A WORD FOR TODAY, October 22, 2024
Peggy Hoppes
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Blessings. Peg
A WORD FOR TODAY, October 22, 2024
“One man esteems one day as more important. Another esteems every day alike. Let each man be fully assured in his own mind. He who observes the day, observes it to the Lord; and he who does not observe the day, to the Lord he does not observe it. He who eats, eats to the Lord, for he gives God thanks. He who doesn’t eat, to the Lord he doesn’t eat, and gives God thanks. For none of us lives to himself, and none dies to himself. For if we live, we live to the Lord. Or if we die, we die to the Lord. If therefore we live or die, we are the Lord’s. For to this end Christ died, rose, and lived again, that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living. But you, why do you judge your brother? Or you again, why do you despise your brother? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of Christ. For it is written, ‘“As I live,” says the Lord, “to me every knee will bow. Every tongue will confess to God.”’ So then each one of us will give account of himself to God.” Romans 14:5-12, WEB
We ended family vacations when the children were young with the question, “What was your favorite part of this trip?” It is always a hard question to answer, but I asked Bruce on our way home. Neither one of us could come up with just one thing. My enjoyment has continued as I have gone through my five thousand photos, posting on my personal page some of my favorites. I’m made dozens of posts, each focused on some specific topic; if you asked me which were my favorites, I’d still have a hard time answering. I loved our animal encounters, the sunrises and sunsets, and the waterfalls. I’m still working through my photos of the local flora and interesting features in the parks. I loved the whole trip, and I don’t think I could come up with a top ten list, let alone one favorite.
Many people love to create Top Ten lists. They choose a topic then pick their top ten of that topic. Some of the choices don’t make much sense to me. On one list which wondered which songs could be used to torture someone, the choices were favorite songs or favorite artists. “How could that song torture anyone?” we wonder. Some of my favorite songs are despised by others, and vice versa. We all have our own personal opinions about what is best; we all make our own top ten lists.
We read these lists, which are not in any way official, and wonder what sort of scientific methodology they used to come up with it. We listen to replays of Casey Kasem’s American Top Forty shows from the 1980’s on Sunday mornings. The American Top Forty lists were based on record sales from the previous week. The top National Parks can be identified based on the number of visitors. The top ten baby names are based on recorded birth certificates. But the top ten most annoying songs is based on purely personal opinion. We always wonder how they could leave out our favorite. It is funny to hear people argue about whether one cartoon character is better than another. The answer to this question, in reality, is dependent on a person’s point of view. Someone may love a hard rock group while someone else gets a headache from the heavy base in the music. Someone may love the dance beat of one group while someone else may find that same beat annoyingly simple.
The choices are based on experiences and emotions. We all have songs that we either love or hate because of the events with which we identify them. I know that some will make fun of me for this, but I like disco music because of the memories it brings on. I remember disco dancing in the basement of a friend’s house, and I remember having such a good time. Songs evoke powerful emotions, sometimes happy, bringing back good memories. We might like or hate a song because they come from times of sadness or anger. Music even affects our bodies in different ways. Some songs actually make my head hurt. If you found one of those songs and used it to torture me, I would break quickly just to make it stop. Yet, those very songs are probably someone’s favorites.
Which villain is really the meanest? I might think Cruella de Vil is the meanest villain because she threatens cute little puppies. Or I might think Dr. Hannibal Lector is the meanest because he is so cruel psychologically. Our top ten list of evil people will depend on our idea of evil. Our deepest, darkest fears and the things we love the most will show as we place first those villains that use that fear and love to do their evil work.
Needless to say, it is ridiculous to argue over which movies, videogames, food mascots, books, television moms, or anything else belong on any top ten list. My choices will naturally be different than your lists. It almost seems silly to create these lists, although they are fun ways of making people think about life. When a famous person dies, remembering their best movies or songs is one way of honoring their memory. Favorite book lists help others find new books to read. Looking at the top ten list of food mascots helps us to realize how the advertisers use cute, or not so cute, characters to make us want to purchase their products.
If we can’t agree which cartoon character is the cutest, it is no wonder that we can’t see the things of faith in the same way. Not only will we have different points of view about religious things based on experience and emotions, but also based on our gender, geographic location, and even how long we have been a Christian. A newly converted adult will see the things of God in a different way than a person who has been part of a church since childhood. We have even seen things differently through the stages of our life. A child sees with innocence, a teenager with the aggression of impending independence, a young mother through the eyes of hope for her child, a middle-aged father as he’s facing the final years of his life, an elderly couple as they live out their faith with a new hope for what will be in eternity. So, as we look at our brothers and sisters in Christ, it is good to remember that they see the world through different eyes. Rather than judge them for their “top ten list,” we can love one another as Christ loved us.
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