hatred

Vile

Valerie Cullers 7 Comments

“Vile – Loathsome, disgusting,” The American Heritage Dictionary

Have you ever been at a campground and turned on a spigot, and brown water came out? You take one look at it, and you say, “Vile.” There is no way that you want to take that water into your body. It is polluted, and you know if you drink it, you will probably get sick.

It’s the same way with people. We come into contact with someone who is spouting negative and hurtful words, and we react the same way. We recoil and think in our minds, “Vile. That person is saying some very bad things, and I don’t want to take them into my mind. The things the person is saying are polluted.“

I was listening to a man speak, and he shared some videos of people who are openly antisemitic in the public forum. I heard one man deny the veracity of the holocaust and others promote conspiracy theories about the control that Jewish people have in the world. When I heard these people speak, I just thought, “Vile…what these people are saying is downright vile.”

I am from the generation of children whose parents fought in World War II. I remember the pictures of the death camps and the absolute horror of the soldiers who came upon them at the end of the war. The world was shocked, and you can bet that the holocaust was real. If it wasn’t, do you think the UN would have ever partitioned off the land of Israel and given it to the Jews?

What bothers me the most is that this is the kind of rhetoric that was floated in Germany by the Nazis in the 1930s. They used it to poison the minds of the populace against the Jews. The very same thing is being done today in our country. I don’t care if you are on the right or the left. The haters want to make you hate the Jewish race. For those of us who have studied history and seen what it can do, there is no word for it other than vile.

We must learn to not hate any ethnic group of people. When we do, we demean them, make them subhuman, and the next step is to stand by while people try to destroy them. Let us not give credence to those who trumpet this kind of hatred. It is vile, polluted, and it will sicken the soul of anyone who takes it into their hearts and minds.

“Watch over your heart with all diligence, For from it flow the springs of life.” Proverbs 4:23

Photo by Steve Buissine. Courtesy of Pixabay

Heart Check

Valerie Cullers 10 Comments

“Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.” 1 John 3:15

When I first read these words in the Bible, I thought they were a bit harsh. If you hate someone, you are a murderer? But I have reflected on these words a lot in the last ten days.

I was deeply saddened by the murder of Charlie Kirk. Let me tell you, I didn’t know who the man was. I had heard his name mentioned a few times, but that’s it. What saddened me was that he was killed because of his political and religious beliefs. I was also distressed by some of the reactions to his murder.

It seems to me there are not too many steps between hatred and murder. When we begin to hate someone, we naturally devalue them in our hearts. Their life matters little to us as we allow that hatred to grow and overtake us. Most of the time, we don’t murder them with a gun, but we can certainly assassinate their character with our words. We look at one person killing another and think, “I would never do that.”

But what is the real truth? Once we begin to hate someone, our heart begins to rot. We may think we are justified when we hate another person or group of people but the Lord doesn’t see it that way. He sees hatred for what it is, the antithesis of who He is and who He wants us to be.

Jesus told us, “to love our enemies” and “to pray for them who persecute you.” It is only love that will break the bondage of hatred in our hearts. As we pray for those we disagree with or have hurt us, we begin to see them for the flawed human beings they are. Their value goes up in our eyes. We also begin to see ourselves for the flawed humans we are.

Let us all do a “heart check.” Do we hate anyone or any group of people? If so, let’s ask the Lord to help us change our attitude. We can hate the things people do or say, but we are not supposed to hate them. We want God’s spirit (eternal life) abiding in us. And surprisingly, it is our willingness to pray for them that will usher in God’s grace and free our hearts from the bondage of hatred.

Photo by Mohamedgado15. Courtesy of Pixabay.

Contagion

Valerie Cullers 14 Comments

When I first saw the images of the attack on Israel, the first thing I thought was, “Hatred.” Yes, hatred is the contagion that drives these acts of violence. I have since watched the protests against Israel, many were carrying signs and slogans with horrible sayings on them against the Jewish people. Again, I thought, “Hatred.”

You see, every murder, every act of violence, every war springs from evil within the human heart. The motivation could be hatred, jealousy or greed but all of these acts spring from emotions hiding in the heart. In the case of the Israeli – Hamas War being conducted now, hatred is at the center of it all. People are taught to hate from the time they are little, and hatred pervades some people like a sick evil.

