July 9

“Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God.”  I John 4:7  NLT

While the news and social media hold a harsh mirror to events in our world and in our country, the expected norm of loving and caring for one another is not deemed newsworthy. Could you imagine the length of the evening newscast if every act of kindness in your own city was reported? Every smile? Every donation of time and money? Every bent ear? Every helping hand? Instead, we are inundated with reports of inhumane acts, acts that are driven by the opposite of love. And often the response is not love, but more fear and retaliation.

I believe we know what we know. Dogs who know care, protection, and comfort respond with devotion and happiness. Dogs who know abuse, fear, and deprivation become aggressive or withdrawn.

Humans are much more complicated, but much of the same reasoning applies. Those who only know darkness and fear will find a way of coping whether it is illness, denial, or revenge. People who have the opportunity to see the power of love have a responsibility to perpetuate it. Otherwise, they risk allowing others to remain in the recesses of the darkened world. In other words, we influence what other people know.

The individual life of a dog is relatively easy to understand historically. How it is raised, nurtured, and trained produces the desired nature. There is, in addition, the factor of breeding to help predict temperament. But people more and more are sharing a social consciousness, one that is stripping away the luxury of isolation. Unless every one of us responds in love, even sacrificial love, then we have chosen to allow evil to win in some form in our society, and it will eventually consume us.

Father, help me to know Your love, to share Your love, to bring others into Your light.