their physical needs. It is the only way they have to motivate others to meet their physical needs. However, how their emotional need is met or, rather, how they perceive their emotional need for love is met, will begin the process of developing the personality they are born with. Every one of us develops traits within our personality that are built on how we can manipulate or control our environment so as to get our need for love met by others. 

These traits have one purpose – self-preservation.  So, the two things that drive us from birth are self-absorption and self-preservation. The problem comes when we understand that one, the people we are attempting to get our needs met by have been driven by the two things that drives us, and two, our need for love becomes translated into how we feel lovable. The people we need love from are faulty love givers and we always interpret love as conditional. Our feeling of being lovable is reinforced in a trial and error of behavior. Thus begins the self-absorbed journey of developing self-preserving traits. These traits become our relational styles and dictate how we relate to others. How we try to get our needs met by others.

As we grow in childhood and the teenage years we are conditionally convinced that there are things about us that are not lovable. This is reinforced with feedback from behavior that incites disapproval. “Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child; The rod of discipline will remove it far from him.” (Pro 22:15) The concept of foolishness is in the idea of being morally deficient. At birth we are totally self-centered, selfish, self-absorbed, dependent on others to meet all our needs and discipline (from family, faith, and society) is used to remove that foolishness far from us and teach us to be selfless, self-sufficient, responsible to meet our own needs. Abraham Maslow calls the desired stage self-actualization. Paul stated it this way, “When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things.” (1 Co 13:11) A fool is someone who goes through life being totally self-absorbed, selfish, narcissistic, and therefore useless to contribute constructively to society. Discipline teaches us to be ashamed of certain behavior that is born out of selfishness. Though this reinforcement is absolutely necessary in order to live in relationships within society, we ultimately interpret the disapproval as something being intricately wrong with us. That at our core there is something about us that is unlovable. 

What Adam expressed in his first encounter with the Lord after sinfulness had entered the human race identifies the problem we have in the emotional development process. We have a basic need to be loved but as we grow up we see there are things about us that are not lovable. Out of fear that we won’t be loved we start hiding behind learned traits so that people won’t see our unlovability. We become ashamed, not only of certain behavior but of who we are. Thus, we all, to some degree, relate to others out of these shame based traits that we develop within our personality. It may manifest itself in arrogance, debasement, or anything in-between but at its root we are hiding in shame, fearful that someone may see the true me, my nakedness, and not give me love. We hide behind relational style barriers to protect us from the shame of being discovered unlovable.

The personality traits we learn become the things we use to protect us from feeling rejected. We may feel rejection in different ways, thus, causing us to behave in different ways. Some of us may become more overtly people pleasers losing ourselves in trying to be everything that we think others want us to be in order to be accepted by them. Others of us may try to soften the sense of rejection by doing the very things that we think will deserve rejection. We act out what we project others will do if they truly knew our unlovability. Sometimes it is expressed in anger or other destructive ways. It may cause us to become co-dependent, domineering, or passive-aggressive. Regardless of how it is manifested there are shame-based, shame-driven motivation behind it. We’ve learned how to stimulate those around us in order to get what we think we need from them. We’ve developed the traits through which we try to manipulate or control the desired results.

To add to the problem we live amongst people (parents, spouses, family, society, etc.) who are faulty love givers. Even at our best, most self-actualized, we have a tendency to give conditional love and motivate desired behavior through the power of shame. After all, it is what we see ourselves as being. We use shame in marriages, families, religion, schools, sports, business, etc. to motivate others to a desired result. The traits we’ve spent a lifetime developing don’t ever go away. We may discover them and purposely correct them to the best of our ability but they are a part of us until ‘death do we part.’ They become our default settings that are reset to default by certain relational triggers. Not even faith in Jesus Christ can automatically erase these traits. In fact, many times the Christian life is just another field where we plant, cultivate, and harvest these traits. For example, like an alcoholic who beats his addiction to alcohol only to become addicted to performance-based religion. The more our parents, caregivers, teachers, etc., those who have the most influence on us as we grow up, have related to us from a position of shame and conditional love the more difficult it is for us to break the patterns in our own lives. If we have something like religion that continues to reinforce the shame and conditional love into our adult lives then these relational traits become even more entrenched in us.

There is a scene in the 1997 movie “Fools Rush In” that exemplifies how this can play out in a relationship. The conversation is between one of the main characters, Isabel, and her wise great-grandmother. The setting is the pregnant Isabel had lied to her husband about losing the baby, pushed him away, and filed for divorce. Then she ran away to Mexico where her Nanita (great-grandmother) lived. While in Mexico she was feeling disheartened, bolted out of church in tears, and ran to the great-grandmother’s house. Here is script of the scene as her Nanita approaches her with an expression of compassion and inquisitiveness:

Isabel: Nanita, it was the right thing to do.

