Then God blessed them and said, "Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and govern it. Reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the animals that scurry along the ground." (Genesis 1:28 NLT)
Chaos is the new normal in America and around the world. Mass media has a tendency to focus on the random acts of violence, the class wars, the race wars, terrorism and the sadness arising out of humanity's general state of discontent. The need to have some sense of control is understandable but many of us have fallen into the trap of becoming too power hungry. There is a growing desire to control and subdue certain groups of people seen as problematic and dangerous to our well-being.
All the bad news drowns out the Good News. God has blessed us with the power to overcome any adverse situation and rule over everything on the earth. Americans are empowered to have dominion over poverty, hunger, hate, injustice, war, and even catastrophic natural disasters, to name a few things. But we were never meant to lord over fellow human beings.
Let me clarify my point by holding up a mirror to myself. I firmly believe in the command to do unto others as you would have them do unto you. So, I am a strong advocate of always thinking about how one's action or inaction will affect the person, be it a loved one or stranger, up the street or across the nation. This self-righteous state of mind allows me to judge others as being problematic i.e. heartless.
My hunger for power births my vision of forcing my views upon every American by having only people with similar leanings in government positions. Wrong! The answer lies in creating a desire within each of us to dominate his or her own natural human tendency to be self-centered and/or selfish. This type of self-domination/self-control will fill this nation and earth with the needed acts of kindness. There is no place for trying to rule anyone with an iron rod.
It is a grand dream to think that every human, let alone every American, could change her focus and redefine what is meant by world domination. Yet, I must hope for a time when humans use their God-given dominion to attack bastions of bigotry so that no one is enticed into joining any type of terrorist group. We could be fruitful and multiply acts of love by freely combining our resources to defeat the social and environmental forces that lead to famine, hunger, and chronic poverty instead of benefiting financially from these misfortunes.
May we all focus on condemning the natural human drive to dominate others; just imagine our children's children being given a world with less wars.
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