Our Safety or Our Compassion?

   Yes, I watch the news, and I read the news (and the opinions on the news).

   But it is hard to put it all in perspective. It is hard to know how to think about all that is said and presented. I stay:

      Confused

      Conflicted

      Concerned

   Not only about the actual news, but how I should think about it, and how I should respond to it.

   I confess that a lot of the time I just want to turn it all off and live in my own small world.

   I want to treat the world and its people like I did the basketball game I had taped a couple of nights back.

   Being busy at the time it was played, I put it on DVR, so I could decide later to watch if I wanted to. Not having time in the later evening hours to get to it, I went to bed. While eating breakfast the next morning, I checked the scores in the paper, found out my team had won, and decided to watch the end to see how it played out. I knew I would not be disappointed with the ending.

   But there is no way to record the results of some opinion on the news, or even the facts of the news as they play out over the next days, months and years. The future is not ours to see.

   I want to live in the present.

   I want my attitudes to reflect right thinking.

   I want to be in tune with God's will and think accordingly. God's will for events in the world, but also His will for my thinking.

   Let's take a hot button issue right now, one the pundits are all over.

   Refugees and Immigration: First of all, I have grown to hate those pictures of the southern border wall, or fence, or whatever. That just does not seem right as a symbol of our country. It is downright ugly.

   I understand the reason for it, lawlessness and safety, but I don't much like it.

   Reading a piece on the Internet yesterday about refugees, those people looking for a better life, a safer life, for themselves and their families, especially children, I found the author basically presenting two viewpoints, referring to those from Middle Eastern areas.

   Protecting our Country or Helping those that are vulnerable

   Now, I know that these two things do not have to be mutually exclusive, they can both be guiding principles. They don't have to be an "either/or" deal.

   Our Safety or Our Compassion. Which are we more concerned with? Which am I?

   I know I am simplifying the whole situation, and I sure do not want to be the person in D.C. in charge, or advising the one in the Oval Office, but I remember a verse:

   Micah 6:8…."I shall tell thee, ye people, what is good, and what the Lord asketh of thee; and that is, to act rightly, or with justice, and to love mercy/and to love mercifully, and to be busy,or committed, to walk with thy God."

   And how to flesh that out in these times and these events. For those who have the responsibility to act, and those of us who only watch.

   We all need His Eternal Guidance