Great Grandmother: It is not your faith that has betrayed you. It is your fear.

Isabel: I got lost...that's all. But now I make my own decisions.

Great Grandmother: How selfish you are. To presume you know better than love.

Isabel: He never would have left if he knew I was still pregnant. He wanted to go. I let him off the hook.

Great Grandmother: No. You let yourself off the hook. You denied your heart and lied to the man you love. Why?

Isabel: Because I had to. If I didn't leave him, he would have left me. And I really don't think I could've handled that.

Great Grandmother: You will never know love unless you surrender to it.

Isabel wanted to be loved but her fear that her husband would first reject her led her to first reject him so she wouldn’t feel the pain of being rejected. She feared that if she stayed with him he would ultimately see here unlovability and leave her. As she played out, in the theater of her mind, what she thought would happen she called upon learned relational traits to protect her emotional psyche. She hid behind a lie in fear.

The Lord through Paul says, I “implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called… to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. As a result, we are no longer to be children.” (Eph 4:1, 13-14) As a Christ follower, maybe one of the hardest things Christ ask of us is to look into the proverbial mirror of our being and see ourselves as we truly are. Not the way we want to be seen. Not the way we hope we are. Not the way we think others see us. But to tear away the layers of self, like an onion, until we find those things in our lives that drive us in shame to hid in fear like children. The maturing process is to struggle through the pain, the tears, the ugliness, the dysfunction, and allow Him to reveal to us the truth of our childlikeness. The truth about how we continue to try to get our love need met by others. A need Christ alone can truly meet. As long as we are trying to get our love need met from others we will never fully grasp “His great love with which He loved us.” (Eph 2:4) 

“Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others.” (Phil 2:3-4)

As long as we continue to relate to others from the origin of our first birth we will never be set free in our re-birth to be all that He created us to be. In our physical birth we develop relationally from a basis of shame and fear. In our spiritual birth we are to develop relationally from the basis of grace and acceptance. In our physical birth we are motivated by selfishness to get from others. In our spiritual birth we are motivated to serve and give to others. In our physical birth we hide from others. In our spiritual birth we are to learn to be open to others. In our physical birth we learn to relate out of emptiness. In our spiritual birth we learn to relate from fullness. In our physical birth we are self-absorbed, self-indulged, self-protecting, self-centered, and self-preserving. In our new birth we are to become self-sufficient, self-sustaining, self-reliant, self-governing, and self-sacrificing.

In our new birth we learn to see ourselves absolutely forgiven being totally and completely fulfilled in His love in spite of our unlovability. Christ gives us a healthy perspective of self-respect teaching each of us self-discipline: “not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment.” (Rom 12:3) When we learn to relate to others from our spiritual birth we can accept people as they are because we aren’t trying to get anything from them. Because we learn self-respect in Christ we can offer respect to others. Respecting others is releasing them from conditional love, acceptance, and forgiveness. It is relating to them from a position of grace rather than from a position of shame.

How does respect look in practice? It is easier to fake respect with others than it is to live in the reality of respect with the ones we are closest to. In Ephesians 5:18 and following we find the description of marriage from the position of fullness rather than emptiness, submission rather than superiority, new-birth love (giving) rather than first-birth love (getting), and respect rather than shame. Husbands and wives as individuals are to be filled with the Holy Spirit. Out of fullness they are to develop a relationship that is alike in mutual submission, mutual love, and mutual respect. So, how is respect expressed in our most intimate relationship – marriage?

Husband and wife learn to be two unique individuals. As distinct individuals they learn to respect each other and their individuality. They learn to celebrate their independences. Nowhere in scripture does it say that in marriage they become one. What it says is they become one flesh (Gen 2:24). It describes the intimate physical act of marriage and procreation. In a respectful marriage there are two individuals who are equal in their uniqueness. One’s personality is not greater than the other. One’s opinions are not less important. One’s wants are not more important. Marriage is the unity of two equal individuals. It is not the uniformity of a lesser into a greater and does not demand conformity.

Rather than being narcissistic people who are takers respectful people are givers. Instead of trying to get love from the other they learn to give love to each other. Respect substitutes trying to get its needs met by the other with giving out of the overflow of the love it has in Christ. Self-centered spouses are scorekeepers in a marriage.  They are controlling, cynical, faultfinders, critically competitive, more concerned with who is right and wrong, sees the relationship in terms of winners and losers. Self-sufficient spouses are the opposite of scorekeepers. They are more constructively critical of themselves than of their spouse, more interested in the long-term health and heart of the relationship than who’s at fault in the immediate problem, and they are more focused on empowering their spouse than being the power-player in the relationship.

