When I was 13, I stood up at a local meeting of the board of education and voiced my concerns over removing religious references out of holiday displays. I come from a small, rural community and it wasn’t uncommon to see a manger scene or sing Silent Night at Christmas in a school setting. I didn’t agree with the idea of having these references removed and felt that as a member of the student body I was entitled to an opinion. There were a couple of reporters in the audience and so I later read in print the words I said that night.
I was a fairly articulate 13-year-old, but still a 13-year-old. Yet, that didn’t make a difference with some. Long before anonymous comments, there were letters to the editor. Several were written about my statements and some were not so nice. Although a little upset, I realized early on that people will not like what you have to say regardless of how you say it or even who says it.
That didn’t matter to me for many years, but over time I began to silence my voice. If my opinion wasn’t part of the popular majority, what I said was thought to be uneducated or prejudiced or out of some hate. It didn’t matter the topic. It could have been something related to a public policy or a spiritual matter or why remaking Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory was a bad, bad idea. I grew up debating issues with family members and classmates. There was an unspoken requirement that your arguments needed to be researched and analyzed critically (as much as possible dependent upon your age). I was used to having conversations where you would listen to each other, maybe alter your opinion some, but if not, you were able to agree to disagree and truly mean it.
Those days no longer exist. So I found my voice becoming quieter and quieter until I no longer offered an opinion to anyone outside my inner circle. But my inner 13-year-old has been yearning to be stretched a little and so I write this post.
There’s a lot going in the world today. There’s been a lot going on in my own personal world as well. Decisions are being made on a daily basis. I don’t always agree with them – those made by the people I love and those being made by people I don’t know but that have a lot of bearing on society. I will not write about what decisions I agree with or don’t agree with – you are not part of my inner circle. But I do want to say this – on those issues that I disagree with you or the majority/minority, it’s out of love that I disagree.
We use the word love a lot. We all have our individual definitions of love – I choose to use 1 Corinthians 13 as the basis for my definition.
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. (NIV)
It’s a beautiful definition of love, but there’s a part of love that is often overlooked. Look again at verse 6: Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. Using this definition – if I truly love someone, I can’t get excited when someone makes an evil decision. Evil evokes strong thoughts and are usually associated with the most vile of activities. But the Greek word for evil is adikia which means unrighteousness, as in a violation of God’s standards which brings divine disapproval. Therefore, if I truly love you – I can’t celebrate your actions when you violate what I believe is one of God’s standards.
I understand that everyone has their own opinions about what God’s standards are. There are things that I think are violations that you may disagree with and vice versa. Again, I’m not here to argue what those differences may or may not be. I just want to say that when disagreements happen, it’s not out of hatred or lack of education or bias or trying to interfere in someone’s choices. It’s simply out of a conviction of love.
Authentic Hope 