Life comes according to the promise of God, according to the rules. We often think that we want life according to our rules, but when I look around, we keep messing things up, right? In many ways, culture today is more free than it ever has been. And yet, you don't get the idea that people are happier than ever, do you? There seems to be more stress and more anxiety than ever, even though many people have the chance to define things according to their own set of rules. This could probably turn into an essay, but to keep things short, I think it's fair to say we're able to set our own rules in many ways, but there is so much conflict and so much strife.
When we ask for life according to God's rules, we can know that those rules lead to peace. God talked about the lion laying down with the lamb. God showed us pictures of peace -- Jesus spent time with the elite of society as well as the very poor, telling and showing all a picture of God's kingdom where there was no more strife and no more conflict.
So when we encounter strife and conflict in culture, it should do two things. The first is to remind us that this is not the way it should be, not life according to God's rules, and the other is to stir us to think about how we should interact in such a way that leads away from conflict and into ways of peace. This is hard, especially when everyone is so primed for conflict, but how can we be gracious and non-anxious influences in our spheres, that we may point to a different definition of life that helps people thrive?
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