Rather than being jealous toward the other respectful spouses learn to be trusting of each other. Jealousy is birthed out of want. Trust is birthed out of satisfaction. Jealousy is the desire to get something. Trust is giving what is due. Unless otherwise proven untrustworthy, respect assumes trustworthiness. Jealousy is constantly suspicious, the root of victim mentality and unforgiving. Jealousy comes from a place of inferiority and weakness. Trust is extending a belief in a spouse’s integrity, truthfulness, and faithfulness. There cannot be trust without forgiveness. And because one spouse can trust that there will be forgiveness they are set free to honest disclosure. Respectful trust can only come from a place of personal strength and, personal strength comes from a humble satisfaction of one’s personhood. “But by the grace of God I am what I am” (1 Cor 15:10)

Rather than trying to rule over the other respectful spouses learn to release each other from personal expectations. The reason we try to control our spouse’s behavior is because we somehow think that what they do or do not do reflects on us. Instead of trying to manipulate through conditional love, acceptance, and forgiveness respect does not assume reflection of another’s actions. Respect places responsibility for one’s own actions on the one who is doing the action. Respect allows failure without condemnation yet still upholds personal consequences. What one spouse does says absolutely nothing about the other spouse. Respect doesn’t try to blame one’s action on their spouse. A respectful spouse doesn’t say, “I am the way I am or I do what I do because you are this way or you do that.” Respectful spouses own their own behavior.

Rather than trying to ‘fix’ the other, respect accepts the other without expectations of change. Respect doesn’t try to change the other but instead honors each other’s differences. Respect allows those differences without demanding the other to participate in those differences. We each have different likes and dislikes. We like to do different things. Involvement in those different things is extended with an invitation without expectation to accept the invitation.  Respect allows individual involvements separate from the other, if so desired. Respect does not see these differences and diversities as something that needs to be ‘fixed’. Respect may make suggestions when asked but it is not demanding.

Rather than being selfish, respect learns to be serving. Selfishness comes from a mindset that says, “How may I get you to do what I want you to do?” It spends it time manipulating. Respectful spouses come from a mindset that says, “How may I serve you?” They spend their time learning how to magnify their spouse. A selfish spouse tries to figure out what they can DO to exploit their spouse to get them to DO what they want them to DO. Respect tries to figure out how it can best BE what their spouse needs them to BE. Selfishness is all about performance. Respect is all about grace.

I have yet to do pre-martial counseling, perform weddings, or do marital counseling with people who do not have a love for one another. Yet, even among believers in Christ, that love alone is not enough to have a loving and lasting marriage. Most of the time, the things addressed in this article would explain why marriages fail. Some marriages fail and the result is a legal divorce while others fail and the result is an emotional divorce. Either way, in God’s assessment, the mark or goal of marriage has been missed. In these marriages where people hide in fear and shame from one another God has empowered them to redeem their relationship and live in a loving, lasting, and truly happy marriage. If you can learn to live in the reality of respect with your spouse you are on your way to being a relational healthy person.

Racism and Zimmerman-Martin Verdict

With the verdict of the State of Florida vs. George Zimmerman in, the nation reacts. Maybe we shouldn’t say “the nation.” Maybe we should say groups of people. The problem is when we start identifying those groups. The groups are not divided by principle. They aren’t divided by patriotism. They aren’t even divided by purpose. They are divided by race.

Isn’t it interesting how the media picks and choses what to flood our senses with? There are literally hundreds of shootings in this country. There are literally hundreds of trials across this great country where the State is charging someone with murder. In fact, 37 days after George Zimmerman shot and killed Trayvon Martin in Florida, Cordell Jude shot and killed Daniel Adkins in Arizona in what has been called the "Reverse Trayvon Martin Case." But, other than a brief CNN clip and a Yahoo News blurb no major media publicized the case. Yet, the problem is not just the media. In my opinion, and I believe the evidence is in the results, the media is only helping identify the problem. Yes, in some ways they may be fueling the fire but the reality is if there wasn’t a fire there then fueling it wouldn’t produce anything. With that said, I do believe the media has a responsibility in what, how, when, where, and why they do what they do. In my opinion, the media has failed miserably in being responsible. In reality, the purpose of the news media has changed in my lifetime from reporting the news to selling the news. When money is the bottom line we need to remember, “the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil.” (1 Tim 6:10)

No matter how many times people say it’s not about race, the evidence in the results proves the opposite. The problem is that this great country is still divided along racial and ethnical lines. Prejudices are hard, if not impossible, to put to death. The problem is not the color of ones skin being used to describe and identify. If you are called upon to give identifying physical traits of an individual you would use gender, skin color, size, weight, and any other physical characteristic (tattoos, color of hair, scares, etc.). The problem is when someone is being treated or expected to be treated a certain way BECAUSE of the color of one’s skin.

