I was listening to early morning talk radio when a caller made me say “yes. Thank you for reminding us all.” The topic was the Great Question of Why is the World and the Country Going the Way it Is and What Can We Do? His response was something I’ve written about before.

We can be kind. Really, truly kind. We can be Christlike. We can show love.

Sadly, an oft-repeated response to this attitude is “thoughts and prayers are useless! It’s not that simple. Pollyanna! We need ACTION! We need new laws! We need a revolution! We need…” something.

We need God.

Really, truly, that’s all we need.

We need God because we are humans, and are broken, imperfect beings. Our society used to recognize this. The problem is that we no longer do. Everywhere we look, we are being told that the world is filled with victims, and “it’s not their fault.” We are told that we deserve XYZ. We’re told that entry level and part time positions deserve a “living wage.” We’re told it’s OK for some to do all the work and others to do none. For some, nothing is their fault; for others, it seems like everything is their fault! We’re told we can be “part of the problem, or part of the solution.”

And then we’re told – by someone or a multitude of someones – how we should fix it. We need to support X, agree with Y, take a class, put a sticker on our car and stand in solidarity with the Thing Of The Week!

Frankly, it’s exhausting.

Whatever happened to simple kindness? Whatever happened to treating people as you’d like to be treated?

Whatever happened to loving our Creator with whole heart, soul and being, and loving our neighbors as ourselves? Sounds overly simple? Are you thinking of “well, I do that, but as for these OTHER PEOPLE….” You’re missing the point.

None of us can change the world…yet we ALL can change the world.

See God in every person you encounter, for God is there. (I know, sometimes God is hard to see in certain people!!) It’s difficult; we are often stressed and rushed. But if we take the attitude that “these other people will NEVER do that!” then we’ve already lost.

Is there so much going on in our minds, in our lives, and on that blasted phone that we don’t have God present in every breath?

If we did, we might pass on that spark of peace to someone else, and you never know what effect that will have.

All any of us can “control” is ourselves – and that’s hard enough. We are misguided when we think that just one more regulation, one more law, one more company or organization, one more control, one more governmental program, more money, a bigger budget, etc. etc. etc. will make things better. These are lies and false promises, and I’m not being political here – this is spiritual warfare. “Good vs. evil” may be trite, so think of it as “God focused living” vs. “Hate focused living” if you like.

It’s not always easy. We can be going along peaceably, being kind, and then the customer non-service representative with some company sends us into a meltdown (I’m guilty). We can be accosted by a neighbor demanding we sign a petition / trim a tree branch / get rid of the dog. We can tune into media and be blamed for something we have no idea what they’re even talking about….

This is where we really need God. I can’t do much of anything about those situations – except try to inject some love and Christlike action into the situation. Will it change things? You never know. Maybe one time in a hundred it will…but that’s a start.

Change starts small. Let it begin with me.