Rising Above

Our lives are constantly being filled with opposing opinions on all matters pertaining to life. This has become a place where anger and frustration breed their offspring of division and hatred. The way forward through this morass of opinion and heated emotion will never be discovered by our unending participation in the back and forth of a mean-spirited and dishonoring debate. Great leaders in our history have risen above these cultural tug-of-wars and shown us another way – an upward way.

Some in the Church seem to live for the next hot-button issue to appear to give them a sense of purpose. This division has created an industry fueled by a never-ending supply of divisive topics. Just wait until the NFL issue has passed us by. The next issue is already in the pipeline waiting to meet our undisciplined emotions.  This is not taking place only in the Church. It has embedded itself in our national dialogue. It fuels the existence of our media and emotionally caffeinates our day. We have become junkies waiting for the mainline experience of the next hot topic.

What can a person do? You can begin to listen to the voices that rise above this on-going and never-ending battle of opinion. These gifted ones can see the good on both sides of an issue. They refuse to throw the baby out with the bath water.  They bring to the table tangible solutions and blueprints from Heaven not considered by those who have been deafened by the artillery barrage of our heated debates. These are the cultural apostles God gives as gifts to a divided Church and a confused culture.  They deliver to us the blueprints for another option.

When these voices begin to speak the truth in love they will pay a price. Those who assumed they were pulling from their end of the debate rope will now call them traitors. Those on the other side will distance themselves in suspicion like the early believers did with Paul after his Damascus Road experience. This is a time in our history that requires the courage to let go of the tug-of-war rope of debate and look up. Heaven is delivering supernatural blueprints that will offer us a better way forward that will help us see our higher calling.