There are all kinds of physical characteristics that carry prejudices. Some are not as major as others but all are pre-judgments about someone because of a physical characteristic. For instance, people with red hair have short tempers; females with blonde hair are dingbats; there is something wrong with people that get tattoos; there are literally thousands of pre-judgments that we make about people when we see them. But that is not the same thing as being racist. Racism is about prejudices, discrimination, inequality, superiority, bigotry and oppression.

How difficult is it in general to cross the rift between White and Black in America? Well, in the four years of the Civil War (1861-1865) it is estimated that at least 620,000 people died; roughly 360,222 Union forces (fighting to abolish slavery) and 258,000 Confederate forces (fighting to keep slavery). (I know that is a simplified reason for the War.) Included in the figure are the estimated 40,000 African-Americans who lost their lives in the War. Although the Civil Rights Act of 1875 was passed by Congress and signed by the President it was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1883, which ruled that Blacks were “beings of an inferior order”, and could never become citizens of USA. (Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857). It took 100 tumultuous years after the Civil War before The Civil Rights Act of 1964 would make any real change for the African-American.

Somehow through all these human-rights issues it has been perceived that the majority is always prejudice toward the minority. And that perception may very well be based upon the facts of human history. When one world power conquers another, the people of that land become subservient to their captors, if not slaves of their captors. That’s the way of the world. That’s the way of war. It happened to Israel along with other nations under the Egyptian Empire and the Roman Empire. It happened under Mohammad and Islam in the Middle East and it happened to the Native Indians and Spaniards in North America under the United States of America. Now, in parts of this great country where the Hispanics out number the Anglo there are accusations of perceived prejudices against the Anglo. It seems to be the way of humanity. I think we can accurately predict that if Blacks were the majority and Whites the minority that racism would not vanish. I would just switch races.

There is only one Kingdom on earth where racial/ethnical prejudice is not supposed to be. That is the Kingdom of God. Unfortunately, through the failure of sinful men, of which we all are, the church has not always upheld the orders of her King: “There is no distinction between Jew and Greek.” (Rom 10:12) “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Gal 3:28) Since the “love of Christ controls us” we are to “recognize no one according to the flesh.” (2 Cor 5:14-16) In the Kingdom of Christ we are not to let the color of someone’s skin be a prejudgment. As the children’s song declares the truth:

“Jesus loves the little children,

All the children of the world.

Red and Yellow, Black and White,

All are precious in His sight,

Jesus loves the little children of the world.”

And we might add in there Brown and every color of every people on the face of the earth.

I don’t believe the church is to be color-blind, I believe we are to be color-celebrating. In the Family of God I have brothers and sisters who are White, Black, Brown, Red, Yellow, and every other color of people on earth who have recognized Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. We are completely and totally equal in every way. I chose, in Christ, to celebrate the distinctiveness of God’s saving grace and the sweet fellowship of unity found in Christ Jesus. There are not only color differences but also cultural differences from which we can learn and celebrate. Not only am I transformed to see this reality in the church but also I am transformed to see this reality outside the church. I am not to be a respecter of people. If all who name the name of Jesus as Lord and Savior would submit to their King in this reality there would be a significant change in racism worldwide.

I am a White male who grew up at a time and in a place where my physical characteristics of race were the majority. I admit and confess that I do not know how it feels or what it means to be discriminated against simply because of my race or ethnicity. I married a Mexican who grew up as a minority in our town and experienced prejudicial discrimination simply because of her ethnicity. I am incapable of empathizing with what she felt because I have not experienced it. We have three children, twin girls and one boy (all grown now). Our son looks much more Mexican than his palely White sisters. He has suffered at the hands of those who are prejudice simply because of his skin color. I cannot really empathize with how he feels when derogatory remarks are made toward him because he is Mexican. My own grandmothers, though they always treated my wife and children with unconditional love and acceptance, warned me before I married that my children would be half-breeds. Even with that, I, as an Anglo, do not understand the disparaging treatment of prejudices because it was not my half of the breeding that was considered a negative.

