A couple of years ago, I was sitting outside on my dear friend’s back porch and she asked me, “Do you want to be right or do you want peace?”
Well, I wanted both. But I understood what she was asking me. I had to pour my heart into the hands of Jesus, day in and day out, as Terry and I sought to do the next right thing.
Today, I find myself crying tears of shame and heartache over the ridiculous, childish fighting in our nation. Our country is hurting, and rather than offer solace, love and comfort as followers of Jesus, many are pointing fingers, demanding this or that and storming off, in anger.
“Do you want to be right or do you want peace?”
My friend’s words from several years ago rang in my ears as I read article after article; tweet after tweet. Facebook post after Facebook post. As one of my friends recently called it, “A dumpster fire.”
I know I have shared this before, but one of my favorite political science professors took points from our final grade if we said, “Uh, um,” or name-called, whatsoever, during our debates. You better believe we learned she was not playing around with this rule. This was not on our debate grades. This was not on our midterm or exams. These were points from our final grade. So yes. We all learned to toe the line.
“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” - John 13:34-35 (NIV)
I keep going back to that passage over and over and over.
Jesus did not tell us, “Hey, go out there and start a bunch of debates. Go try to argue with someone, and get louder, and type in all caps! They’ll know you love Me, if you do those things.” Jesus did not tell us to laugh when someone calls another person a terrible name or points at them and ridicules them for being different. He told us to love one another.
Jesus told us to love one another. Sweet people, smart people, ignorant people, hateful people, creepy people. Jesus told us to love one another. I have to remind myself of this, daily. Because I had to remind myself of this, I deleted my personal Facebook app. I have to stand up for what I believe Jesus believes is of far greater importance, rather than offer my snarky, quick political retorts; and simply love people.
By loving on others really well, the world around us will know we are His. But if we fall into crowd mentality and just “do what everyone else is doing,” then the outside world will not recognize us as being Jesus’ disciples. They will not know we follow Him if we do what is easy rather than doing what is right for His Father.
I still want to be right, but more than being right, I want people to know peace.
I want to love people. I want people who watch me to know I love them. I want to pray for the mean people, and stand up for the oppressed people with my voice. I want to tell the unkind people who say Jesus would demand things be done “this way;” if it is unkind, it isn’t like Jesus, so let’s stop fighting and show our love.
The world is full of unbelievers and they are watching us. They are watching you and they are watching me and they are waiting to see what, as lovers of Jesus, we will say and do when “everyone else” thinks a certain way.
They will see as followers, for sure. I just pray they see us as followers of Jesus and no one else.