Guard Your Hearts Against Prejudice of Any Kind

Several things are on my mind this morning. While they have wildly different sources, they all have one thing in common: prejudice.

I'm studying Esther using the Bible study by Beth Moore. It's just wonderful. This week, we're studying how Haman, a servant of the King, could hate Jews so much as to appeal to King Xerxes to have them all annihilated. The comparison to Hitler in our own day is not hard to see.

In my genealogical research, I have again come upon the possibility that a family had a Native American ancestor. It makes for a very hard puzzle when the ancestor took on an English name. When Congress voted on the Indian Removal Act of 1830, Native Americans were forced to move west, and their land was taken and given to European Americans by lottery.

I just can't imagine this kind of prejudice: you live next door to someone who's "different" in some way. Suddenly, a law is passed that means they are going to lose everything--possibly even their life--just because they are different. A particular day is coming when they are going to be removed... erased... pillaged, killed and annihilated.

In Esther's day, messengers were dispatched throughout the Persian Kingdom with the decree.

Hitler rounded the Jews up into ghettos and then straight to the camps.

The US Congress ordered the US military to remove the Native Americans in what one soldier called "the cruelest work" he ever knew. Thousands died in what we now call "The Trail of Tears."

Annihilations like this are not new--nor are they finished. We've seen it over and over again with Iran and the Kurds, Rwanda, former Yugoslavia. Very recently, we see it in Orissa, India, where members of the Hindu population are prosecuting Christians, Darfur, and the horrible haulocaust happening in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

How can this happen? We all cry out this at some point. How can a civilized country try to annihilate an entire group of people? How much hate can be born?

And that is the essence of the problem: hate. Not one person reading this and not the person typing it are innocent of hatred. Jesus said that if you hate someone you're already guilty of murder and that's pretty much the sum of it. It is such a baby step from hate to murder... so hard for us to imagine yet so easy of us to digress.

Who do we hate? We hate pedophiles. Sure this is a group of people who are not innocent. That's an easy one for us to admit. Who else?

We hate illegal immigrants, mostly Hispanic. Introduce into the debate illegal immigrants from Canada or Europe and we're far more understanding. How easy would it be for a dictator to appear on the scene in the US and demand that all illegal immigrants should be sent to concentration camps? The day is ripe for this, but make no mistake, it is as heinous a crime as Hitler himself committed.

After September 11, we were very careful that no one begin malignant feelings against all Muslims. Yet we know in our hearts, a dictator could choose them as his or her target. Just as Jews have been targeted, so could Muslims... even Christians, atheists or pagans could face possible destruction.

Where hatred has created the arid environment of apathy and anger, anyone could light the match that begins the flames of genocide.

Please hear me at how small this step is! Guard your hearts today! Keep all prejudice--all anger--all hatred--and especially, all talk of an "us verses them" mentality--keep it away from your heart.

This is how we make a better world.