All of that is to say, I don’t believe anyone can fully understand how it feels to be racially/ethnically discriminated against unless they have lived in a society where they are the minority and, as a minority, have suffered racial/ethnical discrimination. It is one thing to experience pockets of racial discrimination but it is totally different when racial discrimination is a societal distinctive. By that I mean, a White person may grow up in a Black neighborhood and experience racial discrimination in that pocket of society. But that is not the same thing as the racial discrimination toward Blacks that can be found, in general, in the social structure of America, especially in the South.

With that being said there are a few things that I have observed with the Zimmerman-Martin trial and subsequent reactions. They are my opinion and, as with all of us, I can only view things through the lens of my own experiences and that can affect the way I see something. I am not saying my observations are the ONLY accurate conclusion. Nor am I saying that they are absolutely correct. Maybe, putting this out there will help in the dialogue and help in bringing some healing to racial/ethnical prejudices in America. Of course, if it is a true dialogue then there are at least two things that must happen. One, all must be willing to take ownership of our feelings/thoughts and express them appropriately. Two, all must be willing to listen and hear all in the conversation.

The media has sensationalized this case based on race because that is what sells. NBC edited the Zimmerman’s call to the non-emergency number of Sanford police department so as to highlight race. They made it sound like Zimmerman was conjecturing on race without being asked when, in fact, the dispatcher asked him to identify the race of Martin. The mainstream media continues to sensationalize the case with the way they frame questions and interviews around race. I watch a lot of news. Fox News has a slant that is more consistent with my political point of view. So, I probably watch Fox News 70% of the time. Yet, I want to be well rounded and hear the views of others that are coming from a different perspective, so I watch CNN probably 20% of the time, MSNBC maybe 10% of the time, and the big three (ABC, CBS, NBC) about 10% of the time. Although I’ve learned a lot from these other news sources, it appears to me that the more liberal the media outlet the more they focus on a racial conspiracy. Does that mean the liberal media is more against racism and are just emphasizing the injustice toward Blacks or are they exploiting the Blacks by selling the sensational? Are they reporting the extent of the racial divide or are they encouraging more racial divide? To me, it’s not that they are just reporting on racial/ethnical prejudice but that they are inciting the division. Also, it seems to me that the media is doing nothing to help bring healing to the racial divide.

The groups trying to capitalize off of the media coverage are not just racially motivated. There is the group who is seeking to overthrow the Stand Your Ground law. There are also people who are trying to use this as a reason for Gun Control. Of course, the counterparts of these groups are arguing their side as well. It is my opinion that this case has little to do with either one of these issues. In my opinion we have already submitted too many of our freedoms in the environment of a false peace. It is like the Scriptures indicate that even in the name of God there are those who proclaim “peace, peace, But there is no peace.” (Jer 6:14) Without a Stand Your Ground law and the Second Amendment we are reduced to the mercy of the merciless. Are we to huddle in our houses defenselessly awaiting the criminal? Are we to retreat from every confrontation? Does it not already seem that our laws are more for the criminal than they are the victims? Even after they are convicted the criminals still have significant rights under the law. Is this really about a law or about guns? I don’t think so. Those who believe Zimmerman probably think the law did exactly what it was intended to do. If he had not had the right to carry a gun and defend himself, he likely would have been beaten, maimed, and possibly killed. Those who don’t believe Zimmerman, say if he hadn’t been allowed to have a gun he couldn’t have killed Martin. And if there was no Stand Your Ground law Zimmerman would be charged with murder 2 or, at least, manslaughter because he didn’t retreat when he had a chance. So, is the issue the law or the gun? NO! The issue is whether you believe the system worked or failed. Was Zimmerman innocent until proven guilty? Or, was he judged by the media as guilty because of the color of his skin and Martin’s skin? Is not finding him guilty BECAUSE of the color of skin also a racial/ethnical prejudice?

Let’s play “what if”—what if Martin really did beat down Zimmerman and bashed his head into the sidewalk? Is it that hard to believe that a 17-year-old male (looks more like 20), who is 5’ 11” tall and 158 lbs. could beat down a 28-year-old, 5’ 7” tall and 185 lbs. young man? Maybe even asking the question that way shows a bias. Okay, what if Zimmerman instigated and started the fight. Zimmerman was roughly 11 years older, basically 30 pounds heavier, even though he was 4” shorter. Is it hard to believe that a 28-year-old male neighborhood watch coordinator in a neighborhood that has been hit hard with robberies, is overly suspicious, easily angered, and highly confrontational toward anyone off the pathway and in the yard of an area that is known for robberies, and someone he suspects is “up to no good” because “it's raining and he's just walking around, looking about?” Neither scenario is hard to believe. What is hard to reconcile is what that characteristic of Zimmerman would sound like and how that type of characteristic might behave in that scenario and what the facts point to. If that painted an accurate picture Zimmerman I’m surprised he didn’t stop and confront Martin when he first saw him. I’m surprised by the tone and quality of his voice. His voice is soft, a little high-pitched, calm, and almost a little feminine. There is one point on the call, when Zimmerman says that Martin is “coming to check me out” and he sees something in Martin’s hand. That Zimmerman sounds a little frightened even. He wanted the police to hurry. That doesn’t sound like someone that is out looking for a Black kid to kill.

