We should not forget that, if we must stop wars, we should get rid of the causes of war. One weakness that is common to all mankind is self justification. We are always right in our own eyes whatever we say or do. A bad man is worse when he pretends to be a saint. No matter how many times you are right, you may once be wrong. Blaming your fault on nature does not change the nature of your fault. He who cannot say, “I am sorry” cannot hear “I forgive you”. Sorry cannot repair a spoiled shoe but it can heal the mind. Be humble enough to own up your faults. Men defend nothing more violently than the pretensions they live by.
An unrepentant and arrogant wrongdoer will blame everybody but himself. If you make a mistake and make an excuse for the mistake, you are making two mistakes. Admitting one’s fault is not easy but a humble righteous man does it with ease. Friction in human relations is often the result of confusion, frustration, fear and doubt within the individual who, often times mirrors these negative states of mind in other people, thus making harmony impossible. This promotes fratricide not fraternity. It gives rise to sororicide and it’s accompanying sorrow. Show me a man who hates and I will show you a man who believes that he is hated.
The dictionary defines attitude as “a manner of acting, feeling or thinking that shows one’s disposition”. That means that how we think determines how we respond to others. Your view of another is a direct reflection of your own “mind set”. Our attitude towards the world around us depends on what we are ourselves. If we are selfish, we will be suspicious of others. If we are honest with ourselves, we won’t always be anticipating deceit in others. If we are inclined to fairness, we won’t feel that we are being cheated. It is the adulterous that always suspect adultery. In a sense, looking at the people around you, you will see a reflection of the man inside you. Unless a person is at peace with himself, he cannot be at peace with others, just as we cannot give to others what we don’t have. Though you travel the world over to find peace or love, you must carry it or you find it not. How to inspire peace or love in another is by first cultivating it in you. Those who bring happiness into the lives of others cannot keep it from themselves. Failure outside is from within. I find time to criticize others when I am failing and angry with myself. You can always tell a failure by the way he criticizes success. Envy gathers the stones that jealousy throws at success. Envy and jealousy if left unchecked will ripen into open hatred. When desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, sin when it is full grown, brings forth death. Wars, just like accidents, don’t just happen; they are caused. Do not be the culprit. Don’t be sorry, be careful. Repentance is good but innocence is better. Wise people solve problems but the wiser prevent them. War against crimes should start with poverty alleviation. Hunger engenders criminality. A hungry man sees many devils in the society, and he speaks fire Carelessness occurs when you care less about others. For where envy and self seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there. Man is the problem that humanity has. Man is the reason why man is unhappy. Satan is cynosure for evil, man is the actor.
A whole lot of the quarrels we have are born out of misunderstanding, with its resultant negative reactions, especially evil speaking. Sharp words make more wounds than doctors can heal. Politeness is like an air cushion, there may be nothing in it but it eases our jolts wonderfully. He who says or does what he likes often ends up hearing what he doesn’t like. Being lawful is not being convenient. An injury is much sooner forgotten than an insult. Angry words take just one moment and bring forth a flood of tears. But the wound they create lingers on for months and years. What goes out of the mouth is more harmful than what goes into it. The tongue has no bone but it has broken many hearts. But true as this may be, at times what the proud and arrogant call harmful words are words of correction given to them that affect their ego. They delight in hearing only things that will tickle their vanity. It is the old way of man; to quench the protesting or the challenging voice. He who cannot stand criticism cannot contain praise. When we are criticized, the thing that should concern us is whether the criticism is true or false, not whether the person doing the criticizing is a friend or an enemy. Our enemies often tell us more truths about ourselves than our friends do. A statement may be bad but useful. I better be saved by criticism than be destroyed by praise. I better be pruned to grow than left to be destroyed. A real enemy is that friend who does not correct you when you are wrong. If you are proved right you gain little but if you are proved wrong you gain much for you will learn the truth. The proud likes to hear only what he thinks of himself. The truth may not always be what you want to hear. To avoid being criticized, say nothing, do nothing and be nothing. But do not forget that no matter how good a person you are, you must always be bad in someone’s story.
