Decimate the Divide

“Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”
~Martin Luther King, Jr.

Over the last week, these words have been echoing in my head, and I couldn’t help but reflect on the prophetic thoughts in my blog last week . . . Freedom is a powerful thing.

I honestly fought this post. I wrote a different one. A funny one which I’ll post next week. But I found I couldn’t not post this one because I see how the events of this week could change the lives of my children.

So I ask you:

We have freedom guaranteed by our laws, but how are we using it? We have the freedom to carry weapons, the right to free speech.Are we using our freedom to tear people down or to love them? Are we continuing to point fingers or are we inviting them to a conversation? Are we listening to other people? Are we hearing what they have to say? Because if we aren’t listening, it’s unlikely they’ll listen to us.

Part of loving people is listening to them…really hearing them even when it differs from our own. Not judging them for their differences, but loving them exactly where they are.

People who spew hate or even indifference about white people or black people or police or civilians or Christians or Muslims or homosexuals or whatever the hot topic is, I wonder if they really know a real person on the other side of the issue. Have they ever sat down and really talked to someone different than them? And if they had, maybe it wouldn’t be so black and white. Maybe there wouldn’t be such big divides that divide us.

Maybe we could decimate the divide.

So the question is, will you? Will you sit down with someone who disagrees with you and have an intelligent, non-name-calling conversation? Will you have one with me?