The “what if” game is a game that never ends. What if Zimmerman never got out of his truck? What if Martin had walked straight home instead of loitering? What if Zimmerman hadn’t carried a gun? What if Martin wasn’t wearing a hoodie? What if Zimmerman had been Black and Martin White? What if…what if…what if… The “what if” game gets us nowhere!

Interestingly, all the attorneys in the trial, except for the attorney representing the Martin family, were White. Are there no qualified attorneys in Florida that are Black or Brown? All the jurors, save the one dark Hispanic woman, were White women. It was an all women jury! It seems to me that the more they tried to make it not about race the more they did things that were potentially racially explosive. I think the question “Do you think if those jurors would have been six Black women there would have been a different verdict?” is a legitimate question. It is also a question that shows just how suspicious we are toward racial divisions. Did five White women make a decision based on the facts presented or the color of Martin’s skin? Would five Black women make a decision based on facts or the color of skin? If, in any situation, a decision is made based exclusively on the color of someone’s skin, can we not agree that there is racial/ethnical prejudice? Can we not also agree that not every decision made is about racial/ethnical prejudice even when there are different races involved?

The prosecution seemed to base their final argument not on facts but on knowing “what was in the heart of Zimmerman.” This is really an impossibility to know. There are only two people who can know a person’s heart, the person and God. And no one really knows his or her own heart in every matter. We can easily deceive ourselves. It is true that Zimmerman obviously had problems in 2005 with drinking, violence, and relationships. He was arrested for shoving an officer and he also had a restraining order filed and granted against him by his ex-fiancée, against whom he also filed and received a retraining order. In 2006 he received a speeding ticket. Yet, in this case, though the State desperately tried to, they could not find any factual evidence to prove Zimmerman guilty. The Law either has facts and evidences that will reasonably convict or it doesn’t. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t bring a charge against someone. The process of the arrest and the lack of evidence presented could easily lead one to think that the State of Florida may have felt pressured, based on the publicity of the case, to bring Zimmerman to trial.

After the trial, all the demanding for justice is not just. Was it an “unnecessary killing” as Eric Holder proclaims? Sure it was. Aren’t most killings unnecessary? What could have changed? In order of prevention: The first thing, from the testimony, was that if Martin had not been loitering around a house there was a good chance that Zimmerman would not have suspected him. Secondly, after Zimmerman stopped at the clubhouse and called the police’s non-emergency phone number, if Martin would have walked past Zimmerman’s truck and made a beeline for his father house there would have been no confrontation. Thirdly, if Martin was scared because a “creepy ass cracker” was following him, he could have called the police. Fourth, if Zimmerman had not got out of his truck, most likely there would not have even been a conversation between the two. (One juror has said Zimmerman “shouldn’t have gotten out of that car.”) Yet, getting out of that car was not against the law. Fifth, if Zimmerman had retreated to his truck when encouraged to by the dispatcher there possibly would have not been a confrontation. Still, even confronting someone in a neighborhood watch environment is not against the law. Was either one breaking the law? No. At least, not up to the point of violence. Were both exercising poor judgment? Maybe. But poor judgment isn’t against the law. The reality is that the only one who knows what happened that night is Zimmerman. Did Martin throw the first punch? Was Martin accosted first by Zimmerman? We may never know or we may already know. The jurors heard the evidence and believed the evidence pointed toward Zimmerman’s account. Under our justice system we must endure this as the truth. Our system may not be perfect but it has proven to be the best system for justice probably 99% of the time. Occasionally, because humans fail sometimes, our system convicts innocent people and frees guilty people. But regardless, “innocent until proven guilty” is the best system we have. And in this case Zimmerman was not proven guilty.

