The Heart Of The Problem
Friday in the First Week of Lent
My dear encountered couples:
Jesus lays out for us the heart of the world’s problems. Human Relationships! The way people treat one another makes for either a pleasant life or an unpleasant one. It is as simple as that.
We worry about natural disasters — floods, fires, hurricanes, earthquakes. I would rather go through all of them every year than live with a person who is always angry, critical, and trying to make me think and live their way. The reason for wars between countries and disputes between family members is the unwillingness to treat one another with understanding and respect. Human relationships need serious doctoring.
Since nearly the beginning of the creation of man and woman, certainly since Cain and Abel, human relationships have been the major cause of problems in the world and in our homes. It is not only families that pray, or play, or eat together that stay together in a pleasant atmosphere, it is families that respect the differences, the uniqueness, even the strangeness and oddity of each and every member of the household. Let’s face it. We all are unusual in some ways.
We all have characteristics that seem odd to others. Until we accept the craziness in each other, the eccentricities, the peculiarities, all our many unusual ways, even though we cannot understand no matter how hard we try, we will never get along and live in peace. If God had created all of us to think the same way, do the same things, and in the same way, what a bore we would find each other to be! Jesus says, “Cut out the anger, the fighting, and the name calling.” If we don’t, life will not only be like hell here, it will definitely be hell in the here-after. Our relationships, that’s what we need to work on.
