“Who can I trust? You have to invest in somebody, and chances are you’re probably going to invest in somebody who’s going to deceive you. I’ve been conned a couple of times, but now I’m a little savvier.” ~ Maggie Gyllenhaal
Have you ever heard of the term jamming? In rural America, this would mean making jam and preserving it for enjoyment later. My Aunt Betty and her daughters make some excellent jams. In culture, jamming means something else entirely, and it affects every one of us. Cultural jamming is the art of forcing society into a box by disrupting the freedom of choice. These parties use the “us vs. them” ideology to spotlight their victims and move them into specific categories, e.g. if you don’t support Black Lives Matter, you are a racist. If you don’t belong to the NRA, you are anti-gun and anti-American. If you don’t support gay marriage, then this means you hate gay people and are anti-gay. If you are not for “The Wall,” then you are anti-American. Both liberals and conservatives use these tactics to manipulate people into their corners and further the divide in our culture.
This sort of behavior is childish, and we are all guilty of behaving this way. Think about your childhood days, where friends pinned friends against each other using these same manipulative tricks. “Oh, if you like so and so, it must mean you don’t like us anymore.” “If you are going to hang around them, then that means you can’t be in our secret club.” This childish mentality is what we witness unfolding in the public square, and let’s be honest, we all do it. If we want the world to heal and the division in our culture to lessen, we all need to grow up.
There are countless movements worldwide promoting their agendas and suggesting their formula is the right one for bringing unity and peace to the world. Friends, God gave us a design for living that delivers righteousness, justice, and peace for the world if we would all submit and quit living our lives on self-propulsion. Unfortunately, the religious elite and political radicals have tainted God’s Word and used it for personal gain. The individualism fueled by pride and fear throughout the world is both toxic and pathetic, we must change, or we will all perish. It’s time we all get honest; we are stuck in this vicious cycle in some capacity or another.
God has spoken about all the things that divide us in the world, money, power, glory, prestige, sex, marriage, life, race, etc.; in return, what do we do? We manipulate God’s Word, take it out of context, shape it to fit our agendas or disregard it altogether.
How Do We Get Unjammed?
- Take off our blinders and discover just how jammed up we indeed are.
- Own the fact that we are guilty of jamming people our entire lives.
- Quit buying into the lie of us vs. them.
- Stop manipulating God’s Word to satisfy our worldly desires.
- Choose God’s option over our selfish ways.
- Love God, Love Others as Ourselves, and Help Change the World.
God of righteousness, justice, and peace, thank You for Your Word. Your Word speaks the truth, and yet it falls on deaf ears. Your Word points us to unity through practicing the spiritual principles of righteousness, justice, and peace for all people. Your Word says to love everyone, including our enemies, but instead, we put our enemies into categories and make it us against them. Please remove the blinders and earplugs from myself and the world. Help us put our will in line with Yours, so unity and peace can become a reality for all. In Your Spirit and Name, I pray these things. May Your not mine always materialize, now and forever. Amen.
Marty Bondurant says
Well put. Thank you for sharing this devotion.
Harold Long says
Thank you, Marty, safe travels. Get back home, we miss you two.