Also know that flowers of self respect cannot grow in the soil of sinful habits. Whoever wants respect must be respectable. A tantrum makes a toff a harridan, so be constructive in your criticism. Do not be the type who feel fulfilled when they vocally skin their victims. Criticism is dangerous because it wounds a person’s precious pride and hurts his sense of importance; and by criticizing, we do not make lasting changes and often incur resentment. As much as we thirst for approval, we dread condemnation. The resentment that criticism engenders can demoralized people and still not correct the situation that has been condemned.
Another effective way of avoiding quarrel is to avoid arguments. The more arguments you win the more enemies you will make. But the truth is that argument is one thing you will never win by being involved in it. The best way to win an argument is to avoid it. Discuss, rather than argue, because an argument tries to prove who is right, while a discussion tries to prove what is right. Avoid wrestling with a pig because you will get dirty doing it but the pig enjoys the dirt. If you bandy words with a bantam you may need a bandage. Do not answer a fool according to his folly, lest you also be like him. But let not meekness be taken for weakness, and fear taken for faith. But there is time to answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes. Never assume the person of peace is unskilled at work.
Tale-bearing is another thing to beware of. Where there are no talebearers, troubles cease. A lot of troubles in the world would vanish if we talked to each other not talking about each other. If you enjoy a gossip against your brother, it may be you don’t hate your brother but surely you don’t love him. And if you hate your brother on account of hearsay, you are not wise. We do well to believe less than we are told. Wise people do not believe everyone who chatters to them since they know that human nature is weak and is chained to evil and very easily betrayed into slips of the tongue. The older I get the less attention I pay to what people say, I just watch what they do. See with your eyes, hear with your ears but let your mind do the sifting. Delay your judgment because what you have seen or heard may not be the whole truth. There is always a story behind a story, and only HE who reads the human heart as an open book can tell it to you if you allow HIM. Never choose me without understanding and never lose me because of misunderstanding. I may be wrong sometime somewhere but not every time everywhere. Learn to investigate, scrutinize and analyze all matters. There is a reason for every action. Do not condemn an action until you have known the reason behind it. Do not allow evil reports to make you to hate someone you should love. You and the report may be wrong. Don’t fall a prey to merchants of hatred. They specialize in looking for what is wrong in someone rather than what is right. So frail, so ignorant and so liable to misconception is human nature, that each should be careful in the estimate we place upon one another. Things and people constantly change. Judging the present from the memory of the past is wrong. Constant evaluation is not good, because circumstances alter cases. Do not conceive an undue prejudice against your neighbor. Don’t be fast to believe what you hear, because lies spread fast. He told you what I did to him; did he tell you what he did to me? The law of natural justice demands fair hearing. One should not be condemned without hearing from him.
Refuse to be downcast by hard words spoken by people against you especially when you are overcome by a temptation. The angels in heaven failed. Adam also failed in the beautiful garden. You are human. Since the days of Adam, no human being who had come into this world had escaped the onslaughts and temptations of the confederacy of evil powers. Sometimes we defeat, sometimes we are defeated. Make yourself a precious stone. No word as hard as it may be can hurt a stone. Listen to the word of Your Creator and careless about the words of men. “The Supreme Court of the Universe”, by grace had declared you not guilty. You are discharged and acquitted. “He who is without sin, let him throw the first stone at her”, “Neither do I condemn you, go and sin no more”. Our Advocate silences our accusers. Our heavenly Father has accepted the great Sacrifice of Calvary, how can He now be pleased to destroy us. Why the Substitute if the sinner must still perish?
