Tiny Devotional for Thursday, 07-29-2021

 A great good morning to all my friends and neighbors in Internet Land! And to family members who have dropped by, have a salad.

When the righteous increase, the people rejoice,
But when a wicked person rules, people groan.
The righteous is concerned for the rights of the poor;
The wicked does not understand such concern.
Proverbs 29:2,7 NASB


I wish I could peacefully ignore politics, but the text isn’t giving me that option.

If I look at the news feeds, I get the impression that people have verse 2 in mind, but have twisted it slightly to read:

“I’m groaning, so a wicked person must be ruling.”

It doesn’t work like that. Americans have always groaned about the head of state. After George Washington, blaming the other party for every sort of bad thing became the national pastime. In 1800, Adams was called a sissy, and Jefferson an atheistic miscegenist. Skipping forward to my lifetime, I recall 1960’s rumors that  Kennedy planned to let black people go to school with us, and have a vivid memory of seeing LBJ’s 1964 campaign ad “Daisy,” which promised a nuclear holocaust if Goldwater was elected.

Do not get down in that mud and wrestle with that pig! Everyone winds up dirty, when blaming is the game.

Verse 7 gives us a positive basis for evaluation: concern with the rights of the poor. 

Unfortunately, this conversation has been warped into a blame game, too. Here’s how I responded to this approach:

 “Don’t blame ME for a racist society! My family never owned slaves!”

I never transmitted malaria by biting anyone, either; but I can still be concerned about 400,000 deaths annually, mostly children and pregnant women. (Skye Jethani)

Leave blaming behind, and let’s solve problems.


Peace be on your household.

Comments

  1. S'milinJuly 29, 2021 at 8:48 AM

    Just go there, won’t you?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Habakkuk21July 29, 2021 at 8:53 AM

      Don't know, man. I might lose my exalted place in the minds f the people.

      Delete

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