Posted by
PK on Friday, October 06, 2006 3:48:18 PM
I think God can take the most horrific human sin and circumstances and teach a lesson to humanity. Some people when they see horrific human suffering, circumstances, and conditions ask themselves, how could God allow such things to happen? Free will is a wonderful thing. Free will is a horrible thing. At the most extreme, when a person’s free will meets their sinful nature we see it played out in scenarios like Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. God did not allow this to happen. An individual, through their own choice, elected to perpetrate this act. No amount of laws, rules, guidelines, restrictions, or regulations can eliminate the two things that will forever cause humanity problems, free will and a sinful nature. Many in congress may feel that if they only regulate enough things in enough ways they will create a utopia where nothing like this could ever happen. I’ve got news for our congressmen, your wasting your time. The Amish have two simple rules. Love your God with all your heart, and love your neighbor as yourself. Everything they are and everything they do is measured against this yardstick.
Look at it this way. If you run a business you want to make as much profit as possible. In order to do so you have programs, projects, and initiatives designed to drive revenue up and expenses down. When you are considering a new project, or activity you measure it against that yardstick. Will what I am about to do drive revenue up and/or expenses down? Similarly, it strikes me that the Amish, when faced with opportunities to create more “human profit”, measure the activity against their yardstick. Much of what they reject, that the rest of America wallows in, are distractions toward fulfilling their two simple rules.
The material and selfish behavior, that is at the heart of the American experience, flies in the face of what the Amish hold true. Sadly, as the years go by America slides further away of what it once held true.
In the days after the tragic event in Pennsylvania, I found myself looking up and reading much about the Amish people and their community. I read about their simple life, love for the land, support of one another, thankfulness of all things they have, and love of God. So, in this tragedy we now see the lesson that God is trying to teach. Take a moment and compare your life against the Amish example. What you will find, as I have, is that we fall painfully short of doing the things and acting in ways that glorify God and love and support one another. My prayer is that everyone should own an Amish yardstick.