My sweet grandmother stopped watching the news as she got older. It depressed her greatly, she would tell us, and she would either change the channel, or tune it out, if someone else was watching. My dad would say to her, “But Mama, you need to be informed about what is going on in the world around you.”
I could see both of their points. My brother and I were raised to seek information. News. Education. My mom taught me when I was really little, “If you can lay your head down at night and have learned something new, it was a good day. But a day where nothing is learned, is wasted.”
I guess in a way, my dad saw my grandmother’s (his mother’s) refusal to watch the news as a form of throwing in the towel. Giving up on current events and knowledge. Defeat. But Grandmother was so tenderhearted, she really couldn’t stand the news. It broke her heart. It gave her bad dreams, and anxiety.
The other morning as Terry and I watched the news, I looked at him and asked, “Do you ever recall a time in your lifetime, where humanity has been more evil than today?
Terry thought long and hard and said, “No. I really can’t. It seems the “me first” mentality is at an all time high, and the self-centeredness in people brings out even more hatefulness and evil than ever before.”
I know this question made me sound like I’m 90 rather than 47, but I can’t help it. We are just seeing so much nastiness, and we as lovers of Jesus can’t stop trying to make this world a better place.
Even though it is exhausting.
I had a great realization a while back through Bob Goff’s weekly lessons. He said if someone or something is causing enough a distraction in our lives, pulling us away from Jesus rather than closer to Him, we have the freedom (and right) to walk away from it or them. This is not a choice I make, lightly, but it is a choice I have made more and more, lately.
To quote the wise lady, Sweet Brown, “Ain’t nobody got time for that.” And none of us have time for the drama and distractions. We have far too much work to do.
When Jesus and I finally sit down together, and I would be willing to bet my life on this; He isn’t going to ask me if I made fun of Joe Biden. He isn’t going to ask me if I quoted Donald Trump more than His command to love. He isn’t going to ask me if I screamed at school board members about mask mandates. He isn’t going to ask me if I yelled at people who did or didn’t get the COVID vaccine. He isn’t going to ask me if I held up signs to fight people crossing our borders.
He isn’t going to ask me if I put His name on a flag with anyone else’s name.
He’s going to ask if I fed enough people. He’s going to ask if I did enough to help the needy. He’s going to ask if I was kind to immigrants. He’s going to ask if I went above being kind to immigrants, and He’s going to ask if I stood up for them, and helped feed, clothe and nurture them. He’s going to ask if I stood up for the minorities and the horrific ways they are mistreated.
He’s going to ask if I put others above myself.
““The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’” - Matthew 25:40 (NIV)
We have a job to do, and that job is to love all of His people.
Our job is not to climb up on a high horse and say we are better American citizens than someone else striving to become an American. Our job is not to stand up on a soapbox and scream words of hate and judgment to the hurting world around us.
Sometimes we need to remove the angry, bitter distractions in our lives so our heads and hearts are better prepared to love. Because what we do for “the least of these brothers and sisters,” we do for Jesus.