Was Martin profiled? Maybe. Is profiling the same thing as racial/ethnical prejudices? Absolutely not! It can be but it is not necessarily so. Is it not true that the gated neighborhood had recently had a rash of burglaries and potential violent encounters with young adult Black males in the past 15 months? Is it not reasonable at that point to profile an older teen Black male who is inside the gated community? Profiling at that point is not necessarily racial/ethnical prejudices. It could be simply motivated by racial/ethnical description. When the EMT examined Martin he had no ID on him. They reported he looked approximately 20 years old. He may not have looked like the twelve-year-old boy pictured by the media. I contend that in this case profiling is not synonymous with prejudice. The FBI, Stanford Police Department, and the Jurors came to the same conclusion after investigating all the evidence. They concluded that Zimmerman was not motivated by racial/ethnical prejudices. I think a legitimate question is “If Martin had had on clothing that is not associates with a culture that is problematic would he had been profiled?” In my mind, if I see someone on a dark street that is dressed and looks like trouble, I am going to profile him or her regardless of the color of his or her skin. Maybe part of the conversation needs to be the reality that the way you dress is the way you will be judged. If a “skin head” with a swastika tattoo walks down the street is he not going to be judged by his appearance? If Martin had been wearing a suite and carrying a brief case would Zimmerman had profiled him? Probably not even though the fact that he was a Black would have been more obvious. Could it be that appearance really does matter in society? I’m old enough to remember when wearing a pair jeans in the late 1950s through the early 1970s was prejudged in conjunction with James Dean in “Rebel Without a Cause.” Also, when males with long hair were pre-judged as a hippy, drug user, rebellious, etc.

It appears to me, agreeably, someone who does not have the experience of being racially discriminated against, that there are people in the Black community who have to continue racial division in order to continue their identity and maybe their income. People like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson seem to me to be in this camp. It is my opinion that they are not helping to bring healing to racial division but encouraging it. Their inflammatory rhetoric and political demands seems to be more harmful than helpful. There have been numerous Black leaders on the news including Eric Holder, US Attorney General and the former Mayor of New Orleans, Marc Morial, indicating that the jurors were wrong in their verdict. That what Zimmerman did was illegal. That he was wrong in profiling Martin. That Martin was just an innocent teenager murdered. Murdered because he was Black and Zimmerman was found Not Guilty because he was White-Hispanic. They said that because of the verdict they have had to have talks with their sons about behavior, profiling, and what to do in similar situations. Really! I have had that talk with my son, too.

Along with that conversation comes the explanation of why someone may be profiled. Not that it is fair but that there might be reasonable thought behind profiling. In the conversation with my son I included how he dressed and reacted to other people who are prejudice toward him will help determine the outcome. The prison system is over populated, with male Latinos and Blacks by far the prison majority. Is the legal system prejudice toward Browns and Blacks? I don’t know. Some studies show a disparity in arrest and charges of Browns and Blacks vs. Whites. Although, some studies show that Blacks and Browns are more likely to be arrested and charged there are others that report that Browns and Blacks are more likely to find leniency. There is also data to support that because there have been more research published involving Blacks in the legal system it can be over represented in the conclusion. (Do Race and Ethnicity Matter in Prosecution?) Undoubtedly, there are multiple studies of certain sectors of the country (i.e. NYC) where minorities are more likely to be targeted by law enforcement than Whites. (Crime, perceptions of crime and perceptions of crime-fighters) Yet, are there really enough facts to point toward a countrywide conspiracy toward Blacks and Browns? It’s hard to prove either way with statistics because statistics can be manipulated to say whatever is wanted. The one thing that all the statistics seem to point to is that minorities are more likely, per-capita, to commit violent crime. Some explain that by the difference in economics in the minority community. They say that minorities are poorer. Yet, is that a cause of the crime or is that the results of the crime? Also, if there is a societal conspiracy to keep minorities poor how do we reconcile that many minorities are some of the wealthiest people in America? As an example look at the Black entertainment industry: Bill Cosby, Opra Winfrey, Tyler Perry, Whitney Houston, Will Smith, James Earl Jones, and the list of film, television, and music industry stars goes on and on. Add on to that list minorities playing in Professional Sports.

Some minorities point to a discrimination in the education system that prevents them from being able to achieve a better economic life for their families and communities. But it is not clear whether the potential discrimination is because of a prejudicial education system or because of the community culture created by minorities. In high schools where African-American and Hispanics are the majority students report a higher percentage of being threatened or injured by a weapon than in Anglo or Native American populated schools. Though there was, before the Civil Rights Act of 1964, factual discrimination in the public school system, since then there have been significant improvements in squelching that discrimination. In postsecondary education Blacks receive the majority of financial aid (92%) and the average largest amount of aid given. The research would indicate that in the past 35 years discrimination in the educational system has made great strides in assuring equality. (Status and Trends in the Education of Racial and Ethnic Groups) Yet, if the educational system points to anything in the Zimmerman-Martin case it identifies a troubled youth who was on his third expulsion from high school.

