Thursday, June 30, 2011

June 30th- Losing Faith in People

I'll preface this shortly. A lot of times I see things that are so incredibly selfish that I have to stop and think to myself, "Really!?!" Sometimes it's in the form of big things, and other times it's in the form of small things, like a young man refusing to give up his seat for the old lady on the bus (which might not seem like much of an issue, but the bus drivers here in Peru drive in such a way that you hold onto the hanging rail for your life as they whip from street to street). It's one thing to see things like this every once in while, but in reality selfishness is the norm, and genuine acts of kindness are so rare that it's easy to forget that they exist. With this reality, it can be pretty easy to lose faith in people as a whole.

The Bible tells us that God loved and valued people so much that he gave his one and only son for us. We are called to see people through God's eyes, which means we see them as people who are so loved that Jesus died for them. The only problem is that the majority of the time, people act out of selfishness (ie, lie, cheat, steal, etc.). When this happens continually, it's easy to lose faith in people in general. You see it in the lives of people who claim, in one form or another, that because they have God in their life, they can survive on their own (ignore church, walk their faith alone, give up on people who aren't Christians, etc.). There's only one problem with this: It's God's plan to renew the world.

If we lose faith in people, we lose faith in the fact that they can be redeemed. If we lose faith that people can be redeemed, we lose faith that God can do what He says He is going to do. If we lose faith that God can do what He says He will do, we lose faith in God.

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