I never thought that I would see so much hatred in the world. The Bible does tell us it will happen and it gets worse every day, so I shouldn’t be surprised, but I am. It strikes at the very core of my soul in disbelief.
No matter what happens or what is said, someone has to spew some kind of hate talk. It’s unnecessary. I was taught if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all. Seems today all anybody can think to say is something hate filled.
I have not always agreed with Newt Gingrich, but he recently said that hate has become accepted because it has been spouted from those in authority and those people put on pedestals such as the Hollywood elite. It has even come from the mouth of a former president.
But, even if that is the reason it is accepted by society, it’s still not acceptable in my book. We should know right from wrong and when we think it’s okay to depict someone being decapitated or assassinated as a joke, something is very wrong. I have always said, some things you just don’t joke about. I still feel that way.
We can point fingers and blame everywhere but it all comes down to each of us being responsible for our actions, our thoughts and our words. Yes, the internet has been a big influence, especially social media. But we can unplug from that and we don’t have to let it influence us. We even see it on some television shows. In fact, in today’s society, it’s even hard to get away from a TV, as every restaurant and many stores have them blaring. But we don’t have to watch those shows or be influenced by them.
Don’t like our past history? Well, let’s change it by taking down monuments and pretending it didn’t happen. It doesn’t work that way, folks.
Video games depict shooting someone and them dying, as coming back to life. That’s not real. We’ve lost the ability to live in reality and have become immune to truth. In trying to correct any of this, we like traditional modern medicine, we treat the symptoms, not the cause or real problem. Kind of like putting a band-aid on an artery that is bleeding profusely in hopes it will stop it.
We think the answer lies in building more prisons, hiring more law enforcement, using metal detectors and the list goes on and on for treatments which do not get to the root of our society’s problems.
It is a heart problem. We have become selfish, not caring about anyone else and caught up in the fad of the day. The Bible tells us in Jeremiah 17:9, that “the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can fathom it?”
In spite of what many may claim or say, our founding forefathers accepted the principles in the Bible and the truth as found in the Bible. Upon that foundation, our country was based. Even our constitution is based upon the basic principles found in the Bible.
I’m not saying all of the founding Fathers were all Christians, they weren’t. But they were all familiar with the principles of the Bible and they agreed with them. These principles were reinforced in children, not only by citizens, but by the church, the schools and our families. If you misbehaved at school, you got in trouble at home. Bad behavior was dealt with immediately and strictly. Neighbors would help keep any unruly children in line. If you didn’t follow the Bible, you followed the Golden Rule. Because of the reinforcements from all encounters, previous generations were people of high principles, whether they were Christians or not.
Not so today. Parents are more to blame the teacher than the child acting up and heaven forbid if you try to correct a child that is misbehaving.
If the reinforcement of good behavior, following the Golden Rule and/or the Bible was still demanded by society, we would not see all the hatred going on that we see today.
But then, we took God out of our schools and while the slide into the sewer had already begun, it became even more slippery and continued at a faster pace. Universities became more liberal in their thinking and even began to discount the teachings of the Bible. Churches began to teach a more social Bible than truth from the Word of God. These impacted our future teachers and leaders and altered previous ways of thinking which did not allow God’s teachings in our schools.
The catchword of the day became tolerance. Tolerance for everything, whether it was right or wrong, even evil. And we began to let feelings and emotions, which are fickle, rule.
I daresay our Constitution is all that is holding our country together though it gets trampled upon and many would like to just ignore it and use it only to hide behind it when it benefits them and their selfishness.
The structure of the family has changed. Parents try to be friends to their children before they are parents to them. And they let them make decisions toddlers have no right to make or the experience. You can be friends to your children when they are grown, but until that time, they need parenting and direction.
Home is no longer a place of security but only a place to eat and sleep. Parents feel they have to keep their children involved in one thing or another and video games have taken the place of reading. Imagination is stifled with today’s technology and children grow up way too fast. There is a constant desire for more and more, but more doesn’t seem to satisfy. Parents are too busy trying to make a life, they fail to actually live and they pass this on to their children. Living is more than a constant state of doing things and activities.
We complain about everything instead of being grateful. If we are inconvenienced in any way, we complain. If things don’t go our way, we complain. If it rains we complain and if it doesn’t we complain. We complain about our jobs, our children, our spouses and everything in between. We aren’t thankful for anything because we are too selfish and didn’t get our way.
To rectify our current situation in society, it will take a concerted effort. It will take a lot of prayer from everyone and standing on II Chronicles 7:14. It will take returning to the basic Biblical principles and teaching them to our children — kindness, love, compassion for the less fortunate, helping those in need, slowing down and really smelling the roses and being thankful for what we have instead of striving for more and more material things. It will take not accepting what is wrong as right and not complaining about everything constantly. Pray harder than ever; pray without ceasing. If everyone would do this, we would see a difference in our society. Blessings.©2017

VICTORIA SIMMONS is an author, columnist, motivational speaker, minister and publisher of The Georgia Post/Byron Buzz. Contact her at: vsimmons54@gmail.com