Another thing that brought this case undue publicity is President Obama giving public commentary on it. In my opinion it is beneath the position of the President to speak publicly about any particular case. Especially, when it is being publicized in a racial format. Also, I don’t think it helps when the Attorney General of the United States dedicates his entire speech to the NAACP questioning and destroying the faith in our justice system by undermining the process that had just been completed in the Zimmerman-Martin trial. In my opinion, when the highest official and other high officials in the US Government, all whom are Black, do not accept the results of our justice system they undermine the entire Republic for which the system identifies. Could it be that they want to politicize this case for their own political agenda? (i.e. Anti-Stand Your Ground law and Gun Control)

When listening to the prosecutions key witness, Rachel Jeantel, it reminded me of conversations I have had with White people who claim not to be racially/ethnically prejudice yet are disparaging toward people who are not White. Statements such as “you know how Mexicans are” or “Black people are just that way” when speaking negative about someone. Or maybe they see nothing wrong with describing Black people as Niger, Brown people as Spics, White people as Crackers or Asian people as Chinks. Yet, with Jeantel, we see that racial/ethnical prejudice is as much a part of the Black culture as it is the White. In what world is “creepy ass cracker” not a racial slur? Ms. Jeantel denied that it has racial connotations. Would not it have been seen as racial/ethnical prejudice if Zimmerman had said something derogatory about Martin in identifying his skin color? Maybe what he said shows that Martin could have been more racially motivated than Zimmerman. Isn’t it true that prejudices have no boundaries? They are not restricted just to the majority. Remember, the problem is when someone is being treated or expected to be treated a certain way BECAUSE of the color of their skin. Do not all racial/ethnical groups do this? Is it not true that there are Blacks that are racist? As well as Hispanics and Asians? I mean, it’s not just a White syndrome. It is a human problem.

If racism in America has not been resolved in over 150 years since the Civil War we are safe to assume it is not going to be solved anytime soon. There is no doubt that the racial divide between White and Black in America continues to find strength in the past reality of slavery and the over 100 years of oppression of the Blacks once slavery was abolished. It is understood that slavery and racial oppression was primarily in the Southern States but not limited to the South. There is no one alive today who was a slave owner or a slave. So, there are no firsthand experiencers of that era of our history. The point is, there is no one to hold responsible and there need be no one requiring retribution. It is history. If we learn from it we have a good chance not to repeat it. Now as far as the oppression of Blacks by Whites…. maybe we shouldn’t be so stereotypical. Were there not well over 300,000 Whites in the Civil War that literally gave their lives in order to provide freedom for Blacks? There have been remnants of Whites from the founding of America who have advocated equality in civil-rights for all colors of people. Still, it is hard for me to reconcile reasons for 100 years of racial oppression of the Black. What took White people so long to establish an equality of race? Why did it take such turmoil in the 1960s to initiate change in society?  Of course, I was born at the end of those 100 years and cannot contemplate the cultural milieu of America from 1865 to 1965. Still, have there not been astronomical advances in establishing an equality of race in America, especially since 1964? I mean, in 2008 America elected a Black man as the President of the United States of America. With Black making up roughly 13% of the population was it not the non-Black vote that put a Black man in the Oval Office?

I can only speak for myself and from my own perspective. I do not consider myself being racially/ethnically prejudice. Yet, I realize that self-awareness continues to come with an open mind and heart. Maybe we can all get to the place were we can willingly set down and have an honest dialogue. I must say that this case has truly highlighted the extent of the racial divide in America. I call on my fellow Whites to really try to understand, to listen and hear what the hearts of the African-American community, Hispanic community, Asian community, etc are saying. Realize that 1964 wasn’t that long ago. Can we not sympathize with minorities, especially Blacks, as to how they feel living in a society, in general, that has oppressed them? To try to understand how it must feel to be prejudicially profiled just because of skin color. Why minorities are probably more sensitive to racism than Whites. To learn from minorities what might be done to help. I call upon on the minorities to listen and hear the whole of the White community. I ask them to be honest about their own community’s cultural problems and take ownership for those things. To stop blaming the Whites for your problems and expecting to be venerated simply for being a minority. Sure there are plenty of Whites that are racially/ethnically prejudice. Some will never accept that the minority has equality with White. There are always going to be people like this. It is hard to ignore them but maybe we can reasonably and rationally marginalize those who will always be racist by not being baited into a reaction.

The solution to racism is don’t be a racist. Don’t prejudge someone because of the color of his or her skin. Don’t assume all Whites are racist. Don’t assume all Blacks are racist. (Because racism is just as alive and well in the Black community as it is in the White community.) In fact, the Bible has a very simple solution to the problem of racism.

      “In everything, therefore,

treat people the same way

you want them to treat you.”

(Mt 7:12)