simple solutions hard to implement

Most of us would agree that the world is not ticking along nicely thank-you very much. There are many issues around the world that are portray the exact opposite; Iraq, Gaza, Global Economy and local economies, Zimbabwe, Aids, homelessness, poverty, abuse of all kinds. The list goes on, what is frightening is that I came up with that list straight off the top of my head.

Don't get me wrong I'm not here to depress us all, there are plenty of good things happening out there too. But, I do find myself asking the question 'What is the root cause of the trouble we see? then I move on from this question to the second question 'What is the ultimate solution?'

Well, I don't claim to be an authority on these matters and I'm really interested in penning up discussion on this, as you will see working together has to form part of the solution.

The Cause

It seems to me that the answer to this question is simple. The cause is a break-down of relationship, before that is selfish desire. Please realise I'm not pointing fingers and I'm as guilty as the next. I remember hearing someone talking on the 10 commandments once and he said there was only one he struggled with - jealousy. This jealousy in most of us doesn't move to conflict but in many cases it does. It does however lead to the bad lending practices we have seen in recent years.

So we take a step back and look at the cause of jealousy. Is it simply someone being better than us, or having more than us? I don't think so. I think that ultimately jealousy is caused by a lack of love for our neighbour.

In review we see that relationship breakdown is caused by jealousy and jealousy in turn is caused by a lack of love. You see if you truly love someone jealousy is not an available emotion.

The Solution

There is a solution, and like the inauguration speech is not one pf party politics, it is not my side against yours, it is not my idea versus yours. Those debates add to the problem they don't resolve it.

What is the solution? As hinted at in the cause the solution is to love your neighbour. This sounds simple but the simplest solutions are the hardest to implement. Have you tired to love your neighbour? I love my wife and my kids, my parents and siblings, I even love my in-laws and my friends. But my neighbour? The trouble with love is that it requires a basis of relationship first.

This is starting to sound cyclical, I need to love my neighbour to re-build relationship, yet I need a basis of relationship with my neighbour in order to love them.

This simple sound bite solution is very difficult to implement. All is not lost yet, I'm not ready to give up on this idea yet. Have you seen the film Pay It Forward? A young boy decides that if whenever we received an act of kindness we should pay it forward not back. So I'm kind to you, you're kind to someone else, someone I may not know and so it goes. A great idea, simple once again, but sometimes being kind in the first place is tough. In the film people are kind to strangers because they have received kindness first. But that's the movies how do you do that in the real world, in a world full of suspicion and skepticism?

I realise this post is getting long so I'll cut to the chase. I believe, and lets discuss this, that the Bible has it right. Jesus says the first commandment is the most important - love God (to paraphrase). You see God loved us first, if we love him back we start to see people the way He sees them - with love.

So there's my take on the world how we could move forwards to a better world. But this is not about my ideas, this is about discussion. I want to hear what you think, I want to talk about this, you never know we may come to an idea that can truly change the world.