Carefully choose your reactions. Events are not as important as your reactions to them. What produces outcome is your reaction. It takes two to make a fight. If he beats you and you refuse to beat back, there would be no fighting. There would be a fight only if you beat him back. What caused the fight is not his beating but your reaction. Avoid negative reaction. Statements like: “Please forgive me”, and “I am sorry, I was wrong”. Can bind the devil and make him unable to carry out his evil work. You can even run away from Herod with “the child” to Egypt if need be. When you are weaker, there is nothing to be gained by fighting a useless fight. He who feigned dead when he saw a lion in the bush, went home alive. Turning your left cheek also to him who had slapped you on the right cheek, is a good tool in this “binding the devil” business; but retaliation, and statements like; “who are you?”, “you cannot do anything”, and other forms of incendiary speech loose the devil and escalate his evil fire. If the devil makes us to retaliate, he had succeeded in making us use his spirit because retaliation is of the devil. And we would have multiplied the very evil we resent and are trying to destroy, and may establish a vendetta. Those who surrender (turn the other cheek) are wise winners. They deprive the enemy of a reason to get angry. What gets people into trouble in the realm of power is over reaction to the actions of our enemies or rivals. It creates problems we would have avoided had we been more reasonable. It has endless rebound effects, for the enemy may over react as well. Meeting aggression with other kind of aggression is counter productive. He who slapped you was ready for your reaction; by yielding, you disarm him and become the winner. Let it not be only when a mosquito lands on your testicles that you will realize that not all problems can be solved by using violence. If we continue to live by the law which said, “A tooth for a tooth and an eye for an eye”, we would soon create a toothless and blind generation. And may establish a vendetta. Let good overcome evil. Put your sword into the sheath and unclench your hands. Shall the sword devour forever? Do you not know that it will result to bitterness at the end? When will you tell yourself to stop pursuing your brother for harm?. Never go to war or make a quarrel as long as it can be avoided. Why do we only rest in peace; why don’t we live in peace? REPENTANCE AND FORGIVENESS binds the devil faster and better. There are many ways we can solve problems without violence. Let us embrace peaceful solution character and teach same to our people. The Omnipotent hates violence. Don’t try to defeat your brother, try to win him. Forgiveness does not mean losing the battle. One ancient wisdom for modern life says: “forgive your offender and you come out the winner”. Instead of spending your money and time to win a case, spend it to make peace and win your brother. In conflict resolution, we should seek peace from forgiveness and love more than from justice. Forgiveness and love establishes lasting peace, while justice appeases some people and offends others. Seek love and get peace. Love is more powerful than law. Getting reconciliation is better than getting justice. Law is here only to protect it’s master, love. While encouraging good behaviours, it discourages bad ones.
On daily basis news media bombard us with reminders that the human society is sinking in quagmire of perplexing problems. Man has been able to tame horses and dogs but could not tame himself. He can furnish a home with all kinds of modern conveniences, but he cannot stem the tide of broken families. He has taught us much in science and technology, but he has failed to teach people how to live together peacefully. We love money and dogs but hate ourselves. We control armies but cannot control our temper and lust. Our wickedness is increasing with our knowledge in science and technology. Even theology has not been able to help us. Men cannot manufacture peace.
The Prince of peace said: “Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword…” This creation of strife is not the effect of the Gospel but the result of opposition to it. Those who take offence instead of correction when they are rebuked, make change difficult. A righteous man admits that he is wrong so he can be declared right. He goes down that he may go up. All because he sees the invisible and hears the inaudible. Your reaction explains your maturity and understanding. Good sense makes a man to restrain his anger, and it is his glory to over look an offense. If you are not careful, your reaction towards someone you think is wrong may also be wrong. The scripture said: “if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently… but be careful lest his sinning makes you to misbehave.” We are called to restore not to condemn and destroy. When Adam was cut off from divine fellowship, he immediately lost love for Eve (his wife). He implicated and blamed her for their sin instead of defending her. Lack of fellowship with He who is LOVE is the real cause of troubles in our society “I was wrong, I am sorry, forgive me” is not a sign of weakness as some may think. Instead, it is strength. If you confess your fault and your brother forgives you, two of you have bound the devil – what a strength!
BIND THAT DEVIL TODAY AND LET WAR CEASE
-BKC YAHKA
Causes Of War
