One of the various activities that I do in my free time is help teach youth Sunday school classes at church, specifically the junior high age boys. I will admit. Those kids are crazy. They seem to have a constant stream of energy that I do not remembering having at their age. There is always lots of, "Please find a place to sit down and stay there." Anyway, I always enjoy getting to teach their class because it gives me the opportunity to teach them real lessons that no one ever bothered to teach me. One those lessons has to do with people.
People. We hate them. They annoy us. We think they are stupid. It seems we always have an opinion, and yet no patience for, other people. But on the inside, aren't we all the same? Human nature has been a hot topic for thousands of years. The common characteristics that every human being holds deep down inside of us have been the subject of art, literature, and theories throughout history. Philosopher Thomas Hobbs said that all humans are inherently bad, and when left to our own devices will turn to evil. John Locke said the exact opposite. He said that humans are inherently good, and that the goodness in all of us will always win out in the end.
This outlook on others matters more than we think. When we accept that all humans are bad, we expect the worst out of them. We bottle ourselves up, and hold back at all costs. We quit trusting people. We keep people that should be close to us at arms length. Most importantly though, we quit loving.
I tell these kids that they are reaching an age where they will start to realize that people are not what they always seem. People they consider friends will turn out to be no friends at all. The boyfriend or the girlfriend they are so in love with will break their heart. Situations like that turn us off to people. They make us feel as if there is no reason to invest in other people, But I tell them to not be discouraged by that. Do not think that just because one person is bad that all our bad. Do not turn your heart into stone.
When people hurt us and cause us to bottle ourselves up, it not only hurts us but others as well. When we no longer give out trust, we keep that trust from someone who may need it. When we cease to be friendly, we keep that friendship from someone that needs a friend. When we stop loving other people, we can no longer give it to someone that is desperate for it. You never know who you may encounter that needs to know that someone truly cares.
I believe that all people are inherently good. That when you peel back all of our layers, that at our core we are merciful, graceful, joyful, and above all loving. I believe this because God is all of those things, and if we were truly created in His image then what would make us any different?
