Just Between You, Me, & God

October is National Anti-Bullying Month here in the US, and we will be spending this week posting about bullying and persecution. We hope that you will be blessed by what you read.

What scares you? There are a lot of different phobias out there. Arachnophobia is the fear of spiders, they’re alright to look at, I just don’t want them crawling on me. Cibophobia is the fear of food, anybody that knows me knows that food has a fear of me; it’s just not safe when I’m around. Then there is social phobia, the fear of people. At first look this might seem kind of silly but for more and more people it is a very real and serious fear. Week after week we hear of more and more cases of bullying at school and in neighborhoods. Kids are scared to go to school, they get physically sick, and sadly, some even resort to suicide in order to avoid the fear of being bullied. I remember as a kid, walking across the playground while a couple of boys threw rocks at me. None hit me but I was praying for protection. Unfortunately, some bullies grow up and continue to bully, only we give it an adult name, we call abusing. Physical, emotional, and verbal abuse for adults is rising at as fast a pace as it is for children. It happens at home, at work, while shopping, and on the road. When I was a ministry leader with Celebrate Recovery we heard a lot of testimonies that dealt with people who grew up under the heavy hand of abuse and bullying from family or strangers and even friends. A common theme in most instances is that “hurt people, hurt people.” At first this may sound strange but people who themselves have been hurt or abused are more likely to hurt and abuse others. Those who have been bullied truly need help dealing with what they went through and encouragement to overcome but you don’t keep water from going over a cliff by building a dam at the bottom, you have to go upstream and stop the flow of water before it reaches the edge. We need to look at the root cause of what is causing the bully to act this way and then work on changing their situation. In Matthew 5:43- 48 Jesus instructs us, “You have heard the law that says, ‘Love your neighbor’ and hate your enemy. But I say, love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you! In that way, you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven. For he gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and he sends rain on the just and the unjust alike. If you love only those who love you, what reward is there for that? Even corrupt tax collectors do that much. If you are kind only to your friends, how are you different from anyone else? Even pagans do that. But you are to be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.” Knowing that God loves us all is a starting point that needs to be pursued constantly on both sides of this dilemma. Praying for you all, Pastor Dean.