Cultural Myopia

Sometimes it is a simple truth that works like a soothing salve on a wounded heart. The Bible verse in Psalm 31 is that “soothing salve” for me.

Perhaps like you, friend, when I peruse my daily “inbox” of emails, the current events news catches my eye and demands my attention. Like driving past a wreck on the highway, my human curiosity cannot help but be drawn to the carnage forbidding me to look away. Finding encouraging news articles to read has become harder and harder.

So, how do we face the “Breaking News” as the ding alerts rattle our phones? Is our world really polarized beyond any hope of finding common ground from which to start a conversation? Families with generational diversity find themselves unable to discuss current issues without yelling or the opposite, shutting down any conversation when complete agreement with one side of an argument or the other cannot be met.

Is there a remedy? While I cannot promise an easy solution that will solve every issue demanding attention and that divides humanity, spending time with the LORD in quiet helps me to see chaos from a different perspective. For those of us who need eyeglasses to see the world clearly, sitting down with God and reading His Word is like putting on our spiritual “glasses;” everything happening around us when seen through God’s lens of truth becomes clearer.

Human conflicts are not new; they just come packaged in soundbites that reflect the modern culture. Satan has been hard at work since the beginning of creation to wreak as much havoc as possible before his time runs out. “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places” (Ephesian 6:12, NKJV).

However, put on your “spiritual glasses!” Jesus tells us, “These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world” (John 16:33, emphasis mine, NKJV).

The problem is Satan. The remedy is Jesus!