Like every other contagion, hatred is easy to assimilate into our bodies and souls. It is natural to pick up an offense and let it fester in our souls until it spews out of our mouths in some form of a derogatory comment. As a believer in Jesus Christ, I must fight the temptation to pick up this hatred in any form it comes to me. It could be in the aerosol of a newscast or in the germ of an article I read in the news.

I’ve thought a lot about what Jesus would have me do in relation to this conflict. Yes, I can choose sides, but I must choose not to hate. “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven.” Matthew 5: 43-45.

How do I do this? I can pray for mercy on the non-military population. I can pray that innocent civilians will not get hurt. I can pray for aid to reach those who need it. There are lots of things I can pray for those I believe are in the wrong. I can pray for a lasting peace and an end to hostilities. I can pray for good leadership. The list goes on. And most importantly, I can pray that the contagion of hate will not permeate my own heart and soul.

Image by Astral Ember. Courtesy of PIxabay.

A Matter of the Heart

Valerie Cullers 8 Comments

Like most Americans, I was shocked and grieved at the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas. The politicians (at long last) seem serious about helping solve the problem of gun violence in our schools. They are considering stricter gun and red flag laws, longer wait times for purchasing a gun, and deeper background checks. All of these sound good, but they are strictly defensive solutions to the problem.

You see, the real problem in all of these shootings is a heart problem. The shooter’s heart is filled with hate and self-loathing and he is going to take as many people with him in his desire to end his own life. Every other component in these situations is external to the shooter except for his own heart problem and mental instability. I would bet that every shooter suffers from some form of mental illness but with many of these shooters the problem lies deeper within them. It is about their heart.

Scripture states that “as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.” Proverbs 23:7 If all a person thinks about is their hatred of others, then that person becomes, by definition, a hate-filled person. Sooner or later, that hatred will surface. It will surface in ways that may seem non-violent, i.e., hateful words, or it may surface in ways that will hurt others physically. Every weekend, we watch as this hatred takes the lives of innocent people in our cities. We need to call it what it is: evil in its purest form.

Murder is evil, and mass murder is evil unleashed on an unsuspecting public. Why are so many of our young men committing these crimes? It’s simple, their hearts are filled with hatred, a form of evil. As society works on stopping these crimes, we must work together to change the environment this hatred grows in.

Each of us has a level of influence in our society. Are we contributing to a hate-filled atmosphere? Do we view others who do look like us or do not agree with us politically as our enemy and do we hate them in our hearts? Do we listen to news shows that just stoke the hatred? If so, we need to stop. We can begin with ourselves and be determined to not contribute to the problem. We must truly learn to love our neighbors as ourselves if we want to change the atmosphere in this country. And it must not matter if our neighbor is not racially, ethnically or politically in line with us, we must learn to love others. If we do learn to love them that love will spread and the atmosphere in our cities will change.

When God Weeps…

Valerie Cullers 25 Comments

candlelight candles

Photo by Irina Anastasiu on Pexels.com

This weekend another eleven innocent lives were taken at a Jewish Synagogue in Pittsburgh. We feel shocked and saddened by another act of senseless violence committed by a person filled with hatred. We seek for answers and we find none. We want to blame someone and so we lash out at whoever we feel is responsible for this terrible crime.

star-of-david-278820_640photo by kahln/courtesy of Pixabay.

Regardless of who we think is responsible, or what laws we think have allowed this tragedy to happen, we all must look deep inside our own hearts. If we want the hatred and division to stop in our society, we must take an inventory of ourselves and start there.

Haters hate because they want to. They don’t need any help hating; they just need someone to hate. They will find an outlet for their hate, and it will make them feel justified in their hearts. We all have to ask ourselves if we are becoming part of the problem of hatred and division in this country.

No matter where we are on the political spectrum, are we being sucked into a culture of anger and hatred? Do we feel justified in allowing ourselves to demonize those of another political or religious persuasion? Have we been manipulated by the pundits to view others as enemies instead of people with differing opinions or beliefs?

Each of us must examine our own hearts. None of us are justified in hating others because of the color of their skin or because of their religious or political affiliation. We must take a few steps back and reject rhetoric when we hear others trying to divide us and keep us apart from each other.

Let’s all stop becoming part of the problem and become part of the solution.

“If you take away the yoke from your midst,

the pointing of the finger, and speaking wickedness,

If you extend your soul to the hungry,

And satisfy the afflicted soul,

Then your light shall dawn in the darkness,

And your darkness shall be as the noonday.”

Isaiah 58: 9 – 10 (NKJV)