This I know: that if something is happening to me, it is also happening somewhere else. Shortly after I posted a prayer last week about broken hearts and broken relationships, I experienced a huge and heartbreaking broken relationship with a very good friend An insider observed:
“It’s sad to see what we will allow to divide us.”
Checking with other friends, I’m finding that it’s a common problem. It’s not just differences of opinion anymore, about whether Critical Race Theory should be taught in schools, it’s not about whether you identify as a girl or a boy or something else, it’s not just whether Trump won the 2020 election or whether he is really a Christian, it’s not about such old differences as Roe v. Wade or whether Christ was God in a body or just a nice guy.
Now, families can be split into factions, family members can passionately yell at one another, and then they can unfriend each other on social media, all because of differences of opinion on Covid -- its prevention and treatment. I knew you could find yourself in Facebook jail. I knew you could be gaslighted by CNN or federal and state governments and agencies. I knew you could possibly find yourself fired from your job. But now families and best friends can find themselves on opposite sides of this argument, and be helplessly unable to continue talking to one another without hysterically accusing each other of intentional homicide.
Whatever happened to “We have agreed to disagree?” Why is it that all the recent articles and videos about Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers are talking about how terrible of a person he is because he sought out good advice on how to deal with his case of Covid and was feeling great in a few days, rather than following the official NFL protocol. Can’t we just talk about football?
In an interview on the Pat McAfee show, Rodgers said:
“If science can’t be questioned, it’s not science anymore; it’s propaganda and that’s the truth.”
Why all the hysteria? What’s the big deal?
This meme says it better than any other explanation I’ve seen. Bertrand Russell got things wrong -- including the Main Thing. He was a famous atheist. But this, he got right:
Is it becoming clearer?
Some voices shall not be heard,
because they’re not members of the herd.
And so, it is no longer a question of herd immunity, since this may never even be achieved, with new variants coming out regularly coupled with ineffective shots and immune erosion. No, and it maybe never really was about that. It’s about inciting the herd to stampede and trample those who think differently. In the book 1984, an exercise was described called the Three-Minute Hate. Those who hated less loudly or fiercely during this collective exercise were singled out for investigation by the Thought Police.
Fear is amplified when less oxygen reaches one’s brain. This holds true both for people who wear masks all day, and for people struggling to breathe in a hospital with Covid pneumonia. The fear factor is strong now in our country, and you see it in the eyes of the masked, when they get too close to someone with a naked face.
Still it’s nothing new -- Satan only has a few tricks up his sleeve and he keeps repeating them -- but fear and suspicion, leading to hate, has become the order of the day. Who would have thought we would be at the point of near Civil War over a recommended treatment plan for a disease?
But think back to what we’ve read in the Scriptures. How was it possible 2,000 years ago for a nation to progress from trying to forcibly make Jesus their king, to a near riot trying to get Him executed? Why did it seem acceptible, reasonable, and even urgent to demand clemency for Barrabas -- a convicted murderer and insurrectionist -- instead of Jesus, the Son of God? It was the herd, the mob mentality.
“Why are we doing this?”
“Because everybody else is.”
The problem with a stampeding herd is that those poor cattle don’t know where they’re going, and it is rarely going to turn out well for them, regardless of how badly it turns out for those in their path. Even if one cow could even notice that they were heading towards a cliff, the wild running of the rest would make stopping impossible.
What shall we do, in these days of fear?
We must be fearless, and no matter what the herd thinks of us, we must do what’s right. We must not be bullied into the unreasonable reasoning of the herd. Continue to think, to understand, to get the truth, and to be wise.
And then pray. Pray for the sick, pray for the widows and orphans, pray for those who persecute you, pray for reconciliation and restoration with those friends and family members who have rejected you, pray for those who are alone. And most especially, pray for God’s mercy on our wayward nation.
I began to check up on my friends, so many are getting Covid now. One in particular didn’t answer when I asked her how she was in a text. So I asked again and found out she wasn’t sick, just heartsick. She was all alone in a tyrannical state with no friends, family or even church family with the exception of her mother. Her church hadn’t had in-person services since March of 2020. Furthermore, she felt her mother had rejected her.
Ah, that I understood, having just had that experience myself. Yep, everything that happens to me happens for a reason. I had been musing about Jesus and the stampeding herd who wanted him crucified.
“He was despised and rejected of men,” the Bible says, “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.” And I knew Him as “The God Who Sees.”
So we shared our common experiences, encouraged ourselves in the Lord, and prayed for one another. And we remembered Proverbs 19:11:
"The discretion of a man makes him slow to anger, And his glory is to overlook a transgression."
The time on the phone was sweet.
Feelings of rejection from other people, especially when you feel outnumbered by the herd, can be devastating. But we have a Friend who sticks closer than a brother. He has promised never to leave us nor to forsake us. He has promised to be with us always, even till the end of the age. He did not come into the world to judge us, but so that we could be saved through Him.
JESUS CARES! We can be confident of that, fellow Christian! Never doubt it.
Finally, here’s the truth about ivermectin in a really short documentary Don’t look it up with a Google search or on YouTube. The truth has been shamelessly suppressed. But be aware, and pass it on. Oh … and read my last several blog posts.
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