When No Lives Matter

Darkness is present in the world and has been since the dawn of time. It's deceitful and sneaky. It creeps into people's lives unnoticed and disguises itself as anything but evil. It traps people in cages that are made to look cozy. It binds people in chains that look breakable but are as tough as steel. Evil is present, absolutely. But it isn't always noticed until finally it boils over, and the damage is already done.

It is this evil that leads mouths to curse and degrade others. It is what leads certain hearts to stop other hearts from beating. It isn't skin color, politics, or religion. It likes to take the form of those things, but at the end of the day it is just evil—plain and simple--which sneaks itself into a person's heart unnoticed, and seeks to destroy others. It doesn't care whom it is destroying, as long as it can destroy someone. It doesn't care who it uses as its instrument of destruction, and it will use anyone from any ethnicity and any position in any place in the world.

You can type your statuses, join your Facebook groups, and say "black lives matter" or "all lives matter," but the fact is that in many hearts, no lives matter at all. We are a world of selfishness. We are a people so accustomed to acts of violence that when we see any incident of it on our televisions, we know that it isn't the first time and it certainly won't be the last. We are accustomed to hatred, and we've grown lazy to driving it out because we've made ourselves believe that hatred is impossible to overcome. We've made ourselves believe that we have to be against each other. We've made ourselves forget what love looks like, and as a result, we've made it a reality that no one matters. No one at all.

We all have the option of being a light in a dark world, and most of us even vow that we will be, but then we turn around and slander our neighbor. We gossip about that person we don't like. We hide behind our computer screens and hurl insults at people because it's easy that way; at least then we don't have to face up to the hurt we've caused someone. We go on and on letting this hatred grow within us, and it grows ever so slightly that it's unnoticed, until it finally boils over and the damage is done.

Satan enjoys being the author of lies. He gets no greater satisfaction than watching people turn against each other because he knows that when we stop loving each other we stop loving God. That's his goal; that's what he has set out to do, and he knows he only has so much time to do it in. But greater is He who is living within us than he who is living in the world, and how blessed are we that He gives us the opportunity to make a difference for the better. He has given us the ability to love.

The truth is, you will impact more lives on this earth than you even realize. You can choose to be the darkness, or you can choose to be the light. You can choose the mindset of the world and value no one, or you can choose the mindset of love and value each life the way that our Creator does. How you choose to treat people will be your legacy. How you choose to speak to people will determine how you are remembered by others. Whether or not you choose to love will determine the true contents of your soul, even if that means having to love someone who may hate you back.

Life really isn't meant to revolve around any particular group of people. It doesn't matter if you're red, yellow, black, or white. It isn't about where you're from or how much money you have. At the end of the day, life is about the presence of God's love in our lives and how we choose to give that to others. Darkness can't prevail if light is there to cast it out.

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that." -Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.