Life... is the hardest game... anyone will have to play. You can't cheat. You can't go back three spaces. There are no cards that free you from despair or tell you what you have to do or what's going to happen. And you certainly can't get out of it. Well you could... but what fun would that be? People commit suicide because they need to get out of a situation that they can't bear to deal with. But what does that help? They think they are freeing themselves from pain and suffering, when in actuality they are just permanently missing out on a chance to see it all get better for them. And it's just amazing to me that they think no one will care. But really... even if none of their family or friends actually care... when someone reads the obituary or hears about their suicide on the news, they feel hurt for them and sorry for them. Can you believe it? A total stranger. Caring for you. Feeling bad and hurt for you. To me, just that one thing, just knowing that someone out there actually cried or felt hurt for me... is enough to make me keep living. It makes me think... that even though no one cares about me right now... there's a chance that I may find someone who does. Isn't that enough of a reason to make you keep living? Knowing there's a chance that it will all get better?
Being human, everyone will find a reason to keep living and to die. Some choose to die for their country. Why? Why choose to fight for a country that has so many cons that the pros are deemed laughable? This is aimed not just at America... but at every country. No country is better than the other. No soldier is a hero. A hero is someone who saves lives. Not takes them. Take this for example. An American soldier is going to war. It is his first time on the front line. His name is Jack. Jack has a family back home in Minnesota. A wife and two beautiful daughters. He is known and loved by everyone in the small town from which he is from. He is flown to Iraq for battle. Sometime after they arrive, he is armed with a gun and has been given an order to go into a building where a trained Iraqian assassin is hiding. Also armed with a gun. Let's call him Alan. Alan is from a small village just west of Karbala in Baghdad. He has a wife, two sons, and a daughter. They are very poor. Jack goes into the building and there... he and Alan are face to face. They both point their guns at each other. This is the moment of their lives. Neither one of them have ever killed another human being before. Both are scared. Both have to shoot because both are considered enemies to the other country. If Jack shoots Alan, he will be taking a life... and ruining other lives. He will kill Alan... someone who is the same age as him, and who is also from a small town. He will also ruin Alan's family. Making Alan's wife a widow and leaving his three children fatherless. Right now in your mind... you're thinking to yourself, "That's terrible! He shouldn't do that! That would be wrong! The poor kids! The poor wife! Poor Alan!" Now if Alan kills Jack, he will leave Jack's wife also a widow and leave his two daughters fatherless. Isn't this natural for a human? No human should ever want to kill another human. No matter what color their skin is. No matter what language they speak. No matter what country they are from. No matter how much money they have. No matter how big or how small their town is. We are all the same. When I was little, I never understood prejudice or racism. I used to say, "Why do they hate each other just because of their different skin colors? They both have hands, feet, two eyes, and one heart. They are made the same inside and out." How true a child's words are. Why is it that two babies from different backgrounds can play together without even a flicker of hate or jealousy, but when those two babies grow up, they begin to hate each other?
Now back to Jack and Alan. These men are like those two babies. If they were together at age two, they would have played together without having any conflicts. Now they are grown men and look at them. They are pointing a gun at each other. Just a pull of a trigger and entire futures can be changed. Lives taken and ruined. Let's say Jack pulls the trigger and kills Alan. Will he go back home a hero... or a killer? In the eyes of the American government... a hero. In the eyes of Alan's wife and kids... a killer. And who's to say that those kids won't grow up and come back for revenge? Become terrorists? Because of that one man... Jack... who killed their poor, scared, innocent father.
If no one fought each other... there would be no wars. And if there are no wars... countless lives are saved. If people could learn to talk things out, and be rational, and put other people's lives and futures before their own, before making or doing something stupid like starting a war over something minor... this world would be... so much better.
Everything started because of man's stupid decisions. Let's stop making stupid decisions. Let's not let outer appearances and cultural differences tear us apart and make us enemies. Let's not allow material things, money, and greed get the best of us. Let's not allow ourselves to become absorbed by the materialistic, competitiveness, and spiritually poor ways of this imperfect world. Because no President, no King, no Queen, no ruler of any kind can make anything better while being just as bound in sin and imperfection as you are. What makes them better or more qualified to rule over everyone? Is it the family they come from? Their wealth? Their knowledge? Their degree from the top Universities in the world? "No matter how many schools you attend... you will never be smart enough to fix mankind's problems forever. You are in the same sinking ship as everyone else. You just have a nicer room to die in than the rest of us."
"Really, what good will it do a man if he gains the whole world but loses his own self or suffers ruin?" -Luke 9:25.
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