There were plenty of headlines to choose from this morning....Terror in the Streets of Boston...many that warn of graphic scenes. However, this is the one I chose... Boston Marathon explosions attract an outpouring of help from city's residents. I wanted to read about the good in this world, not the evil. But in a world where we are afraid to send our children to school or take public transportation...where evil lurks in our government and in our churches, sometimes it can be hard to see the good. But it is there. It is more abundant than we realize, it's just that we tend to allow it to be overshadowed by the bad.
Casting Crowns has written a song, Jesus, Friend of Sinners. The words speak loudly to me...of me. How many times have I been the righteous one ready to cast the first stone? I especially like the line, "the world is on its way to you, but it's tripping over me." It resonates in my soul, reminding me that I am but a sinner.
Mahatma Gandhi is quoted as saying, "Be the change you wish to see in the world". I understand that what he really said was, “If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also
change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the
world change towards him. ... We need not wait to see what others do.” Hmm...it still works for me. But if you are a stickler for technicalities, how about this one: "You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean: if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty." ~Mahatma Gandhi
There is evil in our world. There is no denying that. But our world is not evil.
Like Abraham pleading for his people, we must plea for our world. But as we do, we need to be careful to not forget the plank in our eye.
A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history. ~Mahatma Gandhi
